The benefits and biases of seeing the world's cities through marathons

TL;DR

This study analyzes 311 marathon routes across five continents to assess how well they represent city landmarks and amenities, revealing significant biases and patterns in urban portraiture.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of marathon routes with city-wide landmarks, highlighting biases and the selective nature of marathons as urban portraits.

Findings

Museums are 15.7 times denser near marathon routes.

Luxury brands are about 8.5 times more prevalent near routes.

Patterns persist even with route perturbations, emphasizing selectivity.

Abstract

Marathons are now common ways of seeing cities, yet little is known about how representative their routes are. Using 311 marathon routes across five continents, we compare landmarks and amenities along the course with those elsewhere in the same city, finding that museums are 15.7 times denser near the route and that the median city has about 8.5 times more luxury brands near the route than elsewhere in the city. These patterns persist under perturbed routes with the same start and finish lines: monuments and landmarks, in particular, are more prevalent on the race course than on similar alternative routes, suggesting that marathons function as intentionally selective urban portraits.