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Walkability As an Urban Design Problem

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Walkability As an Urban Design Problem WALKABILITY AS AN URBAN DESIGN PROBLEM Understanding the activity of walking in the urban environment Eunyoung Choi Author : Eunyoung Choi Title : Walkability as an Urban Design Problem :Understanding the activity of walking in the urban environment Licentiate Thesis 2012 TRITA-ARK-Forskningspublikationer 2012:5 ISSN 1402-7453 ISRN KTH/ARK/FP—12:05—SE ISBN 978-91-7501-480-7 KTH Royal Institute of Technology Architecture and the Built Environment School of Architecture SE-100 44 Stockholm Sweden www.kth.se Abstract The planning and design of the walkable environment is receiving more and more attention for its various benefits related to public health, sustainability, economy, or social life. Therefore, there is a growing need for knowledge about the walkability of the built environment. While urban planning, design, and transportation research have also examined walking in urban environments, a recently growing field of research usually referred to as walkability research have been actively investigating the relation between the built environment and walking behavior through correlation analysis. Although one must acknowledge the value of current walkability research to be used as the framework which can make significant contributions to urban design research and practice, it also has a few shortcomings in terms of applicability. There is also a problem that the design factors that are often discussed as promoting walking or creating ‘pedestrian-friendly environments’ in urban design theories and discourses are often based on little evidence and that these factors have been shown to be insignificant in the quantitative analyses on the amount of walking. This project aims to support urban design knowledge and practice and to contribute to the broader field of “walkability” by refining the methods and measures used to analyze the relation between walking behavior and physical environment. Its goal is to integrate knowledge from the medical field of walkability with urban design research and provide new empirical knowledge about the concrete level in which urban design and architectural practice operates. What has been done during the earlier part of this PhD research project and is presented in this licentiate thesis is producing knowledge for a better understanding of the complexity behind the relationship between the built environment and walking. Through literature review from different fields and also through an empirical study, this project tried to investigate the concept of walkability by trying to understand the different ways/aspects in which the built environment influences walking, e.g. directly influencing the quantity of walking through providing destinations, or enhancing the experiential quality of walking by determining the condition as a walking environment. It also investigated the different aspects of walking by partitioning walking activities in understanding how they are influenced by different properties of the built environment. By partitioning both the influence of the built environment on walking and walking activity, the knowledge that this thesis tries to produce is not only on whether or not, but more on how and why the built environment influences walking behavior. Three residential areas from Stockholm were selected for the empirical study. The results of the empirical study show how the various factors and condition of the built environment influence walking with different effects and leverage and the importance of investigating the factors on different levels and from different aspects. Also, it seems that the different types of walking are related to how they are influenced by the built environment, and the different conditions of the environment also seem to influence the presence and characters of the walking activities of their inhabitants. The findings from this project provide insights into how we can better understand the interaction between the built environment and walking behavior in influencing each other. Acknowledgements I would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Riksbyggens Jubileumsfond. The full financial support for the work leading up to this Licentiate thesis from Riksbyggen made it possible to start and conduct this PhD project. I am most grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Daniel Koch, who has provided extensive advice and input for the project as well as guidance in conducting PhD research in general. His work, support, and advice have truly made possible the publication of this dissertation. I would like to also thank Dr. Lars Marcus, also my supervisor, who has first introduced me the topic of walkability, assisted the start of my PhD research, and supported me in various ways during these years. I feel most grateful to have met such insightful and supportive supervisors. I wish to express my gratitude to all of my colleagues, the staff and faculty at KTH, SU and other institutions for their support, and in particular to my research group, Spatial Analysis and Design including Jesper Steen, Alexander Ståhle, Ann Legeby, Eva Minoura, Sara Sardari Sayyar(especially for the content in this thesis from the co-authored paper), and Pablo Miranda. I am also grateful to my friends and family who have supported me in their love and prayers, especially to my grandparents and Ms. Yeo Myunggeun. My special thanks go to my mother, my father, and my sister Hwayoung. I can never express how much I am grateful for their love and support in every way and in every moment, which have kept me all the way here. And above all, my greatest thanks and love to God. Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 2 Walking and the Built Environment ..................................................................... 9 2.1 Walkability Research ................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Studies and Writings on Walking and the Urban Environment ........................ 21 2.3 Reflections on the Walking-Environment Relationship ...................................... 39 2.4 Research Questions, Aim, and Method of this Project ........................................ 47 3 The Empirical Study ............................................................................................. 61 3.1 The Observation Study - Description of the method and data ......................... 63 3.2 Results of the Observation Study ......................................................................... 69 - Summary and Examples from the Data 3.3 Analysis of the Observation Results I .................................................................. 91 - Comparison with the Spatial Analysis of the Areas 3.4 Analysis of the Observation Results II ............................................................... 103 - The Major Factors Identified in Correlation Studies on Walkability 3.5 Analysis of the Observation Results III .............................................................. 111 - Other Design Factors Discussed in Urban Design Literature 3.6 Different Walking Activities and their Route Choices .................................... 127 4 Discussion ............................................................................................................ 139 5 Conclusion............................................................................................................ 155 References............................................................................................................. 163 List of figures ....................................................................................................... 170 1 Introduction The issue of pedestrian-friendly urban environments has been of increasing importance lately in urban planning and design, be it for reasons of social life, experiential quality, sustainability, economy, or health. For instance, in terms of the health benefits of walking which are supported by scientific evidence, changes in the built environment may help people reach their physical activity goals in addition to individually oriented behavior-change interventions, by promoting sustainable and healthy life style choices. Therefore, there is a growing need for knowledge about the walkability of the built environment. While urban planning, design, and transportation research have also examined walking in urban environments (Gehl, 1980; Hillier, 1996; Kockelman, 1997), what is usually referred to as “walkability” research is a multidisciplinary form of research which has been initiated from the preventive medicine field with the health beneficial aspect of walking as the most significant motivation (Saelens et al., 2003a). Walkability studies have provided evidence through statistical analysis that walking behavior is related to the condition of the built environment, as well as regarding the health benefits it may bring. Walkability research aims at identifying walkability factors of the environment, most often through correlation analyses between different attributes of the built environment and the amount of time spent on walking by individuals. 1 However, although the value of current walkability research to be used as a framework which can make significant contributions to urban design research and practice must be acknowledged, it also has a few shortcomings in terms of applicability. This has to do with, first, a set of measures that in the design process are too vague to give support, or could support
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