Neighborhood Design and Travel
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Neighborhood Design and Travel A Study of Residential Quality, Child Leisure Activity and Trips to School Pia Westford Doctoral Thesis in Infrastructure Stockholm, Sweden 2010 Abstract Sustainable urban mobility calls for well-informed design of neighborhoods. Although many studies have been conducted in the field, there is little evidence about the relationships between design elements, urban quality and behavior. Little is also known about residents’ valuation of design and urban quality in this context. This study uses a multidisciplinary approach to deal with these issues. The focus is on children’s leisure activities, their travel mode and independence of adult escort in trips to school. Logistic regression models were used to analyze connections between neighborhood design, parents’ satisfaction with urban qualities and children’s behavior. The study included socioeconomic factors, parents’ stated importance of qualities and travel mode to work. It was conducted in a suburban district in the Stockholm region, in three different modernist neighborhoods and one traditional villa area. The results support the hypothesis that environmental and social qualities, and proximity to school, can influence children’s trips to school, and the location and frequency of children’s leisure activities. The results confirm and extend earlier research. Two separate lifestyles were identified across neighborhoods with differ- ences in housing type and socioeconomic characteristics. They related to parents’ preferences for and priorities of public versus private urban qualities, and location of children’s leisure activity and travel mode to school. The results suggest that schools should be located in neighborhoods, close to both homes and transit, that neighborhoods are car-free or traffic separated and that the outdoor environment is stimulating and cycling-friendly. They further suggest that a higher quality of children’s environment would be achieved if parents’ preferences had greater impact on urban developments, whereas current professional design ideals of mixed traffic and high density can be unsupportive of these qualities and can increase car escorts. Altogether, the results point to that design at the neighborhood scale has significance in relation to mobility require- ments; and that new priorities are needed in planning and design as part of a comprehensive urban and transportation policy. Keywords: urban design, neighborhood, car use, child leisure activity, school trips, lifestyle, perceived environment, importance and satisfaction analysis. i ii Foreword During the 1990s, there was significant disagreement about the importance of the built environment for the development of "sustainable mobility" among various professions, government agencies and researchers. As I participated in various projects in this field for Boverket (the National Board for Housing, Building and Planning), several new questions were raised. At FMS (The Environmental Strategies Research Group), I had the opportunity to study the role of the built environment in the essay "Urban Densification as Environmental Strategy" (in Swedish, Westford 1999). The present study starts with some of the issues addressed there. The study was made possible through grants from the National Road Admini- stration. It was performed at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in the Department of Urban Planning and Environment (earlier Department of Infra- structure). The thesis is the result of two research projects at two separate divisions. Several persons contributed or provided assistance to this work. I would like to thank Folke Snickars, supervisor for the first project, for his valuable guidance in the initial phase of the research, and for his encouragement. And I would like to thank Dick Urban Vestbro, supervisor for the second project, specifically for his precise and encouraging comments to chapters in a thesis draft; and Inga-Britt Werner, assistant supervisor, for her comments to chapters, which improved the readability. I would also like to thank Marketta Kyttä, Helsinki University of Technology, for her critical comments to the early results of the statistical analyses, which influenced the continuing work; Stephen Fournier, for his instruction in statistical techniques, guidance on the use of SPSS for statistical analyses, and for his advice on presentation of results in tabular format; and Mady Gray, for translating parts of the text and improving the English in other parts. An important pre-requisite for the completion of the research was the contri- butions of the respondents to the questionnaires. Without their help this study would not have been possible. Several residents of the investigated area have taken the time to share their view on the neighborhood with me, either over the phone or in casual meetings. Employees at the municipality of Täby answered questions and provided addresses for the pilot work. Statistics Sweden (SCB) selected the residents, printed and distributed the questionnaire, and registered the responses. My kitchen, situated in a beautiful park, at walking distance from a busy urban district, has provided a suitable environment for writing the thesis. However, over the years I have appreciated the company of colleagues, who have also contributed through comments in seminars and with technical and practical support. Thank you! iii I would like to acknowledge my family and friends for their patience during my long periods of ‘absence’, and for having taken the initiatives to fun stuff when I couldn’t. Special thanks to my mom, Birgit, who first introduced me to the impor- tance of the built environment. I am grateful to Per-Ove for his understanding of the process I’ve been into, and for his comments to parts of the text, which impro- ved its clarity. Finally, I want to thank my great supporter, my son Martin. He shared the hardships that this work entailed. And he showed me new approaches to things, inspiring me along the way. January 2010, Pia Westford iv Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................i Foreword .............................................................................................................. iii 1. Introduction and Summary ................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background.......................................................................................................................1 1.2 Aim and Method ..............................................................................................................3 1.3 Concepts............................................................................................................................5 1.4 Results and Conclusions .................................................................................................6 2. Shifts in Planning and Design Ideals Regarding Traffic and Environment ....11 2.1 Modernist Ideals and Guidelines ................................................................................ 11 2.2 The Impact of the Ideals.............................................................................................. 15 2.3 New Ideals and Design Guidelines ............................................................................ 16 2.4 Making Way for New Lifestyles through Design..................................................... 19 3. Approaches to Neighborhood Design and Behavior....................................... 21 3.1 Studies Based on Economic Theory .......................................................................... 21 3.2 Studies of The Built Environment ............................................................................. 24 3.3 Social Psychology and Explanations of Behavior .................................................... 33 3.4 Lifestyle and Way of Life as Explanations of Behavior .......................................... 35 3.5 Residential Choice as Lifestyle Choice....................................................................... 40 3.6. A Model of the Impact of Neighborhood Design on Behavior........................... 42 4. Neighborhood Design and Child Behavior ..................................................... 47 4.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 47 4.2 Conceptual Frameworks .............................................................................................. 50 5. Method ............................................................................................................. 53 5.1 Background.................................................................................................................... 53 5.2 Method ........................................................................................................................... 54 5.3 Measures......................................................................................................................... 56 5.4 Four Suburban Neighborhoods in Stockholm......................................................... 58 5.6 Participants and Procedures ........................................................................................ 66 5.7 Reliability and Validity.................................................................................................. 70 6. Neighborhood Quality in a Stockholm Suburb ..............................................