Tag: To Walk or Not to Walk? The Hierarchy of Walking Needs"

Jennie Middleton, “‘Stepping In Time’: Walking, Time, and Space In the City”

I have accumulated a pile of articles on a variety of topics, and I am determined to work through them, somehow. So this morning, before turning to the reading I really should be doing, I’m going to return to Jennie Middleton’s “‘Stepping in Time’” Walking, Time, and Space in the City.” I started this article weeks ago, and then I put it aside. I hate to leave anything unfinished, so I’m coming back to it this morning.

I started reading this article as part of my excursion into debates around walkability. I wasn’t quite finding what I was looking for in this literature, and that might be a sign that it’s not there, that I’m going to have to make up my own theory about walkability and culture. Maybe that’ll work; maybe it won’t. Maybe someone reading this blog will let me know where I can find discussions of cultures of walking and their connection to the walkability of places where people live. For now, I’m stumbling around, reading these articles, hoping to find something that supports my hunch about walking in the city where I live.

That hunch is simply this: walking in this city—except in two places, the park and, to a lesser degree, on the path along the creek, which tends to be used by cyclists rather than pedestrians—is an eccentric activity, and I rarely see other people walking here, because the urban form here discourages walking, since it isn’t, according to what I’ve been reading, particularly walkable. The city where I live lacks population density, street connectivity, and a mixture of land uses (see Stockton et al), all of which promote functional walking. For that reason, it does not satisfy the hierarchy of needs Mariela Alfonzo describes: feasibility, accessibility, safety, comfort, and pleasurability (see Alfonzo). It also lacks what Michael Southworth calls “path context” (Southworth 251), or what I’ve been calling “texture density”: simply put, it tends to be a dull, uninteresting place to walk. Even areas of the big park, Wascana Centre, are dull deserts of lawn, a boring monoculture that can be painful to walk across on a hot summer day—or a day in winter when the temperature is below minus 30. All of these factors are interrelated in complex ways. Because the city lacks walkability, people don’t walk here—they drive instead, partly because driving is cheap and easy (see Forsyth 279)—and, as a result, there’s no culture of walking.

In other words, walking in this place is an eccentric activity; it’s not normal for adults who could drive to ambulate instead. That lack of a walking culture feeds the lack of walkability here. Why should the city invest in sidewalks or signalized crosswalks when nobody would use them or complains about their lack? I’m sure city councillors hear more complaints about potholes than they do about broken or missing sidewalks. More importantly for my purposes, it means that the forms of walking that exist in more walkable places—guided tours, promenades, heritage walks, rural rambles—don’t tend to exist. Many forms of participatory, convivial artistic walking are reactions against those pedestrian modes and models. Are those forms of participatory, convivial artistic walking possible in contexts where the types of walking to which they respond—as parody, as mythographic or psychographic subversion—do not exist? In that case, are the demands that all artistic walking be participatory and convivial perhaps ignoring their own contexts—the walkability of the places where those walking events take place? I mean, what kind of convivial or participatory walking is possible in North American cities, where the distance most people consider walkable is only 1/4 of a mile (Talen 264-66)? How much convivial walking can happen if people can only walk 10 minutes before they feel they’ve gone far enough?

I’ve already blogged about one of Jennie Middleton’s essays, “Walking In the City: The Geographies of Everyday Pedestrian Practices,” but this one, “‘Stepping In Time: Walking, Time, and Space In the City,” with its title resonant of phenomenology, caught my attention. “This paper explores walking and its relationship with and through time and space,” Middleton begins (“Stepping” 1943). Her study “reveals time as a significant dimension of pedestrian experiences” and it argues “that the relationship between walking and time is not one of clock-time passing, as pedestrian policy implies, but is made up of multiple temporalities that emerge out of, and shape, people’s experiences on foot” (“Stepping” 1943). She uses the work of Barbara Adam and Henri Bergson as a theoretical grounding “to suggest that people become aware of their own duration as they move on foot when they are made to wait” (“Stepping” 1943). She discusses space in similar terms; she is interested in “the multiple spatialities that are constituted by and practised through walking” (“Stepping” 1943). For Middleton, urban walking is “an inherently spatiotemporal experience” (“Stepping” 1943). That’s likely true of all forms of walking, too. She also suggests that notions of rhythm provide a way of engaging with the spatiotemporality of walking (“Stepping” 1944).

Middleton wants to get deeper into the experience of walking than the existing policy research on walking, which is “primarily characterised by statistical data, such as travel surveys, pedestrian counts, or local pedestrian audits” (“Stepping” 1944). Theoretical accounts of walking “are characterised by a lack of empirical exploration of the actual practice of walking” (“Stepping” 1944). So Middleton wants a different kind of empirical study. Her research has “three principal aims; first, to explore the relationship between walking and the built environment; second, to explore the many different types, forms, and characters of walking; third, to engage with the social dimensions of pedestrian movement” (“Stepping” 1944). “These research aims were interrogated across a transect through the inner London boroughs of Islington and Hackney,” she continues—I hope she explains what she means by “transect” (“Stepping” 1944). Her study “drew upon a mixed-method approach, including a postal survey, experiential walking photo diaries, and in-depth interviews” (“Stepping” 1944). The diaries asked participants to note when and where and for how long they walked—in other words, “they spatialised their experience of time on foot by producing personalised time-space budgets in the diaries” (“Stepping” 1944). Participants were also encouraged to explain why they were walking (out of necessity or by choice), how they felt about where they were walking, who they were walking with, and how they were walking (“Stepping” 1944). “The task of recording the time-space budgets was something each participant did with ease and consistency, yet a tension emerged between these recorded movements and the accompanying accounts—which made it possible to question whether walking, time, and space are experienced in such linear terms,” Middleton continues (“Stepping” 1944). Photographs of items of interest were taken by the participants using a disposable camera, and they were used as discussion prompts in the follow-up interviews (“Stepping” 1944). “It is by engaging with the discursive organisation of the interview and diary accounts that the multiple temporalities and spatialities of walking are made visible, particularly in terms of how the interviewees and diarists used issues of temporality and spatiality as resources to account for their experiences as urban pedestrians,” Middleton writes (“Stepping” 1944-45).

The policy context of this study is the efforts by UK governments to decrease vehicular traffic by promoting public transport, walking, and cycling (“Stepping” 1945). Often those efforts suggest that walking can save time (“Stepping” 1945). From her research, Middleton has learned that “time is considered a limited resource and a currency not to be wasted” (“Stepping” 1945). “Issues surrounding wayfinding, routes, and shortcuts” emerge in her participants’ diaries, along with “the importance of how people talk about issues associated with time”—for instance, whether one would take a slightly longer but more pleasant route if one were in a hurry because one is late (“Stepping” 1945). The notion of time as a resource emerged throughout the data, but participants might not choose a shorter route if it happened to be less pleasant (“Stepping 1946). The diary accounts “bring into question the temporal assumptions made in transport policy of people’s desire for high-speed travel,” which are “based on the premise that ‘faster is seen to be better’” (Harris et al, qtd. “Stepping” 1946). “Yet is this really the case?” Middleton asks. “Does faster travel ‘achieve more’ than, for example, the ‘slower’ transport mode of walking?” (“Stepping” 1946).

Middleton cites John Urry and Mimi Sheller’s argument that travel time is often considered to be productive, although little attention has been paid to walking as productive time (“Stepping” 1946). “Productive” in this instance refers to the ability to get work done while travelling. Middleton’s participants noted that they are often thinking about their work while walking (“Stepping” 1946). Her participants reported that walking is less stressful than using public transportation, and that walking gives them time to think about the work they have to accomplish (“Stepping” 1947). Middleton suggests the issue of stress draws attention to “the multiple rhythms and rhythmicity of walking” compared to full buses not stopping, for instance, which disrupts the rhythm of getting to work on time (“Stepping” 1947). That disrupted temporal rhythm, and the sense of being late, is a contrast to walking to work (“Stepping” 1947). Of course, if one happens to leave late for some reason, walking can generate similar anxieties about making it to work on time—I know that from experience.

Here Middleton turns to theoretical accounts of time-geography, which tend to see time as linear, and critiques of time-geography as too linear as compared to the way people actually experience time and its rhythms (“Stepping” 1948). “So what are the multiple times and rhythms associated with walking?” she asks. “And are there other ways in which pedestrians experience time than those discussed up to this point—something more than clock time passing?” (“Stepping” 1948). Yes: in the diaries and interviews that were part of her research, “it is possible to discern how the research participants are much more than ‘urban pedestrians’ as the multiple temporalities in their walking patterns make visible their multiple identities as, for example, partners, parents, professionals, and persons in relation to others” (“Stepping” 1949). She continues, “how can further sense be made about the relationship between time and issues associated with identity?” (“Stepping” 1949).

In her participants’ diaries, Middleton sees evidence that “people temporally frame distinctions they make about who they are in relation to others” along with temporally framing other issues as well, such as their own multiple identities (as pedestrians who temper the rhythm and pattern of their walks to work in relation to the situations they have to deal with, but also in terms of their accountabilities to others as a partner, family member, and employee) (“Stepping” 1949-50). She suggests that there are different forms of time, including but not limited to linear time, the time of clocks and calendars, and that there is a disjunction between collective time and the individual felt experience of time (“Stepping” 1950). “‘Clock times,’ ‘collective times,’ and ‘timings’ mutually interact, both shaping and emerging” from the movements of her research participants (“Stepping” 1951). She uses Henri Bergson and Doreen Massey to think about “the continuity, irreversibility, and openness of time” to think about time spent walking compared to time spent waiting (at traffic lights, for instance) (“Stepping” 1951). Time expands and contracts at different moments in a walker’s journey—expanding when the walker is forced to wait (“Stepping” 1951). The walker’s sense of time and of his or her own physicality intersect (“Stepping” 1952). 

Middleton notes that Bergson’s privileging of time over space has been critiqued, particularly by Doreen Massey, who argues that they cannot be understood in isolation, and asks how pedestrian movement can be understood in light of these conceptual concerns (“Stepping” 1953). Walking, time, and space are related, because walking is a spatiotemporal practice (“Stepping” 1953). This relationship seems particularly salient in the mental maps pedestrians make of obstacles and difficult places (“Stepping” 1953). Tim Ingold has argued that wayfinding is a complex spatial practice and a means of inhabiting the world (“Stepping” 1953). A wayfarer has an active engagement with the country that opens up along his or her path, according to Ingold, and for Middleton, the mental maps her participants construct are examples of wayfaring (“Stepping” 1954). The experiences of those participants highlights “the complexity of how paths are constructed, imagined, and lived out,” as well as “how spatial practices, such as walking, are also temporal” (“Stepping” 1954). The spatiotemporal complexity of urban walking also “illustrates the significance of identity in terms of how these relations emerge and are configured” (“Stepping” 1955). 

Here Middleton returns to the notion that the rhythm of walking is conducive to thinking about other things (particularly work) (“Stepping” 1955). She cites Henri Lefebvre’s notion of rhythmanalysis here as a way of thinking about space, time, and place as interrelated (“Stepping” 1955-56). Her research participants discuss how the rhythm of walking seems to enable them to think, and how different speeds of walking make such thinking easier or more difficult (“Stepping” 1956). For Middleton, “rhythm is a way of understanding the multiple temporalities, spatialities, and corporealities of walking together. In other words, where there is rhythm of sorts, there is something to be said about time and space” (“Stepping” 1956). Thinking about walking “in relation to rhythm provides a productive means for exploring the multiple temporalities and spatialities of walking and the ways in which they interrelate,” and “by engaging with notions of rhythm . . . further sense can be made of how issues associated with identity emerge within participants’ accounts and how they relate to spatiotemporal concerns” (“Stepping” 1957-58). 

In her conclusion, Middleton notes that by thinking about the relationship between walking and time and space, “the notion of time has been reconceptualised in relation to how people move on foot from the linear temporal understandings present in current transport and walking policy” (“Stepping” 1958). Her point is “that time is an issue which is relatively neglected in current walking policy documents, or an issue bound up in the concern of transport policy for speed and efficiency,” while in contrast, for pedestrians, “time emerges as an issue of great significance for walking, with temporal concerns being drawn upon as resources in the framing of other issues” (“Stepping” 1958). Walking is more than just a mode of transport, and it should be promoted “as something which resources people’s day-to-day routines, rather than solely being framed as a healthy, sustainable transport choice”—in other words, it is “a resource for organising families, friendships, and households” (“Stepping” 1958). Along with the multiple temporalities of walking, her research “reveals the multiple spatialities that are constituted by and practised through walking. Issues associated with physical mobility difficulties illustrate how walking is an inherently spatial practice, connected to a sense of identity” (“Stepping” 1958). Finally, rhythm is “a productive means for engaging how time, space, and identity interrelate as people walk” (“Stepping” 1959).

I admire Middleton’s success in bringing a dense theoretical context and empirical research and analysis together, but I would need to read Lefebvre or Bergson, and reread Massey, before I could say very much about the results of her research. Walking research goes in surprising directions, and I’m impressed by the range of philosophical and theoretical material Middleton has brought to bear on her research participants’ experiences. Maybe I’ll get to reading Lefebvre and Bergson and Adam for this degree, although I might be better off spending my limited time—it’s a resource not just for walking—on reading more work by Tim Ingold. There are so many directions my research could travel in, and I need to be careful which paths I choose.

Works Cited

Alfonzo, Mariela A. “To Walk or Not to Walk? The Hierarchy of Walking Needs.” Environment and Behavior, vol. 37, no. 6, 2005, pp. 808-836. DOI: 10.1177/0013916504274016.

Forsyth, Ann. “What Is a Walkable Place? The Walkability Debate in Urban Design.” Urban Design International, vol. 20, no. 4, 2015, pp. 274-92. DOI: 10.1057/udi.2015.22.

Middleton, Jennie. “Walking in the City: The Geographies of Everyday Pedestrian Practices.” Geography Compass, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 90-105. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x.

Southworth, Michael. “Designing the Walkable City.” Journal of Urban Planning and Development, vol. 131, no. 4, 2005, pp. 246-57. DOI: 10.0161/(ASCE)0733-9488(2005)131:4(246).

Stockton, Jemima C. Oliver Duke-Williams, Emmanuel Stamatakis, Jennifer S. Mindell, Eric J. Brunner, and Nicola J. Shelton. “Development of a Novel Walkability Index for London, United Kingdom: Cross-sectional Application to the Whitehall II Study. ” BMC Public Health, vol. 16, no. 416, pp. 1-12. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-016-3012-12.

Talen, Emily. “Pedestrian Access as a Measure of Urban Quality.” Planning Practice and Research, vol. 17, no. 3, 2002, pp. 257-78. DOI:10.1080/026974502200005634.

Kevin M. Leyden, “Social Capital and the Built Environment: The Importance of Walkable Neighborhoods”

Another article on walkability: this one, by Kevin M. Leyden, argues that walkable neighbourhoods encourage the development of social capital, meaning that they help people know their neighbours, participate in politics, trust others, and be more socially engaged (1546). The benefits of social capital don’t just accrue to the community: “People who are socially engaged with others and actively involved in their communities tend to live longer and be healthier physically and mentally” (1546). Leyden suggests the term “social capital” as a way of describing those social and community ties: he defines it as “the social networks and interactions that inspire trust and reciprocity among citizens” (1546). “Individuals with high levels of social capital tend to be involved politically, to volunteer in their communities, and to get together more frequently with friends and neighbors,” as well as “to trust or to think kindly of others” (1546). Social capital has been linked empirically to “the proper functioning of a democracy, the prevention of crime, and enhanced economic development” (1546). It’s very important, then, according to Leyden.

Leyden, a political scientist, wants to understand “why some persons and some communities have more social capital than others,” since it’s so important to public health (1546). He wants to examine “whether the built environment (i.e. the way we design and build our communities and neighborhoods) affects the degree to which people are involved in their communities and with each other” (1546). His “fundamental premise is that some neighborhood designs enable or encourage social ties or community connections, whereas others do not” (1546). His hypothesis is that mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods are most likely to promote social capital (1546). Such neighbourhoods are typically found in older cities and rural towns (1546). “These neighborhoods are walkable, enabling residents to perform daily activities (e.g. grocery shopping, going to the park, taking children to school) without the use of a car,” he writes. “Many of these neighorhoods have places of worship, a local tavern, a coffee shop, or restaurants within walking distance” (1546). In other words, they have what Jemima Stockton and her co-authors describe as a higher land-use mix (see Stockton et al). Such neighbourhoods encourage walking, because pedestrians don’t have to complete with cars along busy highways or massive parking lots (1546). Thus, following Stockton and her co-authors again, we might describe them as having high levels of street connectivity or, following Mariela Alfonzo, we might suggest that they satisfy pedestrian needs for comfort and pleasurability (Alfonzo 828-30). 

Leyden compares “[t]his traditional or complete neighborhood design” to “its modern suburban counterpart,” in which daily needs are met by shopping in malls “located along 4-lane connector roads that are typically clogged with traffic” and where trips “to shop, worship, or go to a restaurant, pub, park or library” must be made by car (1546). “Many contemporary suburban subdivisions do not even have sidewalks: citizens must drive to find a place to exercise or to go for a walk,” he writes (1546). 

In theory, “pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use neighborhoods are expected to enhance social capital because they enable residents to interact,” either spontaneously or intentionally, and that interaction helps “to encourage a sense of trust and a sense of connection between people and the places they live” (1546). Those interactions build webs of public respect and trust (1546). However, in contrast, “most contemporary suburban subdivisions do little to enable social interaction,” particularly spontaneous ones, and life takes places “within the home or in the backyard” (1546-47). 

Leyden’s study “examined the relationship between neighborhood design and social capital” (1547). His hypothesis was “that pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use neighborhoods are more likely to encourage social capital than are car-dependent, single-use neighborhoods” (1547). He surveyed people in and around Galway, Ireland, in 2001 (1547). At the time, Galway was the country’s fastest growing cities in Europe (1547). He chose Galway because “it has a mix of neighborhood types ranging from the truly mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented variety (built centuries before the automobile) to the contemporary, American-style suburb,” and because the city has no history of racism of “white flight” that has “affected American cities and that in many ways continues to distort decisions regarding where to live” (1547). The survey was conducted by mail (1547). Galway’s neighbourhoods were divided into three categories: city centre neighbourhoods, including mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented neighbourhoods where people can meet their daily needs by walking short distances; older, mixed-use suburbs, which “incorporate some of the more positive aspects of both the traditional city center neighborhood and the quiet suburb”; and modern, car-dependent suburbs, where few places can be accessed on foot, and where some neighbourhoods don’t have sidewalks or parks (1547). By categorizing Galway’s neighbourhoods, Leyden ensured that the individuals surveyed lived in a range of neighbourhood types (1547). However, the determination of whether these neighbourhoods were walkable or not was made by the respondents (1547). The study measured four key aspects of social capital: “how well residents knew their neighbors, their political participation, their trust or faith in other people, and their social engagement” (1548). 

The results indicated that the research participants’ evaluations of the walkability of their neighbourhoods coincided with the researchers’ evaluations of those same neighbourhoods. In “traditional” neighbourhoods, people walked more (or at least perceived their neighbourhoods to be walkable), felt more connected to or part of their communities, were more likely to know their neighbours and to have trust or faith in other people, were more likely to contact elected officials to express their concerns, and were more likely to walk to work (1548-49). However, those simple mean comparisons do not control for other factors that might explain why residents in some neighbourhoods have more social capital, so Leyden used a multivariate method, which returned similar results: “the more places respondents reported being able to walk to in their neighborhood, the higher their level of social capital. This relation suggests that walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods are better generators of social capital than are modern, car-dependent suburbs” (1549). Thus, the more walkable a neighbourhood was—the more places someone could walk to—the more social capital that the neighbourhood generated (1549).“The neighborhood walkability measure had a statistically significant effect on all of the measures of social capital,” Leyden writes. “No other predictor was consistently significant. Moreover, neighborhood walkability consistently held its own in comparison with the other predictors, often playing a more powerful role” (1549). 

“This study suggests that the way we design and build our communities and neighborhoods affects social capital and thus physical and mental health,” Leydon concludes. “The results indicate that residents living in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods are more likely to know their neighbors, to participate politically, to trust others, and to be involved socially” (1550). Unfortunately, though America’s built environment—and Canada’s—has, over the past decades, “been moving in a direction that is likely to have a negative effect on social capital” (1550). Many Americans have no choice but to live in “a modern, car-dependent suburb, because not enough viable, affordable traditional neighborhoods exist,” and modern, car-dependent suburbs are what most developers build (1550). It’s not just the fault of developers; “municipal zoning codes and other public policy changes” have promoted “transport by private vehicle,” rather than public transportation, and have discouraged, even outlawed, “the building of mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods” (1550). “Changing this trend will require political will and a shift in land-use and transportation priorities and policies,” Leyden writes, along with a shift in public consciousness, perhaps through government policy (1550). However, before that can happen, we need to know whether the results of this study can be generalized. Did selection bias, for instance, affect the results? Is it possible that “[s]ocial people might be more likely to choose walkable neighborhoods, rather th[a]n walkable neighborhoods’ encouraging sociability” (1550)? In addition, “much more must be learned about which architectural aspects of the built environment most affect health and social capital,” and indeed about the components of walkability: “measures such as block size, density, street widths, and traffic speed” (1550). “Finally, more data must be gathered regarding how the built environment affects health in general,” Leyden writes (1550). Does urban sprawl affect peoples’ life spans (1550)? How does it affect young people or the elderly (1550)? “The consequences of not walking and of not interacting with others may have consequences far more negative, for persons of all ages, than we ever imagined,” he states (1550).

Somehow, and I don’t know how to do this, I want to extend Leyden’s argument from a discussion of social capital to one of walking culture. If places are walkable, then are people more likely to incorporate walking into their daily lives? And would that quotidian walking create a culture where walking is normal and not unusual or eccentric? Might such a culture include events, like heritage or tourism walks, the kinds of events that Wrights & Sites react against, that they want to subvert with psychogeography or mythogeography (see Wrights & Sites)? The city where I live is not that walkable—most of it resembles the car-dependent suburban neighbourhoods Leyden describes—and for that reason, does it lack the culture of walking that may exist in older neighbourhoods in Galway? I think it does, but how would one go about proving such a thing? I turn to yet another article, hoping to find a clue, frustrated that nobody (as far as I can tell) has ever asked this question before.

Works Cited

Alfonzo, Mariela A. “To Walk or Not to Walk? The Hierarchy of Walking Needs.” Environment and Behavior, vol. 37, no. 6, 2005, pp. 808-836. DOI: 10.1177/0013916504274016.

Leyden, Kevin M. “Social Capital and the Built Environment: The Importance of Walkable Neighborhoods.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 93, no. 9, 2003, pp. 1546-51. Proquest.

Stockton, Jemima C. Oliver Duke-Williams, Emmanuel Stamatakis, Jennifer S. Mindell, Eric J. Brunner, and Nicola J. Shelton. “Development of a Novel Walkability Index for London, United Kingdom: Cross-sectional Application to the Whitehall II Study. ” BMC Public Health, vol. 16, no. 416, pp. 1-12. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-016-3012-12.

Wrights & Sites. “A Manifesto for a New Walking Culture: ‘Dealing With the City.’” Performance Research, vol. 11, no. 2, 2006, pp. 115-22. DOI: 10.1080/13528160600812083.

Mariela A. Alfonzo, “To Walk or Not to Walk? The Hierarchy of Walking Needs”

The last article I read, Vikas Mehta’s “Walkable Streets: Pedestrian Behavior, Perceptions and Attitudes,” expanded on Mariela A. Alfonzo’s notion of a hierarchy of walking needs. Of course, in the interests of thoroughness, I need to read Alfonzo’s apparently influential article. Perhaps, between Mehta’s work, Alfonzo’s, and Michael Southworth’s, I’ll be able to come up with my own definition of walkability, against which I can measure the places I walk in this city and the places I’ve walked in the UK, where convivial and participatory art walking practices exist in a particular context of walkability that supports a culture of walking that doesn’t—and this is my hypothesis—exist here. But in order to support that hypothesis—and I won’t be able to do the kind of qualitative and quantitative research Mehta did in the Boston area, or Filipe Moura, Paulo Cambra, and Alexandre B. Gonçalves conducted in Lisbon, since I’m not a social scientist and have no ambition to become one—I will first need to continue with my literature survey. Of course, I could just make a bold claim—this city isn’t walkable!—but I think it’s necessary to be a little more scholarly than that. So here goes.

In “To Walk or Not to Walk? The Hierarchy of Walking Needs,” Alfonzo begins by pointing out that the number of walking trips made in the United States dropped by half between 1977 and 1995, to just 5.3% of all trips made (808). Sedentary lifestyles are a health problem, and walking could help address the high rates of obesity in America. Health researchers are attempting “to identify individual-level characteristics that affect a person’s physical activity levels,” while planning researchers are looking at “physical-environmental variables related to walking” (809). “Adopting a narrow approach to a multilevel problem such as the decrease in walking has led to a piecemeal understanding of the factors affecting walking,” Alfonzo writes (809). It is critical, she continues, “to understand how and when individual, group, regional, and physical-environmental factors come into play within the decision-making process”—that is, the process that guides people to decide to walk or not—“not only to understand their roles theoretically but also to better translate research results into effective policies, program interventions, and design guidelines” (817). To address that need, “this article offers a social-ecological conceptual model for how both urban and nonurban form factors may interact to affect walking” (817). First, Alfonzo will offer “a new theory of how to conceptually organize the various urban form (and nonurban form) variables that may affect walking” (817). Then, she will place that theory “into a socio-ecological framework that conceptualizes the walking decision-making process as a dynamic one, with antecedents, mediators, interprocesses (moderators), and multiple outcomes” (817). Then, after discussing her theory more thoroughly, she will discuss the role of choice and self-selection in that model. Finally, she will discuss the potential usefulness of that model (817). 

Alfonzo notes that many factors—individual, group, regional, and physical-environmental—affect walking, but “it is not clearly understood which of these factors are most salient, nor is it clear how or whether these factors interact in affecting a person’s level of physical activity” (817). Her conceptual model suggests that these variables affect someone’s choice to walk “at different points in his or her decision-making process,” and that some of those factors are more prominent in that process than others (817-18). To organize those factors, Alfonzo posits the existence of “a hierarchy of walking needs” (818). She applies Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to the process of deciding to go for a walk, proposing five levels of needs that are involved (818). “These needs progress from the most basic need, feasibility (related to personal limits), to higher-order needs (related to urban form) that include accessibility, safety, comfort, and pleasurability, respectively,” Alfonzo writes:

Within this hierarchical structure, an individual would not typically consider a higher-order need in his or her decision to walk if a more basic need was not already satisfied. Thus, for example, if the need for safety is not met, a person would not consider his or her need for comfort or pleasurability when deciding whether to walk because the more basic need, safety, is unmet. In other words, a very comfortable or pleasurable environment would not necessarily compel a person to walk if his or her need for safety was lacking. (818)

Alfonzo points out that not all needs have to be fully satisfied before proceeding to the next level. “A person may only be partially satisfied with his or her need for accessibility, for example, yet still consider his or her need for safety when determining whether to walk,” she states. “Also, the levels within the hierarchy may not always proceed in the order depicted. Some people may reverse the order of some of the levels within the hierarchy. For example, people who are constantly deprived of a need may forgo that need altogether and look to a higher need, despite not satisfying that basic need” (818). In addition, walking can be motivated by simultaneous needs: “a person may be motivated to walk both because the walk is comfortable and because it is pleasurable” (818). The decision-making process might not be conscious, either, and a motivation to do something doesn’t mean that the person will follow through and perform that act (818). Even if all needs in the hierarchy are met, the person might not walk; on the other hand, the person might walk even if some of the needs in the hierarchy remain unmet (819). “Thus, the realization of these five needs is neither necessary nor sufficient to induce walking,” Alfonzo writes. “The choice to walk can occur anywhere on the hierarchy” (819).

For that reason, Alfonzo argues that the hierarchy of walking needs model can’t explain the entire walking decision-making process (819). “Rather, the hierarchy must be placed wihtin the context of a social-ecological framework to fully understand how people make the decision to walk,” she writes (819). She contends that “the hierarchy of walking needs organizes the various urban form variables identified to be significant by existing research into a hierarchy of prepotency,” meaning that “some urban form variables are more fundamental (or necessary) within the decision-making process” (819). In addition, that framework makes feasibility the most basic need, “for which fulfillment is necessary to even consider urban form within the decision to walk” (819). 

Here, Alfonzo turns to James Gibson’s notion of affordances, “the set of properties that are present within an environment that allow for the occurrence of a behavior” (819). If, for instance, a surface is firm, horizontal, and appropriately sized, “that surface affords the support necessary for a person to stand on it,” but for standing (a behaviour) to occur, “a person must perceive the affordance that a particular environment or object provides” (819). Therefore, people’s perceptions, habits, and motivations help to determine whether they perceive a particular affordance (819). The affordance of the needs in the hierarchy may affect the decision to walk: “an individual’s perceptions, habits, and motivations will help to determine whether a particular need in the hierarchy is met,” so “people may differ with respect to the affordances they perceive within the environment” (819-21). For instance, one person “may perceive the affordances necessary to meet his or her need for safety, whereas another person may not” (821). In this way, “a person’s perception of an affordance for a particular need may act as a mediator between the hierarchy of needs and the choice to walk” (821).

“Within the social-ecological model of walking, neither the hierarchy of needs nor a person’s perception with respect to the affordances a particular setting may present are a direct link to a person’s decision to walk,” Alfonzo continues. “There are several interprocesses that act as moderators within the walking decision-making process” (821). Life-cycle circumstances—which may include “a person’s individual-level attributes (including biological, psychological, demographic characteristics, etc.), group-level characteristics (including sociological and cultural factors), and the regional-level attributes of his or her walking setting (including topography, climate, geography, etc.)”—“may affect the level within the hierarchy at which he or she is sufficiently satisfied to decide to walk” (821). Those circumstances are “interprocesses or moderators in the decision to walk” (821). Considering them as moderators “creates a more complete, dynamic framework within which to investigate their effect on physical activity” (821). Those complicated characteristics “all moderate the relationship between the hierarchy of walking needs and a person’s decision to walk” (821). Thus, someone who is highly committed to their health and believes that walking is a good source of exercise may only need one of the basic needs to be fulfilled before deciding to walk, while someone who is less motivated by health and exercise may require the fulfillment of higher-order needs before making that decision (821). Other individual factors—attitudes toward driving or automobiles, for instance—may affect “the number of levels that must be met for a person to decide to walk” (823). “A person’s psychological health, expectations, motivations, and other psychological, cognitive, or emotional-level attributes may all affect the point on the hierarchy at which a person decides to walk,” Alfonzo suggests (823).

Demographic variables also moderate the relationship between the hierarchy of walking needs and decisions to walk: for instance, older people walk less than younger people, perhaps because physical mobility limitations or health problems make walking less feasible (823). For that reason, “even if a setting affords the factors necessary to satisfy higher-order needs such as comfort and pleasurability, an older person may still decide not to walk because his or her basic needs are not sufficiently satisfied” (823). Culture, which Alfonzo describes as “a group-level characteristic,” can also affect walking decisions: “a culture’s belief system or set of norms toward walking and exercise may affect the number of needs a person must satisfy before he or she decides to walk” (823). “Members of cultures that stress the importance of walking may require fewer needs than would members of cultures that are more apathetic toward walking or exercise,” Alfonzo writes (823). Sociological variables, “such as societal norms”—how are such norms separate from culture?—and “levels of social support” may moderate the number of needs that have to be satisfied before someone decides to walk (823). In addition, regional-level attributes may act as moderators: “Certain regions may inherently possess conditions that increase an individual’s baseline for walking,” such as places with coastlines or that have temperate climates, which may encourage walking more than inland or frigid climates (823). Alfonzo’s model also delineates outcomes. For instance, “the hierarchy of walking needs, as part of the social-ecological model, also influences both the duration of the walk and type of walking chosen” (823). More needs might need to be met for long walks compared to short walks, she suggests (823). Also, “certain levels of need may be more salient (or necessary) depending on the type of walk or purpose for the walk” (823). 

“The social-ecological model of walking presents a dynamic, [causal] model of the decision-making process,” Alfonzo concludes. “Within the model, the hierarchy of walking needs operationalizes and organizes five levels of needs hierarchically and presents them as antecedents within the walking decision-making process” (824). In addition, that model “recognizes the affordances of these five levels of needs (or their perception) as the mediator between the antecedents and the outcome” (824). It also “establishes a person’s life cycle circumstances as moderators between the levels of needs and the outcome variables” (824). 

Next, Alfonzo describes the five levels of walking needs in greater detail. Feasibility—“the practicality or viability of a walking trip”—is “the most basic level of need within the hierarchy of walking needs” (824). “For destination trips, feasibility factors may affect the choice between walking and other forms of transportation,” she states, but for strolls, “feasibility factors may affect the choice between taking a walk or not” (824). Regardless of how satisfied someone is with the other levels of the hierarchy, Alfonzo assumes that “if the need for feasibility is not met, then walking will not typically occur” (824). Mobility, time, and other responsibilities are related to feasibility: limited mobility, limited time, or other commitments may reduce feasibility (824). 

The next level of need is accessibility: “the pattern, quantity, quality, variety and proximity of activities present, as well as the connectivity between uses” (825). This level of need is about more than just “a simple ratio of retail to residential to office uses” (825). Instead, accessibility factors could include “the presence of sidewalks, paths, trails, or features that provide perceived paths on which to walk”; “actual or perceived barriers to walking,” including physical and psychological barriers to access; and “the number of destinations available within a reasonable walking distance”—although Alfonzo doesn’t believe the destinations question would affect strolling trips, which aren’t tied to specific destinations (826).Neighbourhoods that are close to commercial areas “are associated with the frequency of nonwork destination trips,” she notes, although not with the frequency of strolling trips (827). She suggests that only 10 percent of people are willing to walk half a mile—roughly a kilometre—to a destination (827). For the vast majority of Americans, then, any destination farther away than a 15-minute walk would be considered inaccessible on foot.

Safety is the next level of need. Alfonzo defines safety as safety from the threat of crime (827); for some reason, she doesn’t consider safety from traffic hazards. She believes that safety needs affect strolling more than walking to destinations (827). Graffiti, litter, abandoned or run-down buildings affect perceptions of safety, she suggests, along with some kinds of land uses (bars, liquor stores, and pawnshops) (827). She uses the term “[p]hisical incivilities” to refer to graffiti, litter, vandalism, and poorly maintained buildings, which studies have linked to higher levels of fear of crime (827). Other elements of the urban fabric—the number of street lights, the presence of yard decorations and private plantings, and neighbourhood watch signs—reduce fears of crime (827-28). Narrow streets and stores also reduce fears of crime, while seeing groups of young men hanging around increases it (828). Fear of crime has a strong effect on decisions to walk: “People who felt more afraid in their neighborhoods were significantly less likely to walk than those who felt less afraid,” according to one study” (828).

After safety is comfort, which “refers to a person’s level of ease, convenience, and contentment” (828). “A person’s satisfaction with comfort for walking may be affected by environmental qualities that either facilitate walking or remove factors that might make the walk distressing,” Alfonzo writes (828). Traffic safety—“urban form features that affect the relationship between the pedestrian and motorized traffic”—is part of comfort (828). So are “urban design elements intended to offer protection from unfavorable or extreme weather conditions,” such as canopies and arcades, and amenities such as benches, drinking fountains, and other street furniture (828-29). Traffic-calming strategies increase pedestrian comfort, as do lower traffic volumes and “[s]idewalk comfort,” which might mean sidewalks that aren’t broken or uneven (829). More research on “the actual effects of microscale comfort elements” needs to be done (829).

Finally, pleasurability is the highest need in the hierarchy (829). Pleasurability “refers to the level of appeal that a setting provides with respect to a person’s walking experience” and is “related to how enjoyable and interesting an area is for walking” (829). “Diversity, complexity, liveliness, architectural coherence and scale, and aesthetic appeal may all affect a person’s level of satisfaction with pleasurability,” Alfonzo writes. “Streetscapes, urban design features, architectural elements, and the activity level of a setting may enhance these qualities” (829-30). People prefer to walk in environments they consider pleasurable, something supported by empirical research, and pleasurability can include “diversity or complexity within an environment,” along with “coherence, structural organization,” and a lack of “nuisances” (830). Streets with trees and ground-floor retail are considered pleasurable, as are places that possess a quality of mystery (830). Streets with smaller setbacks—usually older areas of the city—are correlated with more walking, suggesting that large setbacks may be unpleasant for pedestrians because of their effect on people’s perceptions of architectural scale (830). “The relationship between physical and natural environmental attributes and preferences has been researched quite comprehensively,” Alfonzo states, and the pleasurability of those attributes “may be particularly salient both for strolling walking by motivating an otherwise unmotivated person to stroll and destination walking by influencing a person’s decision to walk or drive to a destination” (830).

Of course, Alfonzo acknowledges, all of this presumes that the choice to walk exists. “For destination walking, the choice is between walking and an alternate form of transportation, although for strolling, the choice is between walking and not walking,” but regardless of the kind of walking trip being considered, if there is no choice—if the person must walk—then the hierarchy of needs doesn’t matter (831). “The issue of choice may be particularly salient for children, adolescents, the economically disadvantaged, and the elderly,” she notes, because those groups may have little choice but to walk, even if they feel unsafe or uncomfortable doing so (831).

The question of self-selection bias also exists: do people choose to live in neighbourhoods because they provide “the affordances for them to walk,” or do the characteristics of those neighbourhoods “influence a person’s choice to walk” (831)? “It may be that the hierarchy of walking needs structure comes into play in the selection of one’s neighborhood, rather than every time a person decides whether to walk within his or her neighborhood,” Alfonzo suggests (831). 

In her conclusion, Alfonzo contends that the “social-ecological model provided here, along with the hierarchy of walking needs model, provides a framework for understanding how all of these different factors may work together to affect walking behavior” (832). That model “attempts to explain how individual, group, regional, and physical-environmental factors all affect walking at different stages of the behavioral decision-making process” (832). The hierarchy of needs framework “helps to organize existing findings and can suggest fruitful avenues for further research” (832). It can also be useful “in guiding both policy and community interventions,” because measures that address higher-order needs that ignore lower-order needs would not be effective in increasing walking (832). Her model also “underscores the important fact that there is not one universal remedy for increasing walking,” since a variety of “individual, group, regional, and physical-environmental factors come into play” (832). Therefore, it is important for policy makers to “consider their settings and populations carefully and adopt a multilevel approach to program interventions aimed at increasing walking” (832).

The model Alfonzo outlines in this paper is complex, but that complexity is necessary, I think, because decisions about walking are complex. So many factors are involved in those decisions, and Alfonzo attempts to show how they are separate and also connected. As I was reading the article, I found myself wondering whether I could use it to begin analyzing the walkability of the city I live in. That might enable me to consider the presence, or absence, of a culture of walking here. Of course, Alfonzo’s model won’t directly help with that consideration, although I think indirectly it would be possible to argue that places that are walkable because they satisfy all needs in her hierarchy might encourage people to develop habits of walking that might lead to a culture of walking. I’m not sure. I will have to carry on reading on this topic.

Works Cited

Alfonzo, Mariela A. “To Walk or Not to Walk? The Hierarchy of Walking Needs.” Environment and Behavior, vol. 37, no. 6, 2005, pp. 808-836. DOI: 10.1177/0013916504274016.

Mehta, Vikas. “Walkable Streets: Pedestrian Behavior, Perceptions and Attitudes.” Journal of Urbanism, vol. 1, no. 3, 2008, pp. 217-45. DOI: 10.1080/17549170802529480. 

Moura, Filipe, Paulo Cambra, and Alexandre B. Gonçalves. “Measuring Walkability for Distinct Pedestrian Groups with a Participatory Assessment Method: A Case Study in Lisbon.” Landscape and Urban Planning, no. 157, 2017, pp. 282-96. DOI:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.07.002. 

Southworth, Michael. “Designing the Walkable City.” Journal of Urban Planning and Development, vol. 131, no. 4, 2005, pp. 246-57. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2005)131:4(246).