Tag: Vikas Mehta

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).

Vikas Mehta, “Walkable Streets: Pedestrian Behavior, Perceptions and Attitudes”

Yes, another paper about walkability: I’m learning about this topic, but slowly. Mehta begins by noting that walking “is largely influenced by cultural factors, by individual circumstances, preferences and characteristics, and by environmental factors” (217). He suggests that “urban designers are concerned with the environmental qualities that make for better places to walk—not only as a physical activity, but also for the sensorial and experiential pleasure that may be derived from such environments,” and for this reason, “the aspects of the environment that impact the sensory and social qualities of the setting are particularly significant to the field of urban design” (217). “In addressing the microscale urban design qualities of the environment,” Mehta states, “this paper is concerned with the perception and effects of safety, comfort, and pleasurability on walking behavior on Main Streets” (217). I’m glad that his focus will be on urban spaces rather than parks or walking trails; although I do walk in parks, my research is more interested in the walkability of streets, since that’s where most artistic walking practices in the UK seem to take place, although the term “Main Street” may refer solely to commercial or retail streets, which might be a limitation to this study. Mehta discusses two other important factors related to walkability in the paper: “usefulness—the ability of the environment to serve basic needs and create place-attachment; and the sense of belonging created by the presence of community places” (217). 

Mehta points out that most studies of walkability “aim to determine environmental correlates of walking, considering aspects such as the compactness of development patterns, residential and employment density, access to and diversity of land-use mix, and design features such as shade, scenery, aesthetic characteristics of the local environment, local shopping, distance to retail and the presence of attractive stores and houses” (218). Other studies look at “the transportation infrastructure, access to transit, the accessibility of facilities, access to recreational facilities, intersection density, the presence of sidewalks, recreation space in the neighborhood, street patter and connectivity, and the neighborhood type” (218). Safety, aesthetics, and other neighbourhood characteristics are also studied in relation to walkability (218). Mehta states that this paper “provides a new conceptual framework built on empirical research from this study and existing theoretical models” (218). 

Designing for walkability, Mehta suggests, involves thinking of places as providing “sensory stimulation” while supporting “the desired behaviors of its users” (218). He argues that a broadened view of the environment, one that includes physical, social, psychological, and cultural factors that help to determine behaviour, is necessary. Mehta cites Alfonzo’s research, which argues for “a transdisciplinary theoretical model to explain how individual, group, environmental, regional, and other factors affect walking” (218-19). Alfonzo’s work (and once again, I find myself hating the way APA format omits the first names of authors) proposes a model of walking that consists of a hierarchy of five levels of needs in the decision-making process of walking: “feasibility, accessibility, safety, comfort, and pleasurability” (219). Michael Southworth, whose work I’ve also discussed here, proposes six criteria of walkability: “connectivity, linkage with other modes, fine-grained land-use patterns, safety, path quality, and path context” (219). Three of Southworth’s criteria—connectivity, linkage with other modes, and fine-grained land-use patterns—“seem more appropriate for capturing environmental features related to walking because they distinguish between path network at a neighborhood scale, the transportation at the city scale, and the grain of the land-use at the neighborhood scale,” and his notions of path quality and path context “cover similar grounds as comfort and pleasurability in Alfonzo’s” (219). “Both models discuss the importance of an individual’s ability to get to a destination, their perceived safety, the variety of the land uses, and the comfort and sensory pleasure offered by the walking environment,” but neither considers “the importance and relevance of usefulness of the land uses and activities on the path or destination of the walking environment” or “the significance of destinations that are perceived as places for social gathering on walking behavior” (219). For that reason, Mehta wants to consider “the significance of the usefulness of the environment and of places of social meaning on walking behavior” (219). For that reason, this paper “tries to capture the microscale-level physical, land use, and social characteristics that influence walking” in order to answer one question: “What are the microscale environmental characteristics and criteria that influence walking behavior on Main Street?” (219).

For Mehta, the street’s characteristics consist of physical factors (including things like wide sidewalks, trees, canopies, interesting and engaging storefronts, signage, street furniture, and what buildings look like), land-use factors (the variety and range of businesses and the uniqueness of the goods and services they sell), and social factors (community-gathering places, the presence of people and activities, and safety) (219). These factors influence the perceptions of the street’s users, along with cultural factors and the user’s individual associations and background (219). Together, the user’s perceptions and the characteristics of the street “affect the overall perceived quality of the street,” which Mehta sees as having seven separate categories: “feasibility, accessibility, usefulness, safety, comfort, sensory pleasure, and sense of belonging” (220). 

Next, Mehta discusses the literature on walkability using his own categories. He notes that Alfonzo sees feasibility and accessibility as “the first-order needs of walking” (220). A walker must have the time and ability to make a journey on foot: that’s the meaning of feasibility (220). Accessibility, on the other hand, “includes the ability of a person to be able to access the destination; the distances to a destination; the physical and perceived barriers to walking to a place; and the connectivity between land uses” (220). Southworth’s criteria of connectivity and linkage with other modes (220). Mehta assumes that the “first-order needs of feasibility and accessibility have already been met for the person making the walking trip to Main Street”—so that pedestrian has the time and ability to walk, the distance to the destination is short, and there are no physical or other barriers to that destination—so they aren’t considered as part of this study.

Mehta sees usefulness as “the ability for the environment to satisfy the individual’s basic day-to-day needs for shopping, eating, entertainment, and so on” (220). This is similar to Southworth’s notion of fine-grained land-use patterns (220). Mehta notes that people are more likely to walk to places where there are places to eat and shop, but the quality of the goods and services on offer also makes the environment useful and desirable for walking (220). Usefulness makes the environment meaningful to the individual (220). Usefulness can encourage frequency of use, which “translates into a familiarity with the environment and becomes a routine that creates a sense of place and place-attachment for the users of the environment” (220). He suggests that space-time routines that generate familiarity were at the heart of Jane Jacobs’s observations on Greenwich Village in New York (220). For that reason, “usefulness of the street results in possibly satisfying higher-order needs that encourage walking to the Main Street” (220).

Safety—both real and perceived—affects and is affected by the use of the environment (221). Environmental characteristics—the physical condition and maintenance of the environment, its configuration of streets and spaces, the types of land uses, the changes that have been made to the environment, the presence or absence of people (and the kind of people there)—all affect perceptions of safety (221). Safety from traffic is also important: reducing street widths and speed limits, introducing traffic calming measures, barriers between pedestrians and the street (parked cars, trees, plantings) all increase real and perceived safety (221).

Comfort, both environmental and physical, “may be affected by myriad factors including weather, physical conditions, perceived levels of safety, familiarity of the setting and people, convenience, and so on,” Mehta writes (221). In this study, though, Mehta limits comfort “to the physical and environmental [e]ffects of the environment to provide the ability for a person to conduct the tasks of walking on Main Street” (221). The street environment design needs to be “anthropometrically and ergonomically sensitive”; wide sidewalks, trees, shade, shelter, a path free of obstacles, and traffic calming all contribute to comfort (221).

Sensory pleasure “depends on various stimuli perceived from the environment—from the lights, sounds, smells, touches, colors, shapes, patterns, textures, and so on, of the fixed, semi-fixed, and movable elements that make up the street” (222). A moderate level of complexity helps to create sensory pleasure, as do variety, novelty, order, and coherence (222). All aspects of the environment—the windows and canopies and awnings of buildings, for instance, the street and the sidewalk, the people and their movements—help generate sensory pleasure (222). Mehta states that “people prefer public open spaces that provide a moderate level of culturally acceptable sensory stimuli resulting in a complexity that heightens interest without becoming over-stimulated and chaotic” (222). What does “culturally acceptable” mean in this context, though? That’s a very loaded term.

A sense of belonging to community places is another factor that, Mehta argues, is ignored by existing theoretical models of walkability (222). “Sociologists have long emphasized the significance of the symbolic dimension of shared experiences of people in a neighborhood,” he writes (222). Places can help to generate that symbolic dimension: long-standing small local businesses, for instance, or informal community-gathering places, can create a sense of belonging and attachment (222). 

Mehta concludes that this literature review indicates “that the characteristics of land use and the physical and social environment are all important to provide a useful, safe, comfortable, pleasurable, and meaningful setting for people to walk in urban public spaces” (222). This study builds on that research, he continues, by examining “the associations between the characteristics of the environment on the neighborhood Main Street and walking behavior—not only as a physical activity, but also for the overall experience it offers to the pedestrian” (222). In addition, Mehta embraces a subjective measurement on the effect of environmental characteristics on human activity, because those subjective perceptions “may be as important as the objectively measured environmental characteristics” (222). 

Next, Mehta describes his methodology: the study looks at three streets in two cities and one town in the Boston area (223). These are all places with older buildings (built more than 40 years ago) which are built to the sidewalk without setbacks and that are up to four stories in height (224). The streets have seen public improvements to become more pedestrian friendly, including widening sidewalks, curbside parking, tree planting, and the installation of street furniture (benches, bicycle racks, garbage cans, street lighting) (224). All three streets are served by public transit and have a combination of independently owned businesses and national chains (224). In addition, all three streets have “a myriad of uses,” from various kinds of housing, stores offering different goods and services, and public institutions (224). They are all set in primarily residential neighbourhoods and are near university campuses (224). “In addition, the people of the Boston metropolitan area consider these destinations for shopping, dining, and entertainment,” Mehta writes (225).

For the study, 19 blocks in those three areas were selected “to achieve a range in the microscale-level physical, land-use and social characteristics,” which translated in practice into “selecting blocks with a range in the physical size and type of businesses on a block; a range in the variety of businesses on a block; a range in the presence or absence of community-place on a block; a range in the presence or absence of street furniture on a block; and a range in the degree of interesting and engaging storefronts, signage and displays on the block” (225). The neighbourhood-scale characteristics—“the housing and commercial density of the area, the type of people living in the area, the proximity to major natural features such as a water’s edge, and major uses such as a university or a cultural institution, or a transit hub”—remained “common” (225). I’m not entirely sure if that means common to the selected blocks in a given area, or common between the three areas, but I think it means the former, because Mehta tells us that “the selected blocks in each of the three study areas were part of the same urban context with similar neighborhood-scale characteristics of the environment” which “allowed for minimum variation in the macro-scale factors among the selected blocks in a study area” (225-26).

Mehta counted “all pedestrians crossing a randomly selected imaginary line in both directions at various locations on each block for 10 or 15 minutes” more than once and averaged the results (226). In all, he observed the blocks for 71 hours and counted 33,932 pedestrians between April and October 2005. In addition, both a face-to-face survey and interviews were conducted (227). In the survey, “users were asked to rate their familiarity with the block; their perceived daytime and nighttime safety on the block; their perceived pedestrian-friendliness of the block; their perceived range of goods and services on the block; and so on” (227). The interview asked different questions, such as “What has changed in the area/neighborhood in the last few months or years?” and “Do you use this block more often compared to other blocks on this street?” (227). Those surveys and interviews were conducted on four blocks that were considered “most representative of each study area,” so “each participant responded to four standard questionnaires that included a survey and open-ended interview questions” (227-28). I have no idea whether this methodology makes sense for social scientists, but the paper passed its peer review, which must mean something.

The results of this activity indicated that more pedestrians walked on blocks that were close to transit stops, but “transit stops were not the only factor determining the volume of pedestrian flow”: instead, the “perception of usefulness, safety, comfort, sensory pleasure and sense of belonging contributed to the number of persons walking on a block” (228). Those aspects of the blocks were determined through the interviews (228). 

Mehta goes over those interview results in detail, but because I wanted to get to his discussion of those results, so I skipped ahead. “The findings reveal a hierarchy of needs at the microscale that support walking behavior,” Mehta writes, noting that “people perceived differences in physical, land-use, and social characteristics across blocks on the same Main Street, and this affected their walking behavior” (240). In addition, 

people preferred blocks that had a variety in the mix of uses and stores, particularly those that served daily needs; blocks that had gathering places where they could meet their friends and also be able to see other people and activities; blocks that had a distinctive character or ambiance; blocks that were pedestrian-friendly and visually interesting; blocks that had stores and businesses with good service; and blocks that had a stores that were perceived as destinations. (240)

Thus, all five of Mehta’s aspects—“usefulness, safety, comfort, pleasurability, and sense of belonging”—were important to the users of these streets (240). “However,” he continues, “people suggested that usefulness, sense of belonging and pleasurability (in that order) were most important to them in the hierarchy of walking needs” (240). Safety and comfort may have been less important, because all three streets had been upgraded recently to make them comfortable and pedestrian-friendly (240). 

However, those aspects are not the only reason people might decide to walk: “The cultural acceptance of that behavior”—in this case, walking—“is essential for it to occur as a common activity” (240). Mehta assumes that walking on Main Street is culturally acceptable in all three areas, but while “walking behavior took place on the blocks that offered limited usefulness, comfort, sources of sensory pleasure and places to commune,” that behavior was “a necessary activity” rather than “an optional or social activity” (240). “This assumption is consistent with Alfonzo’s model,” Mehta continues—and Alfonzo’s article is waiting for me to read—but Mehta suggests that both usefulness and a sense of belonging ought to be incorporated in that hierarchy of needs (240). 

In his conclusion, Mehta addresses policy and design issues suggested by his findings. For instance, he suggests that “Main Streets will be more walkable if they are planned and designed to have businesses that are useful to the people who use these streets; if they are managed to support community-gathering places; and if they integrate places of social meaning” (242). But can planning and design really “attract and encourage a variety of businesses” and “recognize, support and preserve any community-gathering places that act as destinations and provide a sense of belonging for users of the main streets” (242)? Aren’t those features of urban streets formed by organic processes? Perhaps zoning and bylaws might play a role, but how much of walkable spaces is the result of history and luck? How much can be mandated by city governments or their planning departments? 

Mehta’s article is interesting, if only because his research sites are so different from the city where I live, which might suggest its lack of walkability. Certainly most of the blocks where I find myself walking here offer limited usefulness, comfort, sources of sensory pleasure or places where community members might gather. Instead, most of this city is designed around the car—and the areas of the older city that might provide the density necessary to support the urban fabric Mehta examines here lack usefulness and comfort. My big question—whether this city’s reliance on the private automobile and its lack of walkability present obstacles to the existence of a culture of walking—remains unanswered. I’m also still wondering whether a culture of walking is necessary to support or feed the kinds of participatory or convivial art walking practices that seem to be so central in the UK. That’s my biggest question, and I may have to make up my own answer.

At some point, of course, I’m going to have to stop gathering string on this topic, but perhaps I should continue reading through the articles I’ve gathered and also look at the work of Jane Jacobs and Henri Lefebvre, as a Facebook friend has suggested. All I can do is pursue this tangent until I either find answers to my questions or realize that I’m going to have to provide my own answers. How frightening—it’s always more comfortable to footnote something in an academic paper, because someone else’s idea always feels more valid than one’s own—but then again, how liberating.

Work Cited

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

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).