The Influential Factors Of The Walkability In Two Types Of Communities

With the rapid development of the urbanization and the gated communities,plenty of urban problems have appeared,such as the growth in car ownership and insufficient public service,which lead to the walk crisis,traffic congestion,the bad influence in the public health and the lack of neighborhood life.Recently,a policy about the city block was proposed by the State Council of China.It draws attention of city planners to think about the influence in people’s life style affected by the gated community and the open residential community.Although some study progress has been made in the walkability of the built environment,studies of the different walking behavior in the two types of communities are limited.Using the data from 400 resident survey questionnaires of walking travel in the 5 groups of the communities in Harbin(every group chooses one gated community and one open community nearby),this study adapts IPA-Kano model to connect walking characteristics and walking behaviors in the two kinds of communities through perceptions and walking satisfaction.The results show that land use mix、connectivity of destination、safety、environment with high quality and attractive factors of city vitality have a positive impact of residents’s walking behavior,owing to interaction of different walking elements.Of all the factors,sound environment、access to parks and open space、scale of open space are important factors to promote walking activities in the city block;Safety、street lighting、street connectivity、quality of outdoor facility are important factors to gated communities.The important elements of building a walkable space for residents are as follows:space form、transportation network、walking environment and attractive factors for walking trip.The purpose of this paper is to use IPA-Kano model to classify the priotity level of environmental elements and find the difference between the influential factors between the open and gated communities.To build an open residential community that can encourage healthy and environmental-friendly travel,planners should pay attention to the important walking factors to improve the walkability of residential area and make relative strategies.The experimental research results will hopefully serve as a starting point for the development of healthy residential community,and further work is needed to find the best pattern of a healthy community.