Research On Walkability Of Neighborhoods Based On Morphological Type

Due to its important role in sustainable development,equity city,public health,and interaction,walkability has been paid more attention in transportation planning,urban design,public health and other fields in recent years.Because of the close relationship between walkability and residents’ daily life,the researches on the measurement of the neighborhood is particularly valued.The existing researches that adopted objective measurement of walkability on the macroscopic level focused on urban form.The built environment was considered as a unified and undifferentiated measurement object,rather than the research object with historical stages and types of regions.Residential construction in China is characterized by distinct stages and types.However,there is a lack of research on the cognition and evaluation of the built environment of neighborhood types.Thus,this paper raises the main question,namely,what is the relationship between neighborhoods with different morphological types and their walkability level? This paper takes Shanghai,the early development city of modern housing as the research object,both qualitative and quantitative research methods were adopted to explore the differences and causes of walkability performance of the neighborhoods that formed in the historical process.The research includes four parts.First,establishing a macro understanding of characteristics of neighborhoods in Shanghai formed diachronically through literature review and data spatial distribution,and analyzing construction patterns in each stage from the perspective of walkability.Second,measuring the walkability level of Shanghai’s neighborhoods by walk score metrics,establishing a macro understanding of the walkability level of Shanghai’s neighborhoods.Third,establishing neighborhoods classification index,exploratory factor analysis,and cluster analysis were introduced to generate clusters of the neighborhoods.Comparing walk score of those types using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis,discussing the extent of the influence of the factors in the types.Fourth,establishing the micro and subjective understanding of the walkability level of different neighborhood types by quantitative measurement and field observation records according to the cluster results.This study shows the following conclusions.The urban texture of residential areas in Shanghai presents a deep circle structure in the main urban area and a small circle structure in the center of the new town,and the degree of age alienation in the central urban area is much higher than that in other areas.The types of residential design paradigms in each stage are prominent,and the morphology shows a trend from walking to car-relied,and return to walking.2.The walk score of neighborhoods in Shanghai shows a similar circle structure,which gradually decreases from the center of the circle to the outside,and the inner ring,outer ring and Huangpu River are the discernible geographical elements dividing the circle.The combined analysis of age and construction time shows that age is related to walk score,older neighborhoods tend to form high walk score aggregation,and newer neighborhoods tend to form low.According to the results of walking accessibility of different amenities,the city’s cultural and leisure facilities are relatively deficient.Among them,there are serious deficiencies in facilities other than basic living service facilities in the near and outer suburbs,and outdoor parks in the inner ring are relatively insufficient.3.The morphology types of neighborhoods in Shanghai are classified into 5 categories,and the spatial distribution structure has a similar circle pattern.The structural changes of the spatial distribution of each type reflect the dominant role of macro-planning and construction policies on spatial structure after the 2000 s.The statistical results of walk score show that the scores of type I and II are in the middle and high level,while the scores of other types are in the middle and low level.The correlation analysis of the factors showed that the density,building form,construction age,and block form of the residential neighborhood had a significant correlation with the walking index in different degrees.Among them,density and age factors have strong effects,while building form and block form factors are weak.4.The micro research shows that the case study results are basically consistent with the macro measurement results of walk score.People’s behavior is more closely related to amenities and the walking environment.Changes in street density,connectivity,and block form have no obvious impact on the walking experience to a certain extent but have an obvious negative impact beyond a certain extent,which is in part consistent with the results of factor correlation analysis.The observation also found that informal flexibility facilities had a positive effect on walking behavior which was difficult to measure.Based on the above research results,this paper finally provides suggestions for improving the walkability level of neighborhoods from three aspects: macro planning,urban design,and urban governance.Suggestions are put forward,including the mixing of residential types,the introduction of intermediary tools,the emphasis on small businesses and the improvement of amenities’ quality,the improvement of road patency and interface,and the refinement and adaptability of urban management,which provide feasible references for urban decision-makers,designers and managers to realize urban walkability transformation.This paper is an accumulation of walkability research and provides a new perspective and method for residential construction and design research and evaluation.The research results deepen the understanding of the walkability of the residential built environment and provide the planning and design experience and basis for future residential space planning and design.At the same time,it provides suggestions and directions for the development of macro planning and policy formulation for the urban transformation to pedestrian transportation mode.