A Participatory Assessment of Perceived Neighbourhood Walkability in a Small Urban Environment

Ismaïl Saadi, Roger Aganze, Mehdi Moeinaddini, Zohreh Asadi-Shekari and Mario Cools
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Ismaïl Saadi: IFSTTAR, COSYS-GRETTIA, University Gustave Eiffel, F-7745 Marne-la-Vallée, France
Roger Aganze: Local Environment & Management Analysis (LEMA), Urban and Environmental Engineering (UEE), University of Liège, Allée de la Découverte 9, Quartier Polytech 1, 4000 Liege, Belgium
Mehdi Moeinaddini: Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT12 6BA, UK
Zohreh Asadi-Shekari: Centre for Innovative Planning and Development (CIPD), Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Malaysia
Mario Cools: Local Environment & Management Analysis (LEMA), Urban and Environmental Engineering (UEE), University of Liège, Allée de la Découverte 9, Quartier Polytech 1, 4000 Liege, Belgium

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Walkability has become a research topic of great concern for preserving public health, especially in the era of the COVID-19 outbreak. Today more than ever, urban and transport policies, constrained by social distancing measures and travel restrictions, must be conceptualized and implemented with a particular emphasis on sustainable walkability. Most of the walkability models apply observation and subjective methods to measure walkability, whereas few studies address walkability based on sense perception. To fill this gap, we aim at investigating the perceived neighbourhood walkability (PNW) based on sense perception in a neighbourhood of Brussels. We designed a survey that integrates 22 items grouped into 5 dimensions (cleanness, visual aesthetics, landscape and nature, feeling of pressure, feeling of safety), as well as the socio-demographic attributes of the participants. Using various statistical methods, we show that socio-demographics have almost no effects on perceived neighbourhood walkability. Nonetheless, we found significant differences between groups of different educational backgrounds. Furthermore, using a binomial regression model, we found strong associations between PNW and at least one item from each grouping dimension. Finally, we show that based on a deep neural network for classification, the items have good predictive capabilities (78% of classification accuracy). These findings can help integrate sense perception into objective measurement methods of walkable environments. Additionally, policy recommendations should be targeted based on differences of perception across socio-demographic groups.

Keywords: perceived neighbourhood walkability (PNW); deep neural network; survey design; Brussels; sense perception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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