Abstract
Design of the built environment for navigability and walkability is an increasingly important aspect of urban planning. This focus derives in part from increasing interest in lifestyles and behaviours, including level of physical activity and health outcomes. Geographical information systems and virtual realities are playing a significant role in advancing this agenda: examples exist of integrating qualitative data (words about or visual images of places) and quantitative data (numerical descriptions of places). However, there remain opportunities for exploring alternative ways of linking different types of data (physiological measurements, emotional response, street walkability and urban design quality) to address issues of urban planning and renewal. Using a case study approach this paper explores the application of geographic information science and systems to participatory approaches in built environment planning with the aim of exploring older people's response to an unfamiliar urban environment. It examines different ways of combining temporally and spatial referenced qualitative and quantitative data. The participants in the study were a group of 44 older people (60+) from Swansea, Wales, who viewed a filmed walking route around Colchester, England. While viewing the film they gave an oral commentary and physiological readings were made, which have been integrated with primary data collected on the built environment along the walking route. Proximity and inverse distance weighting approaches for combining these datasets produce complementary results in respect of older people's physiological and emotive response to variation in the walkability and design quality of a walking route through an unfamiliar town centre. The results reveal participants experienced an elevated average heart rate close to Colchester Town railway station and expressed a comparatively negative emotional response to this location. Conversely participants experienced lower average heart rate, indicating reduced stress, in Brook Street where the overall Urban Design Quality score was relatively low.
Highlights
Design of the built environment for both navigability and walkability is becoming an increasingly important part of urban planning (Birch and Silver 2009; Rohe 2009; Sallis et al 2007), especially in localities where renewal schemes are a cornerstone of the policy agenda (Blackman 2006)
Three components of the data collected from participants are combined in the analysis presented in this paper: recording of physiological measurements; recording and transcription of oral narratives, and walkability street auditing using adapted Senior Walking Environmental Assessment Tool (SWEAT)-R and Urban Design Quality (UDQ) tools
Once the coded oral narrative tallies and physiological measures had been joined by means of proximity using the nearest and averaging methods to the SWEAT-R and UDQ scores for the 24 end-ofsegment points, non-spatial Pearson’s product-moment correlation and analysis of variance were applied using SPSS statistical software
Summary
Design of the built environment for both navigability and walkability is becoming an increasingly important part of urban planning (Birch and Silver 2009; Rohe 2009; Sallis et al 2007), especially in localities where renewal schemes are a cornerstone of the policy agenda (Blackman 2006). The increasing emphasis in policy and practice on ‘Active and healthy ageing’ (European Union 2007) and ‘Age-friendly cities’ (WHO 2007) has spearheaded the adoption of the WHO principles across the major global cities and regions These principles focus on tangible aspects of the physical fabric of the urban environment (outdoor natural spaces and the built environment) as well as community support and health services, civic participation and employment, communication and information, respect and social inclusion (WHO 2007), and provide a guide to assess age friendliness of different places. There is increasing evidence that older people prefer to move rather than always ‘age in place’ (Hillcoat-Nalletamby and Ogg 2014), this is not necessarily associated with living in a disadvantaged community (Scharf et al 2003)
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