Does Your City Make You Healthier? : Moving to a walkable city boosts daily locomotion by an average of 1,100.

In this paper, we discuss walkable cities from the perspective of urban planning and design in the era of digitalization and urban big data. We start with a brief review on historical walkable cities schemes; followed by a deliberation on what a walkable city is and what the spatial elements of a walkable city are; and a discussion on the emerging themes and empirical methods to measure the spatial and urban design features of a walkable city. The first part of this paper looks at key urban design propositions and how they were proposed to promote walkability. The second part of this paper discusses the concept of walkability, which is fundamental to designing a walkable city. We emphasize both the physical (walkways, adjacent uses, space) and the perceived aspects (safety, comfort, enjoyment), and then we look at the variety of spatial elements constituting a walkable city. The third part of this paper looks at the emerging themes for designing walkable cities and neighborhoods. We discuss the application of urban big data enabled by growing computational powers and related empirical methods and interdisciplinary approaches including spatial planning, urban design, urban ecology, and public health. This paper aims to provide a holistic approach toward understanding of urban design and walkability, re-evaluate the spatial elements to build walkable cities, and discuss future policy interventions.

This chapter unpacks the history of the Imperial Observatory and the evolution of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. It also describes the involvement of Jesuit missionaries in guiding the Qing dynasty’s astronomical understanding.

While physical activity is critical to human health, most people do not meet recommended guidelines1,2. Built environments that are more walkable have the potential to increase activity across the population3–8. However, previous studies on the built environment and physical activity have led to mixed findings, possibly due to methodological limitations such as small cohorts, over-reliance on self-reported measures and cross-sectional designs5,7,9–11. Here we address these limitations by leveraging a large US cohort of smartphone users (N = 2,112,288) to evaluate within-person longitudinal behaviour changes that occurred over 248,266 days of objectively measured physical activity across 7,447 relocations among 1,609 US cities. By analysing the results of this natural experiment, which exposed individuals to differing built environments, we find that increases (decreases) in walkability are associated with significant increases (decreases) in physical activity after relocation. For example, moving from a less walkable (25th percentile) city to a more walkable city (75th percentile) increased walking by 1,100 daily steps, on average. These changes hold across different genders, ages and body mass index values, and are sustained over 3 months. The added activity is predominantly composed of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, which is linked to an array of associated health benefits1. Evidence against residential self-selection confounding is reported. Our findings provide robust evidence supporting the importance of the built environment in directly improving health-enhancing physical activity and offer potential guidance for public policy activities in this area.

Reviewed by: Walkable Cities: Revitalization, Vibrancy, and Sustainable Consumption by Carlos J. L. Balsas Bradley Bereitschaft Carlos J. L. Balsas Walkable Cities: Revitalization, Vibrancy, and Sustainable Consumption. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019. xix + 238 pp. References and index. $32.95 paper (ISBN 978-1-4384-7628-5); $95.00 cloth (ISBN 978-1-4384-7627-8); $18.12 electronic (ISBN 978-1-4384-7629-2). In the early 1960s, as urban renewal schemes designed to prioritize the automobile and needlessly segregate land uses, took hold in the United States and elsewhere, the urban theorist and activist Jane Jacobs argued eloquently and persuasively against this new paradigm and in favor of what many now consider “traditional” urban planning and design. At the heart of this traditional way of building cities is a fine-grained mix of mutually-supportive land uses – residential, commercial, civic – that at reasonable urban densities, encourages people to walk and generally inhabit the public realm (i.e., sidewalks, plazas, parks, etc.). Shoppers, street vendors, residents, office workers, tourists, and shopkeepers all take part in a kind of “street ballet” that lends vitality, vibrancy, and safety to an urban neighborhood. In Walkable Cities Carlos Balsas focuses on the core element of Jacob’s street ballet: the retail businesses and enterprises that shape the economic viability and vitality of city centers around the world. Through a diverse set of case studies in Portugal, Spain, The United States, Mexico, and Brazil, Balsas shows how business owners, political leaders, and community groups have employed strategic and coordinated planning, public-private partnerships, and various place-making efforts to cope with internal and external stresses related to urban growth, globalization, [End Page 210] economic restructuring, and changing consumer preferences. Focusing mainly on solutions and adaptations utilizing commercial revitalization strategies, Balsas takes a unique and refreshing approach to distilling and addressing these complex issues through a series of myths and “reality checks.” Balsas suggests that one of the most widespread and substantial challenges city centers have had to contend with over the past century is suburbanization and the subsequent rise of new retail formats such as shopping malls, big box stores, and strip malls that are often capable of out-competing traditional urban retail stores in regard to price, convenience, and product selection. In the first chapter, however, Balsas rejects the notion that this increase in competition from suburban retail markets is the sole, or even primary, reason traditional retail in the city center has so frequently struggled. Instead, he suggests that retailers, in concert with municipal leaders and other stakeholders, should take responsibility for attracting customers by providing attractive urban spaces and unique retail experiences (a revitalization strategy the author refers to as commercial urbanism). As Balsas notes throughout the book, one of the critical differences between the retail environment of urban centers and those of the suburbs is that visitors “want to have a pleasant experience without necessarily having to shop” (p. 84). Indeed, one of the central themes of the book is that traditional urban centers, with their dense, human-scaled streetscapes can leverage the unique social and environmental experiences (i.e., diverse people, street vendors, smells and sounds, historic architecture) to not only attract customers but also differentiate themselves from suburban retail offerings. While Balsas extolls the virtues of walkable urban districts, he also warns against cities rushing to implement pedestrian-only zones given the failure of so many “pedestrian malls,” particularly in the United States. Drawing on case studies from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, Balsas suggests that these spaces can be highly successful, however it is critical that they are a part of an authentic “living neighborhood” rather than simply an urban re-imagination of a suburban mall. They also need strong pedestrian and transit connections with the surrounding urban tissue. The implication is that pedestrian districts are best not to be thought of as stand-alone revitalization strategies, but rather “upgrades” to existing commercial areas where much of the traffic is already on foot. Balsas again emphasizes the need for careful planning and cooperative management strategies to ensure the long-term maintenance and viability of pedestrian-only spaces. Even when successful, the...

. Introduction‘Walkable city’ is a concept for urban design that prioritizes pedestrians and is becoming popular in Japan. This walkability is influenced by the characteristics of the built environment, microclimate, and so on. Because occupant comfort is an influential factor for outdoor usage despite warming climates during summer, in the present study, we focus on the relationship between the human thermal environment and human flow to improve occupant experience. 2. MethodologyTo analyze this relationship, we conducted field measurements using human participants (10 participants for every season) in different locations in real urban streets throughout the year. Human flow was simultaneously obtained using a mobile location data. To quantify the human thermal environment, the human thermal load was calculated based on measurements. Solar and infrared radiation, air temperature and relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and participants’ skin temperature and activity level were recorded at 1-min intervals. Perceptions such as thermal sensation and comfort were also recorded at 5-min intervals. The human thermal load is considered to be an indicator of a human’s physical state. This pilot study was conducted in Toyohashi, Japan, in cooperation with the city government.3. Results and summaryWe successfully quantified both the human thermal environment and the human flow. Generally, there is no clear relationship between them in the scatter plot because many factors other than thermal comfort affect travel routes. However, the area that needs to be thermally improved becomes clear, for example, a street with high pedestrian traffic and a poor thermal environment. Additional analyses depending on the season and time period were also conducted; thus, we can obtain a future direction for a walkable city in Toyohashi.

In 2004, the American Podiatric Medical Association conducted its third annual "Best Walking City Competition." This study improved on the 2002 and 2003 studies by increasing the number of cities competing for the title of "Best Walking City" and by including a variety of new measures of walking activities to provide a more comprehensive and equitable basis for comparing cities. The top 20 best walking cities in 2004 were identified from among the 200 largest cities across the United States. Lists of top cities were also developed by city population size and geographic region and by three different types of walking activities prevalent in each city.

BackgroundPhysical inactivity is a major health risk worldwide, while walking is one of the most accessible forms of exercise that improves public health and supports sustainable urban mobility. Yet the combined and nonlinear effects of the built environments and seasonal climate on exercise walking in high-density cities remain insufficiently explored. This study aims to uncover these relationships and provide insights for health-oriented and climate-adaptive urban planning.MethodsCrowdsourced walking trajectory data were analyzed for three representative high-density Chinese cities, Beijing, Wuhan, and Guangzhou, covering both summer and winter. A comprehensive variable system was established, incorporating built environments, seasonal climate, and socioeconomic factors. A geographically weighted extreme gradient boosting model was developed with Bayesian optimization and cross-validation to improve robustness. Interpretability was achieved through Shapley Additive Explanations, partial dependence plots, and clustering analysis to identify global and local drivers of walking activity.ResultsThe geographically weighted extreme gradient boosting model outperformed traditional regression and other machine learning models in prediction accuracy. Walking trajectories showed clear spatial clustering, with central urban cores as hotspots, and seasonal differences most pronounced in Beijing. Walk Score was consistently the most stable and influential factor across cities and seasons. Among climatic variables, air quality and temperature had the strongest impacts, particularly in winter. Variables exhibited three types of nonlinear responses: sustained growth (such as Walk Score and pedestrian street length), threshold-sensitive (such as intersection density and population density), and fluctuating patterns (such as air quality and housing prices). Local cluster analysis revealed three context-specific patterns: environment-driven areas such as parks and campuses, function-driven commercial centers, and structurally imbalanced or transitional zones.ConclusionsExercise walking in high-density cities is shaped by both seasonal climate variability and spatial heterogeneity of the built environments. Improving pedestrian infrastructure, managing density thresholds, and implementing climate sensitive design can mitigate adverse weather impacts and foster year-round walking. Tailored strategies, including enhancing microclimate resilience in ecological zones, optimizing density and functional mix in commercial districts, and restructuring fragmented large blocks, are essential to create pedestrian friendly, health oriented, and climate adaptive cities.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12942-026-00453-x.

The promotion of London as a ‘walkable city’ and overlapping walks of life

This research discusses the concept of a pedestrian-friendly city or Walkable City in Surabaya, relating it to Bandung. Based on the Most Liveable City Index (MLCI), Bandung ranks at the Average Tier City level, indicating it has the best city implementation in Indonesia. Similarities in city layout, road conditions, and the economic characteristics of the population suggest that Surabaya and Bandung have similar city identities. This research employs qualitative methods with content analysis techniques to analyze data and interpret the meaning behind data and information from social media users. The findings reveal that Jalan Braga retains a historical impression and features pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, including inclusive public spaces and street designs. However, the lighting on Jalan Braga is dim, causing visitors to feel anxious at night. In Surabaya, especially on Jalan Tunjungan, the walkable city conditions are similar to Jalan Braga. However, the crossing lights are ineffective, and the lack of canopies along the sidewalks discourages walking during the day due to the extreme heat, which is a drawback for implementing a walkable city on Jalan Tunjungan.This research suggests that to improve safety, resilience, and sustainability in inclusive road and urban traffic design comprehensively, the integration framework needs to be expanded beyond conventional views—limited to technology or products, business or economics, and infrastructure or platforms—to encompass space, speed, and priority. Each of these factors directly influences accessibility, security, and social usability and has a reciprocal and interdependent relationship with the others.

Walkable city is a concept to support livable and sustainable cities. A walkable city is a pedestrian-friendly city where pedestrian spaces and facilities are available in good quality so that they can support the mobility of space users on foot as a form of green mobility. Therefore, it is important to provide a good quality pedestrian to guarantee the safety, comfort and security of people who pass by. This research aims to assess the quality of pedestrians on the Pahlawan road, Pandanaran II road and Tri Lomba Juang road. This area is located in the central area of ​​Semarang city and has high activity, such as government offices, private offices, trade and services, education, and public spaces. The number of users of this space is quite high and some of the users of the space are pedestrians, so it is necessary to assess whether the existing pedestrian area can meet the mobility needs of users or not. Pedestrian quality assessment uses the global walkability index method where there are 9 indicators used as the basis for assessment. The assessment results show that pedestrians on Pahlawan road have a score of 79 (good and adequate). While pedestrians on Pandanaran II road have a score of 57 (fairly good and adequate) and pedestrians on Tri Lomba Juang road have a score of 50 (not good and adequate enough). Keywords: pedestrian, quality, walkability index

Evidence for the benefits of walking has attracted the attention of researchers and practitioners and encouraged them to develop healthier and more sustainable walkable cities. Many methods and approaches have been developed to measure walkability; namely, by using land use attributes. This paper examines the transferability of the Geographic Information System (GIS) based multi-criteria method developed in the Smart Pedestrian Net (SPN) research project to evaluate the level of walkability in a pedestrian network in Guimarães, Portugal. The method involves the assessment of 19 built environment and streetscape attributes, which were scored by a group of experts following the analytic hierarchy process. The method proved to be efficient in evaluating the pedestrian network and in mapping walkability in the study area. Around 65% of the street lengths scored above 0.60, indicating that the overall pedestrian conditions are favourable, with the best performance criteria being those related to accessibility and street connectivity. The method also allowed for the identification of different levels of walkability within the study area and the lack of a pedestrian network of highly scored streets. According to the results, the SPN method could be replicated in other cities to evaluate walkability and could be a useful planning tool to support policies towards developing more walkable cities.

As current society’s reflection on the rapid development of motorization and increasing emphasis on the ecological environment, the study of walkable cities has become one of the key points of urban sustainable design. Creating a walkable city is an effective way to build a low-carbon and healthy city. With the development of cities, walkability concepts and theories are constantly being given new life, and research methods and design strategies continue to be updated. A city’s walkability and walkability index have become current research hotspots. Based on prior research on walkability and related urban policies, this study selects Coomera Town on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia, as the research area because of Coomera Town policy regulations and environmental requirements. This study utilizes traditional qualitative and quantitative research methods, machine mining technology, and the deep learning big data analysis technology to conduct thematic design research in a real place. Its combines walkability evaluation with walkability design to construct a walkable city in a targeted manner. This provides a reference for related city design in the future.

Designing cities for cars rather than people has left them unhealthy, and has left many streets unattractive places to walk, cycle or use public transport. Roads become more crowded and cities become congested. In the last two decades, creating walkable cities becomes a different vision of recent urban design approaches. Walkable cities means that they have quality spaces to thrive, safe, and inviting to people of all ages to be capable of reaching every inch of the spaces by walking. Walkable places are comfortable, convenient, healthy, and sustainable, places where people can get chances to meet each other or to have potential outdoor activities. However, obtaining walkable cities in Egypt is still a challenge because of its difficulty to achieve. Therefore, the time has come for more effective urban design approaches seeking enhancing walkability in Egyptian cities. The objective of this research is to present a design approach for enhancing walkability in congested and car-dependent cities such Egyptian cities. The main core of the proposed deign approach is based on reimaging the physical elements and upgrading the aesthetics and visuals of the built environment to attract people to mainly depend on walking as a means of transportation. .

Walking is one of the physical activities that uses the feet as the main tool in moving, walking activities are included in the universal cheap transportation modes that are easily found in developed cities, to connect the movement of human activities from one area to another, so that socio-economic and cultural activities are created. This walking activity is a fundamental aspect of the city, where the centers of large urban economic activities depend on one of them on walking activities. A city that is friendly to walking activities is called a city with the character of Walkable City or a city that is friendly to pedestrians and the environment, while the status of a Walkable City can be known by analyzing the Walkable City Value (WIV) or the pedestrian-friendly index value of an observed area. The Walkable City concept promotes walking activities as the main means of transportation with the aim of improving a healthier lifestyle that is more environmentally friendly. In the city of Surabaya there are many centers of economic distribution, one of which is Jalan Tunjungan, the road is included in the Heritage area which has a center of economic, social and cultural activities, so that in any case it requires an analysis of the Walkability Index Value on the pedestrian path on the road. This study aims to analyze WIV on the Tunjungan Street lane, the analysis was conducted using the actual direct participatory observation method, in the observation area using a Likert scale questionnaire that was previously compiled. The results of this study are the Walkability Index Value of the Tunjungan Street Heritage Area, which is 86 out of a maximum score of 100. This value indicates that the quality of the Tunjungan Street Heritage Area is included in the "Highly Walkable" category.

Urban morphology, as a discipline, focuses on analyzing the structural components of urban space and how these components come together, often in response to user needs. This study aims to identify the scientific trends and thematic trajectories in urban morphology by analyzing 1073 publications indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database between 2000 and 2025. Co-citation analysis, one of the bibliometric techniques, was conducted using the CiteSpace software. This method allows for the identification of thematic clusters within the urban morphology literature, the key publications representing these clusters, and the temporal relationships among them. The analysis reveals that the literature is shaped around six main thematic clusters: "urban form evolution," "diachronic analysis," "cities," "urban sprawl," "informal settlements," and "walkable cities". These clusters indicate a shift in the field from static analyses focused solely on physical form toward multidimensional, data-driven, and socially engaged research agendas. Temporal analysis further reveals that inter-cluster interaction has significantly increased, particularly after 2019. This study maps the thematic and temporal evolution of urban morphology between 2000 and 2025, offering insights into the field’s development and its emerging interdisciplinary connections.