Walk towards sustainability: Improved neighbourhood street connectivity helps

¹ Assistant Professor, Alghurair University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
² Assistant Professor, British University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
³ Assistant Professor, Azad Jammu and Kashmir University, Pakistan.

^* Corresponding author: Yasmeen.gul@agu.ac.ae

Abstract

Walking is important for human health, and street connectivity has been considered as an important attribute to enhance walking. Although street connectivity has been investigated widely in this field of study, the effects of street connectivity on walking have not been investigated with gated neighborhoods’ perspective. Therefore, this study’s objectives are comparing connectivity in gated and non-gated neighborhoods and investigating the association of connectivity with total walking in developing countries. Space Syntax (axial map) has been used to calculate connectivity in 16 neighborhoods, of Karachi, Pakistan. Neighborhood Physical Activity Questionnaire (NPAQ) has been used (n= 1,042 adults) to calculate total walking. Independent sample t-test has been used to check the differences in connectivity and total walking between gated and non-gated neighborhoods, while cross-tabulation (gamma test) has been used to analyze the association. The results show that connectivity and total walking are higher in non-gated neighborhoods than gated neighborhoods, and there is a small but significant association between connectivity and total walking. It indicates that total walking may be correlated to connectivity, therefore, it should be taken into account while designing neighborhoods.