Insights from Pedestrian Lingering in California's Urban Areas

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Abstract

Urban theorists have long held that the built environment can influence the social quality of neighborhoods, and the theory of urban vitality is a prominent example. Where Jane Jacobs’ built form factors of small blocks, density, aged buildings, and mixed land uses are present, the theory predicts an active, socially-cohesive pedestrian population. Many researchers have tested the theory empirically, finding significant relationships between levels of human activity in public space and built form factors such as mixed land use. However, the conceptualization of vitality as human activity levels does not account for possible confounding effects of travel constraints; additionally, several literatures have found that density of individuals has mixed relationships with other theorized outcomes of vitality such as social behavior and cohesion. I address that gap by using pedestrian lingering to represent urban vitality and test its associations with the built form: by controlling for environmental impediments and natural walking speed, I use average speed to represent the purposeful extension of trip duration. I use data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey to construct this indicator in all urban areas of California. I include personal characteristics, street networks, built form characteristics, trip-generation factors, and weather factors as covariates. Findings show mixed results for the theory of vitality and for human activity levels as an indicator. While mixed land use shows strong positive associations with lingering, density and accessibility do not. Finally, pedestrian trip generation variables were insignificant, indicating that pedestrian volumes and urban vitality are not interchangeable.