Urban Transport
Esfandiar Zebardast; elnaz baghernejhad
Abstract
The analysis of the casual relationship between built environments and travel behavior has been a key issue in the literature on transportation and planning. Residential self-selection is an issue that requires greater elaboration in investigations of built environments and travel behavior. It suggests ...
Read More
The analysis of the casual relationship between built environments and travel behavior has been a key issue in the literature on transportation and planning. Residential self-selection is an issue that requires greater elaboration in investigations of built environments and travel behavior. It suggests that people choose their neighborhoods according to their travel attitudes and preferences. In other words, people who prefer to walk more decide to reside in walkable neighborhoods. Therefore, people walk more because they like to walk. Hence, residential self-selection, which refers to people’s propensity to choose where to live, is based on their travel attitudes. It is therefore essential to explore the impacts of built environments on travel behavior given the roles of travel attitudes, neighborhood preferences, and socio-demographic characteristics in explanation of the relationship. In this paper, structural equation modeling was applied to specify the extent to which the observed patterns of travel behavior could be attributed to the residential built environment, through investigation of the relationship between the built environment and the frequency of non-work travel involving walks in three neighborhoods with different land development patterns in Tehran, Iran. With an identification of the direct and indirect impacts of the factors effective on travel behavior, the following hypotheses were made. 1) If a built-environment element affects travel behavior or another factor directly or indirectly, it has a causal relationship with travel behavior. 2) If the travel attitudes or neighborhood preferences affect the built environment, self-selection could be understood as confounding the casual relationship between the built environment and travel behavior. For testing the above hypotheses, data were collected from 273 questionnaires distributed in three neighborhoods: Moniriye (as a traditional neighborhood), Golestan (as an automobile-oriented neighborhood), and Bime (as a conventional neighborhood). Using exploratory factor analysis, the aspects of built environments were extracted as follows: residential environment characteristics, highway accessibility, public transport accessibility, destination diversity and accessibility, density, and residence preferences. The latter refers to residents’ accessibility preferences/priorities if they wish to move to a new neighborhood. Moreover, the factors effective on travel attitudes, as elicited by exploratory factor analysis, were found to include favoring means of transport other than private cars, dependent on private cars, reducing travel, and favoring private cars. After the specification of the domains of built environment, accessibility preferences/priorities, and travel attitudes, structural equation modeling was applied to identify the relative and casual relationships between the built environment and travel behavior in the three neighborhoods. The evidence from the car-oriented and conventional neighborhoods indicated the causality of the relationship between the built environment and travel behavior. In the traditional neighborhood, however, travel attitudes and neighborhood preferences were found to influence travel behavior directly and indirectly. Nevertheless, the overall comparative assessment of the direct/indirect impacts on travel behavior in the three examined neighborhoods demonstrated that the built environment elements had casual effects on the travel behavior involving walks. For instance, destination diversity and accessibility had direct and indirect impacts on travel behavior in all the three neighborhoods. It could be concluded that enhancement of diversity and public transport accessibility and reduction of highway accessibility played more prominent roles in non-motorized travel behavior. If cities adopt land use policies offering more options to utilize non-motorized means of transport, therefore, many residents would tend to welcome the idea.
Urban Architecture
SEYYEDEH FATEMEH MOUSAVINIA
Abstract
Adoption of strategies such as compact city design and urban intensification are claimed to positively affect the levels of social sustainability within the city. The sense of safety and social interactions within neighborhoods are also important factors affecting residents’ quality of life and ...
Read More
Adoption of strategies such as compact city design and urban intensification are claimed to positively affect the levels of social sustainability within the city. The sense of safety and social interactions within neighborhoods are also important factors affecting residents’ quality of life and community cohesion and sustainability. However, no research has been conducted on the relationship between density and social ties, and contradictory claims are made about the impacts of higher density on social life in residential environments. It has been demonstrated that people’s experience and perception of density could vary by its levels, and is inadequately expressed by any of its measures. Previous research has found that most of the negative associations of density concern the perceptions thereof, and perceived density is correlated with social interactions and the sense of safety in residential environments. The causal nature of the relationship, however, has not been established. Furthermore, the constructed shapes, residential layouts, and hybrid land uses in a neighborhood and the relevant socio-demographic variables have been found in some studies to play important roles in achievement of social sustainability. A physical element known as gatedness is also believed to influence local community relationship networking and the sense of safety. Therefore, one of the most common strategies that developers adopt to establish communities that provide residents with closer-knit, safe places to live in involves gated communities: residential areas with access restricted through physical barriers such as fences, walls, security guardhouses, and electric gates. Based on the social ecological model, this study highlighted the importance of evaluations and perceptions derived from communal spaces as motivators of social interaction, and demonstrated that the physical environment affects people’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about a local neighborhood through everyday contact and experience. The aim of this study was to examine the structural relationships between perceived density, social interaction, and the sense of safety in gated and non-gated communities. For that purpose, six neighborhoods of the same net residential and population density and the same socioeconomic resident status but with different layouts in the city of Mashhad, Iran were selected for detailed investigation. A total of 590 randomly-selected residents completed a 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire, originating from the reviewed literature. The data analysis was made using SPSS 19 and Amos 23. The reliability of the questionnaire, developed specifically to elicit individuals’ perceptions, was demonstrated, and the latent constructs were validated through confirmatory factor analysis. Then, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to estimate the relationships between the predictors and outcomes. It was found that social interaction was greater in gated communities than in non-gated ones. However, residents in non-gated residential areas exhibited greater senses of safety than those in gated communities. The results of SEM demonstrated that the direct effects of perceived density on social interaction were significant in both groups, and there was a negative causal relationship between perception of density and social interaction. In gated communities, the non-recursive model suggested a feedback loop where a decrease in perceived density would increase social interaction, thereby increasing the sense of safety, in turn further decreasing perceived density. In non-gated communities, however, the sense of safety was influenced by perceived density and thus correlated with social interaction as an independent factor. This finding indicated the mediating role of the sense of safety in the relationship between perceived density and social interaction in non-gated communities.
