Residents’ preferences for walkable neighbourhoods

Abstract

The ‘walkable neighbourhood’ is promoted by planners and designers as a normative goal yet resident responses to this environment, the ultimate occupants of these settings, remain unclear. Completing focus groups with 11 diverse residents’ groups, a critically understudied politically engaged population which often seeks to shape planning practice, this paper unpacks residents’ environmental preferences and examines their relationship to neighbourhood attributes commonly associated with walking. Five dominant preferences relating to local amenities, social interaction, noise, greenspace and density were identified. Positive interactions between these and the considered attributes suggest that groups might find much to like in the walkable neighbourhood. The implications for delivering walkable neighbourhoods are considered.