Situating spatial determinism in urban design and planning for sustainable walkability: a simulation of street morphology and pedestrian behaviour

Abstract

Streets and roads have been constantly identified as key spaces to improve walkability and—by extension—the entire urban environment. Such improvements lie on planning and design theories that are often supported by qualitative evidence and as such, tend to remain highly speculative on how street design influences walkability in more deterministic ways. Drawbacks in further exploring this street-walkability correlation are partly defined by an explicit rejection to ‘spatial determinism’ in urban morphology and social sciences, but also because combining differing epistemological approaches for understanding social processes linked to the physical aspects of the space is complex. In this paper, it is proposed that qualitative (social-based) theories of the space and quantitative (positivist) understandings of people’s behaviour can complement each other to elaborate upon ‘spatial determinism’ with focus on streetscapes and pedestrian behaviour. By using Agent-Based Modelling (ABMs), morphological components of streets linked to population characteristics are analysed to understand walkability from the perspective of spatial determinism. The findings suggest that the street settings directly affect pedestrian behaviour, and that changes in the built environment result in changes on walkability patterns. Ultimately, the modelling exercise shed light on street design and walkability, but also on wider debates on how urban design and social processes correlate in more deterministic and, therefore, predictable ways.