Measuring Urban Design

Metrics for Livable Places

verfasst von: Prof. Reid Ewing, Otto Clemente, Kathryn M. Neckerman, Marnie Purciel-Hill, James W. Quinn, Andrew Rundle

Verlag: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics

Buchreihe : Metropolitan Planning + Design

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

What makes strolling down a particular street enjoyable? The authors of Measuring Urban Design argue it's not an idle question. Inviting streets are the centerpiece of thriving, sustainable communities, but it can be difficult to pinpoint the precise design elements that make an area appealing. This accessible guide removes the mystery, providing clear methods to assess urban design.

The book provides operational definitions and measurement protocols of five intangible qualities of urban design, specifically: imageability, visual enclosure, human scale, transparency, and complexity. The result is a reliable field survey instrument grounded in constructs from architecture, urban design, and planning. Readers will also find illustrated, step-by-step instructions to use the instrument and a scoring sheet for easy calculation of urban design quality scores.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter One. Introduction1

Abstract

In terms of the public realm, no element is more important than streets. This is where active travel to work, shop, eat out, and engage in other daily activities takes place, and where walking for exercise mostly occurs. Parks, plazas, trails, and other public places also have an important role in physical activity, but given the critical role and ubiquity of streets, this book focuses on the qualities that make one street more inviting and walkable than another. Think of your last trip to a great European city and what, other than the historic structures and the food, was memorable. You walked its streets for hours and did not tire. It is the magic of a great street environment.

Reid Ewing, Otto Clemente

Chapter Two. Data Collection

Abstract

The research team on the Maryland Inventory of Urban Design Qualities (MIUDQ) project was interdisciplinary, with members from public health as well as planning. As a result, our visual assessment study followed strict protocols to minimize the possibility of bias or inconsistency among the three principal investigators. The adherence to protocols was a novelty for the planners involved in the study, who tend to be more ad hoc in their research methods than are public health researchers. The use of hierarchical modeling methods was another innovation, learned by planners from their public health colleagues.

Reid Ewing, Otto Clemente

Chapter Three. Analysis and Final Steps

Abstract

In this book, we develop a set of procedures that anyone can use to measure urban design qualities with a degree of validity and reliability. The first challenge in doing this is to explain the relationships between urban design qualities and perceived walkability and also between urban design qualities and physical features of streets. The second challenge is to demonstrate that urban design qualities can be rated consistently by different experts and that physical features can be measured consistently by different researchers. In this chapter, we use statistics to quantify both the relationships we are interested in and the reliability of our measurement methods. Urban design qualities that pass both tests are included in our field manual (chapter 6).

Reid Ewing, Otto Clemente

Chapter Four. Urban Design Qualities for New York City

Abstract

In 2006, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Active Living Research program, researchers at Columbia University sampled 588 block faces in New York City and sent a team of observers to collect data on these locations using the Maryland Inventory of Urban Design Qualities (MIUDQ) protocol. The study was conceived and carried out by Columbia’s Built Environment and Health (BEH) group, an interdisciplinary group of researchers who study the ways that neighborhood physical and social environments shape health behaviors and outcomes.¹ To our knowledge, this is the largest-scale implementation of the MIUDQ instrument that has been conducted so far.

Kathryn M. Neckerman, Marnie Purciel-Hill, James W. Quinn, Andrew Rundle

Chapter Five. Validation of Measures

Abstract

This chapter builds on earlier chapters to, for the first time, validate urban design measures against pedestrian counts on 588 street segments in New York City. This is the logical next step using the field measurements and pedestrian counts described in chapter 4. An effort is made to distinguish which measures, if any, influence levels of pedestrian activity after controlling for surrounding density, land use diversity, and other so-called D variables that have been found to influence travel behavior.

Reid Ewing, Otto Clemente

Chapter Six. Field Manual

Abstract

The measures used in previous studies to characterize the built environment have been mostly general qualities, such as neighborhood density and street connectivity. What do these measures tell us about what it is like to walk down a street? The answer is not much, and that’s why measuring urban design qualities is so important. In the previous chapters, we identified five urban design qualities that have a relationship with the overall walkability of a place:

Reid Ewing, Otto Clemente

Backmatter

Titel: Measuring Urban Design
verfasst von: Prof. Reid Ewing
Otto Clemente
Kathryn M. Neckerman
Marnie Purciel-Hill
James W. Quinn
Andrew Rundle
Verlag: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-61091-209-9
Print ISBN: 978-1-59726-367-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-209-9