What is it about?
Walkable places are valuable assets in cities. They have advantages over vehicle-oriented spaces in terms of economic, social, health, energy and environmental perspectives. Walk-only precincts (WoP) have been built in various parts of the world with different degrees of success. Using the Commercial Revitalization Vibrancy (CRV) theory, this paper compares and contrasts WoP in three pair-wise large and small cities: Shanghai (China) and Macau (SAR of PRC), Lisbon and Figueira da Foz (Portugal), and New York City and Miami Beach in the United States.
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Why is it important?
It synthesizes and discusses the six precincts according to the eight-pronged criteria for the analysis of successful WoP, which are: (i) location of the streets in the cities and main reasons for their creations, (ii) proportion of the pedestrian precincts in relation to the cities and to other centers and subcenters, (iii) relationships between the streets and the surrounding areas and activities, (iv) accessibility to the pedestrian precincts and movement in the streets, (v) conciliation between the needs of different street users, (vi) strategies to respond to the competition from new and emerging centers, (vii) funding of improvements and continued management activities, and (viii) perpetuation of success and avoidance of decline.
Perspectives
The key takeaway findings are the growing popularity of WoP in the three continents, their preeminence according to their host territories’ urban and functional hierarchy, their conception of connecting key destinations in cities, and the existence of idiosyncratic niche markets capable of distinguishing and individualizing each WoP in the cities’ vast urban and metropolitan hinterlands.
Dr. Carlos J. L. Balsas, AICP
Ulster University Belfast
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Exciting walk-only precincts in Asia, Europe and North-America, Cities, May 2021, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2021.103129.
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