Work

Assessing Neighborhood Walkability Based on Usage Characteristics of Amenities under Chinese Metropolises Context

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: In the age of rapid motorization, walking, as both a green travelling mode and the most common form of daily physical activity, has been given increasing attention in Chinese metropolises. Walkability describes the extent to which a neighborhood environment is walking-friendly and recently has been regarded as a potential impetus for inflated housing prices. In this paper, we develop a walkability measurement model considering residents’ usage characteristics of the amenity, which incorporates three key factors: (1) amenity usage frequency; (2) amenity selection diversity; (3) the distance decay effect. Accordingly, we employ the proposed method to the case of Nanjing City and identify a clear spatial pattern of spatial heterogeneity in walkability among the 4143 dwelling areas within it. The experimental results suggest that the distribution of the residential walkability score varied greatly within Nanjing. It can be seen that dwelling areas with a high walkability score were clustered in the urban central regions and most dwelling areas showed a low walkability. Then, we utilized the hedonic price model to explore the correlation between neighborhood walkability and housing prices. The results show that the effects of community walkability on housing prices were statistically significant in Nanjing. Thus, we can infer that high walkability communities generally have concentrated rich amenity resources, and consequently have high property values.

Source: Sustainability

DOI: 10.3390/su10113879

Authors: Zelong Xia, Hao Li, Yuehong Chen

Institution: Hohai University

Language: English

Topic: Urban Transport and Accessibility

Subfield: Transportation

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,896