Urban vitality, understood as a key factor for the achievement of cities’ sustainability, shows a strong relationship with urban morphology. The city theorist Jane Jacobs suggested morphologi-cal aspects to promote vital cities already in the 1960s, which remain valid in the present. How-ever, few studies in the Andean region quantitatively exemplify this. This paper aims to test the measurement of urban vitality in a neighborhood of Quito, Ecuador, called La Mariscal, inte-grating Jacobs’ approach. In particular, three urban vitality indexes are evaluated with the appli-cation of GIS software using cadastral data obtained from the municipality and field data col-lection. Results show that the context-based previous knowledge and the scale of analysis are es-sential factors in the configuration of dimensions, indicators, and spatial representation of any urban vitality index. In the study area land use mixture, contact opportunity, and accessibility dimensions are fundamental. Regarding indicators, the incorporation of the informal small-scale commerce, the quality of sidewalks, the street slope, and the good-conditioned street furniture is recommended. Finally, a hybrid representation (raster and vectorial) is suggested to precisely measure urban vitality at a block scale. Altogether, by providing a comparative approach, we in-tend to bring a useful framework for researchers and planners to study urban vitality in Andean cities.
Physical activity nearby urban streams is a relevant issue of public health. Ecological models offer an holistic understanding of the factors that influence this practice. However, issues related to the experiential processes behind people-place interactions remain overlooked. Through the analysis of a Barcelona metropolitan stream, this research proposes and tests an integrated ecological-experiential approach. Twenty-four in-depth map-based and go-along interviews were conducted with lay-public. Qualitative content analysis using ATLAS.ti software revealed six place-experience patterns related to users’ motivations for physical activity. Likewise, physical and social factors influential to physical activity were identified. Such factors became barriers or facilitators depending on the perception of each pattern, and the most controversial issue was safety. The diverse perception of factors can lead to conflict when the itineraries related to different experiential patterns coincide. Such finding suggests that the design of inclusive and specialized itineraries is required for physical activity promotion.
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