Contextualizing Walkability: Do Relationships Between Built Environments and Walking Vary by Socioeconomic Context?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Supportive built environments for walking are linked to higher rates of walking and physical activity, but little is known about this relationship for socioeconomically disadvantaged (e.g., low-income and racial/ethnic minority) populations. We review 17 articles and find that most show that the built environment has weaker effects on walking and physical activity for disadvantaged than advantaged groups. Those who lived in supportive built environments walked more and were more physically active than those who did not, but the effect was about twice as large for advantaged groups. We see this difference because disadvantaged groups walked more in unsupportive built environments and less in supportive built environments, though the latter appears more influential. Takeaway for practice: Defining walkability entirely in built environment terms may fail to account for important social and individual/household characteristics and other non–built environment factors that challenge disadvantaged groups, including fear of crime and lack of social support. Planners must be sensitive to these findings and to community concerns about gentrification and displacement in the face of planned built environment improvements that may benefit more advantaged populations. We recommend five planning responses: Recognize that the effects of the built environment may vary by socioeconomics; use holistic approaches to improve walkability; expand walkability definitions to address a range of social and physical barriers; partner across agencies, disciplines, and professions; and evaluate interventions in different socioeconomic environments.

Exploring the Associations of Walking Behavior with Neighborhood Environments by Different Life Stages: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Smaller Chinese City

“…Many studies from western countries showed that physical activity was positively related to high residential density and land-use mix [3][4][5][6][7][8]. However, our study found four contrary results: LUMrecreation and LUM-education were negatively associated with walking duration; there were no significant associations with LUM-daily essential and population density.…”

“…Following this, broad discussion with experts and local residents reduced and adapted all the items of particular relevance to Chinese adults, ensuring the applicability or ease of use by all age groups. The 54 neighborhood characteristic items [23,24] were increased to 74, and then reduced to 59, including additional items of walking duration, walking motivations, and sociodemographic characteristics [8,55].…”

“…With the shift of healthcare strategies from treatment to prevention, the built environment has been taken as a potential form of intervention to enhance physical activity [2]. Much of the existing research indicates that adults tend to be more physically active if they live in high-density and mixed-use neighborhoods, with a range of functional amenities within walking distance [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Of all types of physical activity, walking is the most common in everyday life across most population groups, regardless of age, social class, race or gender, with minimum skills, infrastructure, or equipment required [9][10][11].…”

Creating Walking Led Transit Stations for Women in Malaysia

“…Additionally, the location of curb also should be decreased so that there are many 'free barrier' pedestrian walkways provided. As supported by Adkins et al (2017), barriers to walking should effectively be removed to improve walkability.…”

“…It is unlikely where places are gloomy, dark and quiet motivate people to walk. The influences of these non-built environment factors however have not received adequate attention in the literature (Adkins et al 2017). As argued by Golan et al (2019), urban walkability is largely influenced both by built environment features and non-built environment factors such as pedestrian demographics.…”