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What makes neighbourhood environment more walkable is an important question for urban planning and design research. The purpose of this paper is to explore this question through a case study of urban sidewalks in different contexts of urban neighbourhoods in Rajshahi city of Bangladesh.

Using participatory observation, Google street view and photography techniques, it examines the quality of the street facilities by demonstrating physical attributes of sidewalks and by analysing how various obstructions on them characterize neighbourhood walkability environment.

The findings suggest that the unusable sidewalks in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh, are a production of inadequate and inappropriate planning and design that unable to capitalize the functionality of sidewalks as a means of walking. It further argues that the urban planners and designers of streets have paid little attention to the diverse requirements of sidewalks in accordance with spatial and socio-economic categories of urban neighbourhoods.

This study adds insights about the urban sidewalks planning and design in the context of a developing country. It provides an empirical evidence about the constraints and potentials of making a walkable city.

This chapter introduces how the built environment and walking are connected. It looks at the interrelationships within the built environment, and how those are changing given planning and policy efforts to facilitate increased walking for both leisure activity and commuting. Using a broad review and case-based approach, the chapter examines this epistemological development of walking and the built environment over time, reviews the connections, policies and design strategies and emerging issues. The chapter shows many cases of cities which are creating a more walkable environment. It also reveals that emerging issues related to technology and autonomous vehicles, vision zero and car-free cities, and increased regional policy may play a continued role in shaping the built environment for walking. This dialogue provides both a core underpinning and a future vision for how the built environment can continue to influence and respond to pedestrians in shaping a more walkable world.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze walking activity and recent efforts at augmenting walkability conditions in the cities of Macau, Lisbon and Las Vegas.

The methodology consisted mostly of in-loco observations, pedestrian counts and extensive reviews of the literature, city plans and regulations.

The findings include the need to properly design, maintain and retrofit pedestrian facilities, while reducing safety conflicts among street users as well as the establishment and the nurturing of a culture of walking.

A fivefold international walkability research agenda with implications for other cities around the world is established: the value and the need for comparative studies and best practices; the need for urban design interventions; the cultivation of attractiveness and aesthetics; the implementation of safety, construction and maintenance criteria; and responsible funding programs.

This paper has twofold implications for stakeholders with direct responsibilities in the design, planning, building and maintenance of streets and public spaces, and for those who simply use those places at their own discretion.

A succinct set of recommendations include the need to augment endogeneity, the need to make cities for people and not for automobiles and commitment to resolving pedestrian safety concerns.

This paper discusses the factors affecting street vibrancy from both a stakeholder’s and a user’s perspective. The fundamental and inalienable right to walk is analyzed using the WPPFUS framework (walking levels, purposes, primacy of walking, facilities, unique features and safety concerns).

The size of the population classified as people with disabilities or older adults is increasing globally. The World Health Organization estimates that the average prevalence of disability is around 18% among adults age 18 and older. People with disabilities and older adults have lower levels of physical activity and experience significant barriers to walking in local neighbourhoods. A new perspective is needed that views disability in the context of the built environment and across the lifespan. The purpose of this chapter is to examine walking as an activity that is inclusive of any age, ability or assistive device used for mobility. Through a literature review, we illustrate the complex relationship that exists between individuals with disabilities/older adults and the built environment. We describe environmental and social factors, which have been found to be associated with walking among people with disabilities and older adults as well as factors perceived to be barriers to walking. Factors cited in the literature include aspects that fall into the environmental domains of the International Classification of Functioning. We conclude by highlighting key factors needed for planning supportive walking environments for people with disabilities and older adults. Recommendations include the use of walking audits to gain information on detailed aspects of the built environment, developing inclusive walking initiatives, including people with disabilities and older adults in the planning process and planning for maintenance.

Purpose – The chapter reviews the relationship between cities, urban form and cycling and identifies generally accepted understandings, issues about which more remains to be known and some prescriptions for future action.

Approach – The discussion is based on evidence drawn from the cycling literature and from primary data collected by the authors.

Findings – Land use patterns and densities have an impact on the level of cycling and, despite some remaining methodological difficulties, it appears that cities which invest in infrastructure for cycling display greater levels of cycle use. Issues which remain in contention and require further analysis include the balance between provision for cycle traffic which is separated from motor traffic and the nature of that provision, the extent to which cycle traffic may directly substitute for trips by motor vehicle and the complexity of estimating the benefits of cycling.

Implications – Planning for cycle traffic needs to be undertaken on an area wide basis and synergistically with traffic management for motor traffic, and such planning should have due regard to the distances for which cycling is most competitive. There remains untapped potential for chaining cycle trips with public transport trips.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the coherent and purposeful design of dense urban districts, by presenting a unified model for the multifunctional nature of urban streets, and illustrating its application in urban design.

Urban technologies and design analyses developed in recent years make a radical combination of environmental and human functions possible in compact urban districts. With these tools in hand, it is possible to organize our understanding of the components of street design.

The kind of street that can be constructed today can be considered an ecosystem in two senses: first, in the conventional sense of a biophysical landscape which participates in rain, sun, and living things; second, in the sense of a resident human community that evolves as does an ecosystem, through interacting of beings with each other and with their environment. Both human and natural systems develop with the same dynamic attributes of openness, self‐regulation, storage, and diversity; from these come the systems’ self‐maintenance, resilience, and adaptation. This is a unified model that encompasses a street's multiple functions and their connections to transportation, land use, and global environmental processes.

Illustrations are given of design practice applying this type of model by articulating and integrating rain gardens, permeable pavements, trees, pedestrian behavior settings, vehicular movements, and land use connections, in integrated forms in the midst of dense urban structures.

In contrast with previously proposed models of street design, the present model is functionally specific and complete, and applicable to streets with diverse features and contexts. With it there need not be antagonism, as there has been in the past, between transportation and the local human community, nor between nature and human welfare.

This paper reviews, summarizes and pieces together scattered information on the newly completed Chicago Riverwalk in Chicago, Illinois. It explains the design process that transformed an outmoded infrastructure and disused river banks into an attractive gathering civic space, a linear urban park and a functional transportation corridor.

Literature review.

Overall, the paper reports on one of the latest projects in Chicago that symbolizes the city's long history and earnest commitment to urban sustainability.

The paper identifies key urban sustainability lessons that are transferable to other cities.

It is the first paper that stitches together scattered information on the topic.

This paper aims to describe an online inclusiveness-training initiative launched at global financial-services company State Street Corporation, which helped the company to earn a place among The Times Top 50 Employers for Women.

It explains the reasons for the program, the form it took and the results it achieved.

It reveals that State Street decided to include employees from every level of the company in the design, development and implementation of the training. Details how an Intranet site provides employees with additional learning resources and opportunities for discussion. It illustrates how management-level accountability for the up-take of the program helped to identify areas where further promotion was needed and instilled a sense of competition among team-leaders.

It highlights how female representation on the executive board of State Street, UK, has risen to 36 from 11 per cent and how, since the training began, 75 per cent of senior UK recruits have been women.

It outlines how the company has maintained its commitment to improving workplace gender equality and reducing the gender wage gap.

It describes how managers from the company’s various international offices were logged into a “virtual classroom” in groups of 50, where they watched the training modules delivered live and conferred online with their “classmates” around the world.

To overview the gamut of issues that on-street parking impacts in mixed-use centers including: parking demand, land use, vehicle speed, road safety, the pedestrian environment, and travel behaviors.

In addition to reviewing existing literature, the following two case studies are presented. The first study explores the impact in centers built before the advent of parking regulations as compared to more contemporary, conventional developments. The second study investigates how street design factors affected vehicle speeds and safety, based on a study of over 250 roads.

On-street parking typically: serves the highest demand; is efficient in terms of land use and cost; induces lower vehicle speeds; increases safety on low-speed streets; enhances walkability; and fosters less driving, more pedestrian activity, and increased vitality.

On-street parking is one piece of a larger puzzle of complementary factors that influence issues such as travel behavior and safety, and therefore, it is difficult to isolate. On-street parking plays a crucial role in helping create places that are walkable, require less parking, and have more vitality. On-street parking is not purely a device to be used in the right environment; rather, it is a tool to help create that right environment.

Prevailing thought on the subject of on-street parking has shifted back-and-forth for generations, in part because most studies focus on one or two impacts. This chapter takes a more comprehensive approach in order to increase our understanding of on-street parking in mixed-use, commercial centers.