The Influence of Built Environment onWalking Behavior: Measurement Issues, Theoretical Considerations, Modeling Methodologies and Chinese Empirical Studies - Space-Time Integration in Geography and GIScience - page 69

5.6 Conclusions

This study reviews and analyzes the experiences and results of the influence of built
environment on walking behavior conducted in Western countries. It argues that
while accessibility as an integrated objective measure could improve comparability
across studies, more subjective measures are needed. It suggests that the TPB
can help us understand the built environment's influence on walking behavior and
normalize the procedure to subjectively measure the built environment. In addition,
introducing greater specificity to the measures would improve the explanatory
ability of the developed model. A theoretical basis for the examination of the
influence is offered from two perspectives: a forecast-oriented perspective by a
discrete choice model and an understanding-oriented perspective by the TPB.
Discrete choice models mostly adopt objective measures, while the subjective
measures constructed by the TPB can be systematically employed into a discrete
choice model as complements. A conceptual model combining a discrete choice
model and the TPB is proposed to explore the built environment's influence on
walking behavior.
Different from Western cities, Chinese cities are experiencing rapid motorization
and urbanization. Driven by economic growth and transportation infrastructure
investment, contemporary urban China is departing from a history marked with
high-density, mixed-land-use and walking traditions. The built environment changes
every day. Residence relocation is ongoing either freely or under enforcement,
making longitudinal design studies very possible. Although the effect of the market
economy on the urban form is becoming more significant, institutional factors still
play an important role in the modern city transformation process. Governments are
still pivotal in making urban planning polices in China. Opportunities for creating
sustainable city forms through bundling land use investment and TOD in large
Chinese cities will be quite substantial in the future. Most Chinese studies focus
on the job-housing balance and less on the social differentiation and stratification
caused by the job-housing separation. More empirical studies that move beyond
Western experiences and policies are required.

Acknowledgement This research is sponsored by Direct Grant from CUHK (CUHK 2021094)
and partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant NO. 41171146
and 41101370).

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