Urban form and walkability: the assessment of walkability capacity of Ankara

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2018

Author

Ak, Aslı

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Walkable cities are one of the major requirements of sustainable and livable cities. From the 1960s to nowadays, contemporary cities have been shaped and developed through an automobile-oriented planning which neglects of public transport users, pedestrians and cyclists, promotes urban sprawl leading to a high-costly infrastructural investments. Based on privately owned car-oriented transportation policies and rapid urbanization dynamics, cities grow fast by sprawling with uncontrolled building densities, while increasing environmental pollution, raising social and economic inequalities, public health problems, causing destructive effects on agricultural productive lands, open green spaces and forest lands, natural wild life. All these problems threaten economic, social, environmental and ecological sustainability of cities. This research mainly argues that there is a strong relationship between urban form and walkability capacity of a city or urban environment. It aims to show that walkability of cities should be studied, planned and designed based on three major scales: macro scale, meso scale and micro scale. By identifying the key walkability parameters of each scale, it seeks to develop a walkability assessment approach to develop more sustainable urban forms at macro, meso and micro scales. By using Ankara as the case study and focusing two neighborhoods in the city, it assesses the walkability capacity of urban environments at different levels. By using the walkability assessment method on the two different districts –Kavaklıdere and Çukurambar- and two main mix-used streets of these districts with different urban form qualities, it also shows the different walkability capacity of urban form at meso and micro scales.

Subject Keywords

Urbanization., Cities and towns., Pedestrian areas., Public spaces., Pavements., Sidewalks.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12622409/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/27736

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

A. Ak, “Urban form and walkability: the assessment of walkability capacity of Ankara,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2018.