Abstract
Pedestrian movement is one of the critical issues in urban design, but yet a determinate method for evaluating the attractiveness of an area for walkability has not been established. This paper presents the findings of a comprehensive study on walkability, developed on a historical centre of Istanbul, named Galata that has become segregated in recent years. This study has researched the possible effects of the environmental variables on the levels of activity in urban spaces. The aim is to shed light on key variables that affect the attractiveness of an area for pedestrian movement, which in turn can help to develop an objective methodology to evaluate walkability. Within the context of the study, the existing pedestrian movement patterns in Galata have been observed and a range of variables have been determined to analyze the relationships. The data recorded in this study have been analyzed with a multiple regression analysis, in which pedestrian movement levels are considered as the dependent variable. The result of the regression analyses has generated a model that accounts for 0,60 of the variation in pedestrian movement. According to the findings of the model, pedestrian movement levels have been explained with three out of five variables: safety, accessibility (space syntax integration values) and land use pattern. The method and the findings of this study constitute an analytical model that could shed fresh light for future research on walkability as well as for evaluating proposals to regenerate historical city centers that have lost their vitality.
