Increasing active school travel (AST) among children may provide the required level of daily physical activity and reduce the prevalence of obesity. Despite efforts to promote this mode, recent evidence shows that AST rates continue to decrease in suburban and urban areas alike. The aim of this research study, therefore, is to facilitate our understanding of how objective and perceived factors near the home influence children’s AST in an understudied city, İstanbul, Turkey. Using data from a cross-sectional sample of students aged 12–14 from 20 elementary schools (n = 1802) and consenting parents (n = 843), we applied a nominal logistic regression model to highlight important predictors of AST. The findings showed that street network connectivity (as measured by two novel space syntax measures, metric reach and directional reach) was the main deciding factor for active commuting to school, while parents’ perceptions of condition of sidewalks and shade-casting street trees were moderately significant factors associated with AST. Overall, this study demonstrated the significance of spatial structure of street network around the homes in the potential for encouraging AST, and more importantly, the need to consider objective and perceived environmental attributes when strategizing means to increase this mode choice and reduce ill-health among children.

This study examines the extent to which street network configuration is associated with path selection by pedestrians. The aim is to better understand how the spatial layout of the street network affects pedestrian route choice behavior, controlling for pedestrian quality attributes. Randomly selected 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students (ages 12–14) from 15 elementary schools in Istanbul, Turkey were asked to draw their routes walking between home and school. Preliminary findings suggest that when all areas are merged into a single set, global choice, which measures the degree to which a street segment is located in between the shortest paths connecting all pairs of origins and destinations, and metric reach, which measures the street length that is accessible within a walking range, are significantly associated with route selection jointly with the distance to school, sidewalk width, distribution of pedestrians as well as the number of non-residential land-uses. However, directional reach, which measures the extent to which streets are sinuous or aligned, appears to be a strong correlate of route selection in the analysis of individual areas. From a design policy point of view, designing better connected street networks with reduced directional distance between home and school might serve as supporting navigation choices and walking behavior

Background: Active commuting to school can be a substantial opportunity to provide the necessary daily physical activity for children and to counteract childhood obesity. This paper examines the associations of urban form, in general, and street network design, in particular, with body mass index (BMI) in children aged between 12 and 16, controlling for socio-economic features (gender, educational attainment, income, and auto ownership) and daily physical activity (access mode to/from school and walking behaviour).Methods: Data were drawn from questionnaires conducted in 20 elementary schools located in the Anatolian part of İstanbul, Turkey. Randomly selected 6 th , 7 th , and 8 th grade students (N=1784) completed questionnaires regarding their commuting modes to/from school while their parents (N=1118) completed questionnaires about their socioeconomic characteristics and their children`s daily physical activity. Each student's BMI was calculated by measured height and weight data. Home-and school-environments (800-and 1600-meter buffers around the respondent and school) were evaluated through GIS-based land-use data and segment-based street connectivity measures. Selected street segments within school-environments were also audited with regard to pedestrian environment characteristics.Results: Findings indicate that children who actively commuted to/from school had lower BMIs than non-active commuters. More importantly, it is shown that increased street network connectivity measured at the segment-level is significantly associated with reduced BMI in school children. In fact, connectivity measures appear to be the strongest correlates of BMI. Conclusions:This study provides important evidence for planners, urban designers, and policy makers on the significance of built environment, in general, and street network configuration, in particular, within home-and school-environments. One rule of thumb would be to design a well-connected street network with relatively denser connections and reduced direction changes within the neighbourhoodnot only within a couple of blocks of homes and schools but also within their larger fabric (800-1600mt buffers).

The extensive use of smartphones in our everyday lives has created new modes of appropriation and behavior in public spaces. Recognition of these are essential for urban design and planning practices which help us to improve the relationship between humans, technologies, and urban environment. This study aims to research smartphone users in public space by observing their altering visual attention and walking behavior, and, in this way, to reveal the emergent “new figures”. For this purpose, Korenmarkt square in Ghent, Belgium, was observed for seven days in 10-min time intervals. The gaze and walking behavior of smartphone users were encoded as geo-located and temporal data, analyzed and mapped using statistical and spatial analysis methods. Developing and implementing new methods for identifying the characteristics of smartphone users, this study resulted in a nuanced characterization of novel spatial appropriations. The findings led to a better understanding and knowledge of the different behavior patterns of emergent figures such as “post-flâneurs” and “smartphone zombies” while uncovering their altering visual interactions with and movements in the public space. The results evoked questions on how researchers and designers can make use of spatial analysis methods and rethink the public space of the future as a hybrid construct integrating the virtual and the physical.

Highlights• We present a framework that integrates logistic geographically weighted regression (GWR) with spatial accessibility measures to explain children's walking behaviour. • The framework focuses on the varying relationship between different purposes of walking (recreational and transportation) among children and urban form factors as well as socio-economic status (SES). • The walkability framework is applied to the Asian part of Istanbul, Turkey.• Planners and policy makers can use this framework to provide targeted interventions rather than blanket solutions for the design of neighbourhoods in promoting active lifestyles among children.