Summary lectures Urban Geography
Hoorcollege 2: 20-09-2018: Walking practices, route choices and
embodied experiences
Walking; where did people come from and where are they going to. How can we
promote walking for healthy reasons and also form promoting things (the cities,
advertisement)? A lot of policy makers are talking about making connections, to
creating fows. For commencing; people spend more time and more money. But also
for capacity reasons.
Mobility turn continued
Mobility as entanglement of movement representation and practice.
- Mobility as movement: physical movement from one place to another; from
something; goods, people.- where do people go to, or where do they come
from
Mobility is not only going from a to be, you also have to look at what is in
between: can be measured and mapped
- Mobility as representation; its more that the neutral movement; meanings
attributed through media, policy, academics, etc. normative and value- laden.
Think about commercial of cars; its about adventure, you have all the
possibilities to go everywhere. Its normative, it seems that being immobile is
negative; if you keep living in the same place for all your life, nothing will
happen. Its also something you kind of have to do (far away vacations,
because why not; you will be confronted with not going far). You should be
mobile according to everyone. (mobility as wanted, mobility as unwanted)
- Mobility as (embodied) practice; something you do, analyse how people move
from one place to another. Mobility is something we do. Enacted and
experienced through our bode, all the senses need to play in actually be
mobile.
‘… the experience of passing through diferent territories of the city, both
because the act of passage is how we know the city as a whole, and also
because planners and architects have such dificulties designing the
experience of passage from place to place. ‘the way we are mobile in the city,
is very crucial for the way we experience and know the city
Walkability
Walkability is prominent in all research of walking. The researchers are always
looking for objective measures to measure the walkability of an environment.
Walkability has four conditions; useful, safe, comfortable and interesting.
Many studies focus on physical features that facilitate and stimulate physical
walking. But their still inconclusive. There are always diferent fndings. They all
focus on the diferent dds
- Density (commercial foor area ratio)
- Diversity (land use mix)
- Design (intersection density, street width)
- Destination accessibility (proximity of retail)
- Distance to transit (accessibility of public transport.
There is an increasing awareness that we should not only take these physical
measures in account, but also need to look at the perceptions on walking. The
perceptions of the street environment.
Perceptions and experiences: ‘however, physical features individually may not tell
much about the experience of walking, down particular street. Specifcally, they do
,not capture peopleds overall perceptions of the street environment, perceptions that
may have complex or subtle relationships to physical features
‘…, signifcant diferences in walkability ratings has been recognized across block
equally walkable with regard to larger-scale measures.
Routes and choices
Tourist shopping in Maastricht downtown area; ‘this model assumes a network of
nodes and links representing a shopping environment. Links correspond to street
segments and a sequence of connection links represent a route.
‘…, the probability an alternative will be chosen from a set of alternatives depends
on the utility of each alternative…, links with a relative high utility have a relative
high probability to be chosen from the set of adjacent linksd. this is the rational
consumer, homo-economics.
Tourist time-space patterns in hong kong area
‘…, the attempt to understand the tourists allocation decision regarding time-space
resources involves recognizing participation in activities, location and duration, and
the movement choices between them, in relation to the potential activity space.
Think about time geography; the potential time budget you have and the potential
choices you can make.
Routes and choices
‘tourist who prefer to experience as much as possible… will try to maximize the
space consumed.. by pushing stops apart and/or choosing non-optimal routes,
resulting in less time for activities and maximal movement time. Otherwise activity-
oriented tourist will try to minimize movement…, clustering activities and/or moving
eficiently between them,…
Two types of tourist as an example
Summarising: (why do people end up in particular places, take particular roots)
- Rationality -homo economicus
- Neutral bodies (time geography)
- Hedonistic (yes/no)
- Distance between researcher and respondent -only than you can do objective
research, you should not get involved
- Quantitative approach -big data
- Positivistic perspective -models look al causalities ft for large populations
- Walking is taken for granted -not considered as taking place in between,
much focus on walking from a to b
Walking
Perceptions and experiences continued
‘ walking, in spatial design principles, is most commonly referred to as a means of
transportation, or a way of getting around. Walking is an elemental way of
perceiving urban places. Whilst walking, one experiences and learns about places
and develops feeling and thoughts for them.
How you experience your neighbourhood by walking
There are diferent types of walking;
- purposive walking: aiming destination, constant rhythm, rapid pace, little
awareness of environment, ‘utilitariand
- discursive walking; spontaneous, varying rhythm and pace, complete
awareness of environment, ‘hedonisticd.
- Conceptual walking; refective, building critical awareness of environment,
artistic. You are trying to understand the environment. Think of an artistic
group that is fascinated by certain routes people walk and try to change
, these roots. Looking at the city as an experiment (walking through New York
with the city map of Paris for example) +what walking through the city
means to you
Senses and experiences
‘… [sensory] experiencing is signifcantly mediated in two ways. First, it is mediated
by bodily mobility; in particular the walking practices specifc to a particular built
environment
Ways of seeing
- Manoeuvring look; walking from one place to another, broad, surveying gaze
- Shopping look; more concentrated and focused, searching for products; much
more open for products on the way, services, diferent setting
- Parenting look; focused, attuned to the movement of children everything else
into the background.
Socialites and conficts: ‘the interactions and potential conficts between cyclists
and pedestrians is a recurrent theme emerging from the data and relates to broader
considerations with the everyday politics associate with pedestrian socialites.d
‘…[sensory] experiencing is signifcantly mediated in two ways… secondly, sensory
experiences are intimately intertwined with perceptual memories that mediate the
present moment of experience in various ways
Relational space;
‘the present is overlaid with memories of how the same environment was
encountered in the past, changes; good and bad. the urban environment is very
refected by how it was before
‘encounters with one town provokes memories of other places; diferences and
similarities. always refexing on other places. Itds the refectional way.
Walk-along method: To dive into personal experiences and perceptions
‘… feldworkers accompany individual informants on their ‘naturald outings, and -
through asking questions, listening and observing- actively explore their subjectsd
stream of experiences and practices as they move through, and interact with, their
physical and social environmentd.
Its much better to understand these experiences and perceptions if you are actually
moving along and are in the same space. You than really dig deep in the mundane,
the details, which you usually do not get from interviews.
Sensescapes: with a the individual walkalongs and interviews they looked at the
shared experiences; walking experiences are multi-sensory
‘the interactive relationship between sensory body and urban environment develops
and changes when we move thought the city, resulting in diferent and dynamic
sensescapes.
Senses and experiences (Versus ‘routes and choicesd)
- Non-rationality
- Embodiedness (geography of the senses)
- Feelings and emotions
- Co-production of researcher and respondent
- Qualitive approach
- Post-structural perspective (contextuality)
- Understand what walking is, does and means
Conceptualization of space
Absolute space (a lot of research is focused on this perspective of space)
Hoorcollege 2: 20-09-2018: Walking practices, route choices and
embodied experiences
Walking; where did people come from and where are they going to. How can we
promote walking for healthy reasons and also form promoting things (the cities,
advertisement)? A lot of policy makers are talking about making connections, to
creating fows. For commencing; people spend more time and more money. But also
for capacity reasons.
Mobility turn continued
Mobility as entanglement of movement representation and practice.
- Mobility as movement: physical movement from one place to another; from
something; goods, people.- where do people go to, or where do they come
from
Mobility is not only going from a to be, you also have to look at what is in
between: can be measured and mapped
- Mobility as representation; its more that the neutral movement; meanings
attributed through media, policy, academics, etc. normative and value- laden.
Think about commercial of cars; its about adventure, you have all the
possibilities to go everywhere. Its normative, it seems that being immobile is
negative; if you keep living in the same place for all your life, nothing will
happen. Its also something you kind of have to do (far away vacations,
because why not; you will be confronted with not going far). You should be
mobile according to everyone. (mobility as wanted, mobility as unwanted)
- Mobility as (embodied) practice; something you do, analyse how people move
from one place to another. Mobility is something we do. Enacted and
experienced through our bode, all the senses need to play in actually be
mobile.
‘… the experience of passing through diferent territories of the city, both
because the act of passage is how we know the city as a whole, and also
because planners and architects have such dificulties designing the
experience of passage from place to place. ‘the way we are mobile in the city,
is very crucial for the way we experience and know the city
Walkability
Walkability is prominent in all research of walking. The researchers are always
looking for objective measures to measure the walkability of an environment.
Walkability has four conditions; useful, safe, comfortable and interesting.
Many studies focus on physical features that facilitate and stimulate physical
walking. But their still inconclusive. There are always diferent fndings. They all
focus on the diferent dds
- Density (commercial foor area ratio)
- Diversity (land use mix)
- Design (intersection density, street width)
- Destination accessibility (proximity of retail)
- Distance to transit (accessibility of public transport.
There is an increasing awareness that we should not only take these physical
measures in account, but also need to look at the perceptions on walking. The
perceptions of the street environment.
Perceptions and experiences: ‘however, physical features individually may not tell
much about the experience of walking, down particular street. Specifcally, they do
,not capture peopleds overall perceptions of the street environment, perceptions that
may have complex or subtle relationships to physical features
‘…, signifcant diferences in walkability ratings has been recognized across block
equally walkable with regard to larger-scale measures.
Routes and choices
Tourist shopping in Maastricht downtown area; ‘this model assumes a network of
nodes and links representing a shopping environment. Links correspond to street
segments and a sequence of connection links represent a route.
‘…, the probability an alternative will be chosen from a set of alternatives depends
on the utility of each alternative…, links with a relative high utility have a relative
high probability to be chosen from the set of adjacent linksd. this is the rational
consumer, homo-economics.
Tourist time-space patterns in hong kong area
‘…, the attempt to understand the tourists allocation decision regarding time-space
resources involves recognizing participation in activities, location and duration, and
the movement choices between them, in relation to the potential activity space.
Think about time geography; the potential time budget you have and the potential
choices you can make.
Routes and choices
‘tourist who prefer to experience as much as possible… will try to maximize the
space consumed.. by pushing stops apart and/or choosing non-optimal routes,
resulting in less time for activities and maximal movement time. Otherwise activity-
oriented tourist will try to minimize movement…, clustering activities and/or moving
eficiently between them,…
Two types of tourist as an example
Summarising: (why do people end up in particular places, take particular roots)
- Rationality -homo economicus
- Neutral bodies (time geography)
- Hedonistic (yes/no)
- Distance between researcher and respondent -only than you can do objective
research, you should not get involved
- Quantitative approach -big data
- Positivistic perspective -models look al causalities ft for large populations
- Walking is taken for granted -not considered as taking place in between,
much focus on walking from a to b
Walking
Perceptions and experiences continued
‘ walking, in spatial design principles, is most commonly referred to as a means of
transportation, or a way of getting around. Walking is an elemental way of
perceiving urban places. Whilst walking, one experiences and learns about places
and develops feeling and thoughts for them.
How you experience your neighbourhood by walking
There are diferent types of walking;
- purposive walking: aiming destination, constant rhythm, rapid pace, little
awareness of environment, ‘utilitariand
- discursive walking; spontaneous, varying rhythm and pace, complete
awareness of environment, ‘hedonisticd.
- Conceptual walking; refective, building critical awareness of environment,
artistic. You are trying to understand the environment. Think of an artistic
group that is fascinated by certain routes people walk and try to change
, these roots. Looking at the city as an experiment (walking through New York
with the city map of Paris for example) +what walking through the city
means to you
Senses and experiences
‘… [sensory] experiencing is signifcantly mediated in two ways. First, it is mediated
by bodily mobility; in particular the walking practices specifc to a particular built
environment
Ways of seeing
- Manoeuvring look; walking from one place to another, broad, surveying gaze
- Shopping look; more concentrated and focused, searching for products; much
more open for products on the way, services, diferent setting
- Parenting look; focused, attuned to the movement of children everything else
into the background.
Socialites and conficts: ‘the interactions and potential conficts between cyclists
and pedestrians is a recurrent theme emerging from the data and relates to broader
considerations with the everyday politics associate with pedestrian socialites.d
‘…[sensory] experiencing is signifcantly mediated in two ways… secondly, sensory
experiences are intimately intertwined with perceptual memories that mediate the
present moment of experience in various ways
Relational space;
‘the present is overlaid with memories of how the same environment was
encountered in the past, changes; good and bad. the urban environment is very
refected by how it was before
‘encounters with one town provokes memories of other places; diferences and
similarities. always refexing on other places. Itds the refectional way.
Walk-along method: To dive into personal experiences and perceptions
‘… feldworkers accompany individual informants on their ‘naturald outings, and -
through asking questions, listening and observing- actively explore their subjectsd
stream of experiences and practices as they move through, and interact with, their
physical and social environmentd.
Its much better to understand these experiences and perceptions if you are actually
moving along and are in the same space. You than really dig deep in the mundane,
the details, which you usually do not get from interviews.
Sensescapes: with a the individual walkalongs and interviews they looked at the
shared experiences; walking experiences are multi-sensory
‘the interactive relationship between sensory body and urban environment develops
and changes when we move thought the city, resulting in diferent and dynamic
sensescapes.
Senses and experiences (Versus ‘routes and choicesd)
- Non-rationality
- Embodiedness (geography of the senses)
- Feelings and emotions
- Co-production of researcher and respondent
- Qualitive approach
- Post-structural perspective (contextuality)
- Understand what walking is, does and means
Conceptualization of space
Absolute space (a lot of research is focused on this perspective of space)
