Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

This study approaches the relationship between pedestrian mobility and urban places in highly dense urban areas. This relation is explored from the concept of place attachment and the activity of daily pedestrian mobility. Scannell & Gifford (2010, p.5) define attachment as “a bond between an individual or group and a place that can vary in terms of spatial level, degree of specificity, and social or physical features of the place, and is manifested through affective, cognitive, and behavioral psychological processes”, allowing for place attachment to be built through movement, and not only relate to static, delimited or closed space. A place understood as an event that subsumes some processes and goes beyond a thing (Massey, 2005). The objective of this research is to understand how people become attached to highly dense urban areas through daily walking, and the role of urban configuration in this process. The zone of interest is the center of Santiago de Chile, one of the densest urban areas in Latin America. The methodology includes qualitative tools; such as semi structured interviews, walking interviews, and visual ethnography for the compilation of information and matrix-based analysis. The qualitative analysis is complemented with spatial analysis in order to better understand the route choice and patterns; reviewing the integration and morphological characteristics of the space. The sample includes adults who walk from their homes to their jobs daily. The paper shows part of the results of a Ph.D. research.