Active mobility-oriented urban development: a morpho-syntactic scenario for a mid-sized town

ABSTRACT

This work is based on the analysis and the assessment of morphological and syntactic characteristics of the street network of a mid-sized city: Potenza (County Seat of Basilicata region – Italy). Based on the identification of sustainable mobility options related to the selected case study, the research identifies an active mobility infrastructure framework to improve sustainable mobility policies as a component of urban planning. This research presents the methodology used for creating a ‘morpho-syntactic’ scenario for the case study town. Traditional techniques for morphological analysis (including terrain and street slope) have been integrated by mathematical graph theory-based spatial configuration measurements using the Space Syntax Analysis and Place Syntax Analysis as an extended framework oriented to assess ‘urban places’. The results obtained by this approach are useful for planning a more sustainable urban mobility scenario based on the pedestrian route network for Potenza town and represent a transferable analytical framework for similar cases.

KEYWORDS:

• Active mobility
• sustainable urban development
• space syntax analysis
• place syntax analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 adopted at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador, on 20 October 2016