Residents’s Subjective Assessment of Walkability Attributes in Objectively Assessed Neighbourhoods

Abstract

The attributes of the built environment may influence walking in neighbourhood. The objective of this study is to find the association between objectively assessed and perceived built environment attributes. To achieve the objective of the study three neighbourhood of Putrajaya, Malaysia Precinct 8, 9 and 18 were selected. This study used NEWS (Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale) abbreviated version for the comparison of the residents’ perceptions regarding attributes of three neighbourhoods of Putrajaya in Malaysia that differ on objective measures derived from a GIS (Geographical Information System) data basis and Putrajaya master plan. High-walkable neighbourhood residents reported built environment attributes ratings persistently higher as compared to the residents of the moderate and lowwalkable neighbourhood. Results from the high walkable neighborhood shows that on a 5-point Likert scale most residents perceived high ratings of within the range of “3†except for residential density as there is a different scoring procedure for it. There are lowest ratings perceived within the range of “1†for the attribute crime and according to the scoring procedure for crime lowest score reflects the highest level of walking.There is no significant difference found in the ratings for traffic hazards. Subjective measures of built environment attributes had moderate to high alpha (α) value. Hence theneighbourhood environment walkability scale can be used for subjective assessment in the tropical context.