The City of Seoul has used diverse urban development projects in the past, thus creating different urban tissues. Such urban development projects have been used for different purposes, according to the times, thereby influencing Seoul's urban tissues....
The City of Seoul has used diverse urban development projects in the past, thus creating different urban tissues. Such urban development projects have been used for different purposes, according to the times, thereby influencing Seoul's urban tissues. The urban development projects that have influenced the urban tissue included colonial Japan's land re-adjustment projects, land re-adjustment projects, which were conducted from post-Korean War to 1980s, in order to secure key street networks, parks, and other public use lands, as well as mass apartment complex-style land development projects conducted to date since 1980s.
Urban tissue is a factor that influences pedestrian activity and activation. There are also different types of urban tissue that influence pedestrian accessibility and pedestrian activity. A vibrant urban life influences the activities of many people and their surrounding small-scale city blocks, which are necessary for an urban vitality, thereby increasing the diversity of pedestrian activity and invigorating the city.
Furthermore, pedestrian activity is not only a means of transport for the people, but it is also greatly influential on the social and economic activation of the urban and regional areas. In addition, the pedestrian volume is an important index that indicates pedestrian activity and activation of a city, region, and street, among others. It is significantly influenced by the urban and regional tissues, physical street environment characteristics, and other pedestrian environment factors.
Most of the relevant studies have focused on the relationship between physical street environment characteristics and pedestrian volume, while studies on the relationship between urban tissue and pedestrian volume have not been activated. As a result, this study aims to identify the influential relationship between the urban tissue characteristics and pedestrian volume of Seoul's past urban development projects, determine which urban tissue positively influenced the pedestrian volume, and define the factors that influenced the pedestrian volume in each different tissue.
In terms of spatial scope, this study targeted the entire Seoul area, analyzed the connectivity between urban tissue and pedestrian volume, and selected land re-adjustment project areas and land development project areas under Seoul's implemented urban development projects. In terms of time span, this study targeted the year 2009 when the traveling population was surveyed in order to measure the pedestrian volume. This study set dependent variables by replacing the 2009 Seoul traveling population survey's weekday average pedestrian volume with natural logarithms (ln), and established independent variables, such as street environment characteristics, density characteristics, accessibility, land use characteristics, and regional characteristics.
First, After targeting the whole Seoul area, the pedestrian volume survey points were analyzed and compared in the land re-adjustment project areas that represented the small-scale urban tissue and the land development project areas that represented the large-scale urban tissue. Variables that influenced the pedestrian volume, such as street environment characteristics, density characteristics, accessibility, land use characteristics, and regional characteristics, were selected as control variables, and the influential relationship between urban tissue characteristics and pedestrian volume was identified. As a result, the pedestrian volume was higher in the small-scale block-style urban tissue than the large-scale block apartment complex-style urban tissue. It was also found that the small-scale urban tissue positively influenced the urban and street activation.
Second, the land re-adjustment project areas and the land development project areas were analyzed. In areas with different urban tissues, the elements that influenced the pedestrian volume with the addition of specific variables by time before the 1960s to 2000s were analyzed. As a result, a higher pedestrian volume was found in the land re-adjustment project areas with the small-scale urban tissue during the 1960s in terms of specific variables by time. With the passage of time, a change to the large-scale urban tissue negatively influenced the pedestrian volume. In the land development project areas with a large-scale urban tissue, a lower pedestrian volume was found in the large-scale block apartment-style urban tissue.
In areas with different urban tissues, the relationship among accessibility, regional characteristics, and the pedestrian volume have the same results; however, the relationship among the variables of street environment characteristics, density characteristics, and land use characteristics have different results. In areas with a small-scale urban tissue, the pedestrian volume was influenced by variables, such as the walkway width, number of roadway lanes, exclusive pedestrian roads, bus lanes, slope roads, fences, bus stops, existence or non-existence of subway station entrances, and existence or non-existence of cross walks, as well as by the floor area ratio and the number of land plots among the density characteristics. In the land use characteristics, the pedestrian volume was influenced by the area covering the detached houses, multiplex houses, multi-household houses, apartment houses, neighborhood living facilities, culture and leisure activities, shopping facilities, traditional markets, educational facilities, and business facilities. In areas with a large-scale urban tissue, the pedestrian volume was influenced by the walkway width, fences, existence or non-existence of crosswalks, and floor area ratio of density characteristics. In the land use characteristics variables, the pedestrian volume was influenced by the area covering the apartment houses, neighborhood living facilities, shopping facilities, accommodation and recreational facilities, medical and welfare facilities, and educational facilities.
The findings of this study suggest that when executing urban planning and development projects, such as urban regeneration projects aimed at urban and regional activation, not only the physical environment of the streets, but also the urban tissue should be taken into account, along with the land development projects being executed with focus on large-scale apartment development. These findings are expected to be used for the implementation of such projects.