Abstract
Physical inactivity is a significant public health problem in most regions of the world. Among this urban built environment as human habitat could have an effective role in their health by encouraging or discouraging people to be more active. According to many studies, little changes in lifestyle habits such as 15 minutes daily walk can strongly decrease the risk of the fatal disease. While many sources such as New urbanism mention different dimensions of urban planning on walking such as residential density, land use mix, and design factors, they less capture the structure of the street layout. Until recently the lack of using valid instruments to measure urban factors has posed many challenges to achieve this objective. Hence, the present study was conducted to understand how the street layout in residential neighborhoods is related to such routine walking for transport or pleasure. This study focuses on the experience of Iranian cities; to do so it tries to study and compare six contemporary residential neighborhoods/ communities (made less than 50 years) in Shiraz, Iran. The majority of the research method was built based on the principle of the natural movement theory. On the one hand, the street layout in these six neighborhoods analyses using space syntax method. On the other hand, self-reported walking was measured using a random telephone survey. This study provides practical evidence that links the theory of natural movement and walking behavior in residential neighborhoods. These measures can help us better understand the influence of street layout features on walkability for designing and planning healthy cities.
