Relationship Between Physical Environment and Pedestrian Activities : A study in the context of Commercial Districts in Urban Malaysia

Pedestrian Activity is popularly associated with health issues. However, pedestrian activity has more contributions. Especially in business or commercial districts, a lot of pedestrian activity takes place. Not all of them are related with health issues. Researchers have found that pedestrian activity not only creates a buzzing vibrancy in the commercial districts, but also can significantly contribute to the local security, which is also a very important issue. Therefore, there have been searches for variables which can generate and sustain such pedestrian activity. Studies show that though there are some universal variables, some of them are specific to local context. This study searched for such variables in physical environment, which can create and sustain such vibrancy in the context of urban commercial centers in Malaysia. With a method of observing pedestrian activity, and hypothesizing the intensity of people as the parameter of such vibrancy, this study adopted several key statistical methods to come up with some interesting findings. It showed that certain components of mixed land use patterns and streetscapes are significant to generate and sustain pedestrian vibrancy.