International urban planning theory in the 20th century has remarkable characteristics of cross-cultural communication. After 1949, the “Soviet Model” of urban planning came to China through top-down promotion. At the same time, the“ European and American Experience” of modern urban planning did not be withdrawn. By collecting historical texts and archives, this paper reveals the opposition of planning theory and practice between the Soviet Model and the European and American Experience from 1949 to 1952, and investigates the deep logic of paradigm transformation. Looking back on this period of history can reflect the initial settings of many levels of modern urban planning in China, and it is easier to understand the internal factors of success or failure of today’s urban planning. This subversive paradigm shift and its rich historical information can also provide the historical dimension of concern for the current land and space planning reform.

In this paper, we discuss walkable cities from the perspective of urban planning and design in the era of digitalization and urban big data. We start with a brief review on historical walkable cities schemes; followed by a deliberation on what a walkable city is and what the spatial elements of a walkable city are; and a discussion on the emerging themes and empirical methods to measure the spatial and urban design features of a walkable city. The first part of this paper looks at key urban design propositions and how they were proposed to promote walkability. The second part of this paper discusses the concept of walkability, which is fundamental to designing a walkable city. We emphasize both the physical (walkways, adjacent uses, space) and the perceived aspects (safety, comfort, enjoyment), and then we look at the variety of spatial elements constituting a walkable city. The third part of this paper looks at the emerging themes for designing walkable cities and neighborhoods. We discuss the application of urban big data enabled by growing computational powers and related empirical methods and interdisciplinary approaches including spatial planning, urban design, urban ecology, and public health. This paper aims to provide a holistic approach toward understanding of urban design and walkability, re-evaluate the spatial elements to build walkable cities, and discuss future policy interventions.

Walkable urban environment not only contains continuous, beautiful and pleasant walking space, but also has a profound impact on people’s walking experience in the city due to the appropriate temperature and wind speed. In recent years, under the influence of global climate change, unsuited urban microclimate including too hot or too cold weather or strong wind has seriously affected outdoor activities in European cities with high density, such as London, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, which forced people to reduce or avoid activities including walking in related urban spaces with harsh microclimate environment. Simultaneously, a large number of existing studies in walkable research field are focusing on the analysis of the physical elements in the urban pedestrian environment, such as landscape, pedestrian path width, recreation facilities, and their internal mechanisms. However, there are few studies on the urban microclimate elements, such as temperature and wind speed, which affect people’s physiological feelings in outdoor activities. Therefore, it is worthwhile to explore whether there is a microclimate governance logic in the specific discussion and measurement of people’s walking experience and the improvement of walking suitability in cities. Based on this issue, this paper analyses the interaction between urban material space and urban microclimate, and summarizes the correlation mechanism between urban material environment and microclimate. Then, pedestrian-scaled and pedestrian-oriented urban microclimate control strategy and governance logic are proposed to improve pedestrians’ physiological feelings during the walking process in high-density urban built environment. In addition, this is to optimize walking suitability in high-density cities and to promote the development of human-oriented city from another view.

As China gradually enters an aging society, health issues of elder people grab the attention of whole society. Doing adequate physical activity is beneficial for health of elder people. Better accessibility could increase the utilization of public space, encourage urban residents to participate in physical activity. However, the climate characteristic is a domain factor for winter cities. Although there is a growing number of researches concerning elder people and walkability. However, knowledge gap regarding to climate context exists, especially in winter climate characteristics in cold region. This paper takes Harbin, a typical winter city of China, as research site, analyzes the current situation of public space walkability according to the physical activity behaviors and travel behaviors of elder people. Based on it, combined with the experience of cold cities in North America such as Ottawa and with the walkability status of winter cities in China, strategies including reallocating spatial distribution of public spaces, constructing comprehensive walking system and creating enjoyable walking environment to improve and optimize the walkability of urban public space are proposed.

Street is believed as one of most important public spaces in a city, which carries the commuting, shopping, recreation, and communication functions of citizens’ daily life. However, during the rapid urban expansions, street spaces in cities have also encountered many troubles, such as decreased street space quality, diminished suitability for street-walking, insufficient street security, and low street vitality. Therefore, how to enhance the street walkability through human scale and how to build a healthy and sustainable city development model become core arguments in the relevant fields. Most of the previous research usually focuses on the transportation aspect of streets, addressing their accessibility and permeability, whereas the human-scale aspects of street space quality has been largely ignored. Therefore, this article selects street walkability as the research object, looking into a city’s central district area in specific. A multi-source database is established, based on urban 3D morphology big data, POIs data, and street image data for the quantitative analysis of this research. The results depict a fanshaped circular distribution pattern for the street walkability—measured into accessibility, convenience, comfort, and safety—in the central area of Nanjing city, consisting of a multi-core connected central area and scattered fringe areas. In addition, the interactive mechanism between street walkability and the influencers, such as urban 3D morphology, natural environment, landscape, and urban function distribution and POIs is found. Based on that, strategies with an aim of walkability optimization are further provided.