Syntactical relation between spatial configuration and sense of safety in neighbourhood commercial streets

Abstract

Safety has been highlighted as one of the most important factors of urban life quality. The space syntax theory argues that streets with higher accessibility tend to have lower crime rates, which is the objective dimension of safety. The first point of human interaction with an urban environment is known as townscape. Feeling safe, which is a psychological and social phenomenon, is obtained through decoding this environmental understanding. The aim of this study is to identify the relationship between spatial configuration and pedestrian sense of safety in neighbourhood commercial streets. To this end, space syntax analysis was applied to measure the syntactical variables. Taman Universiti, Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, and Taman Mount Austin were chosen based on their integration measures in the global analysis. Forty streets with high local integration value were selected within the three areas and then observation was carried out in order to prorate 400 questionnaires among pedestrians in these streets. The questionnaires were distributed to collect data about townscape variables affecting pedestrian sense of safety. The impact of townscape factors on pedestrian sense of safety was examined by adopting exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to measure the relationship between syntactical variables and townscape factors. The findings show the townscape factors which affected pedestrian sense of safety include: the sense of place; place identity; memorability; form; legibility; and visual pleasure, of which the last two are the most important factors. Furthermore, the legibility and visual pleasure are strongly correlated with two syntactical variables namely local integration and street connectivity. In fact, local integration and connectivity have positive correlation with some items of townscape such as easy navigation and clarity, and visual permeability and vitality which contribute to legibility and visual pleasure respectively. Results of this study clearly reveal that spatial configuration affects townscape factors and consequently pedestrian sense of safety.