Pedestrian pathway as cultural imageability in an urban environment

Abstract

Pedestrian pathways are important physical and social components that enhance the essence and experience of an urban environment. These components support the concept of cultural imageability, which describes how a city's identity and culture shape the perception, experience, and memory of the urban environment. The initial perception of a highly imageable location is shaped by attributes such as cultural representation, uniqueness, and prominent architectural and design structures. This suggests that urban features like pedestrian pathways can embody cultural imageability. The pathways not only fulfil functional purposes but also deliver physical and social benefits through factors and significances associated with cultural imageability. Nevertheless, current urban development that prioritises vehicles discourages a pedestrianising urban environment and ultimately undermines the urban environment’s social and cultural aptitude. This has significant negative impacts on the development of pedestrian pathways as instruments of cultural imageability. Therefore, the aim of this research is to evaluate pedestrian pathways towards the formation of cultural imageability in an urban environment. A mixed-methods approach was employed, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods. To evaluate these pathways’ cultural imageability, a questionnaire survey and systematic observations were used. Two urban pedestrian pathways were observed: Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in Kuala Lumpur and Jalan Hang Jebat (Jonker Walk) in Melaka. The study utilised SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), version 27, for survey analysis, and applied the P-Index method to evaluate pathway’s cultural imageability from observations. The findings demonstrate that physical components, through factors such as mobility, convenience, and distinctive design features, foster the cultural imageability of the urban environment. The availability of pavements, cleanliness, and the surrounding context, including building scale, encourage social senses along the pedestrian pathway. Conversely, pedestrian pathways that lack these cultural elements are mostly used as passageways and do not engage pedestrians on a more profound cultural or social level. Hence, pedestrian pathways significantly affect cultural imageability through sense of place, belonging, place attachment, and place identity as outcomes of the physical elements. Based on these findings, the proposed framework describes how physical and social components operationalised via factors and significances contribute to pedestrian pathways as cultural imageability. This framework leads to an exposition of pedestrian pathways as cultural imageability for improving the urban environment from several perspectives. These findings make the SDGs actionable at corridor scale, advancing SDGs 3, 8, 10, 11, and 13 via inclusive access, well-being, resilience, and culture-based livelihoods. The framework operationalises Malaysia’s National Landscape Policy through linked green–pedestrian networks featuring shade, universal design, and curated local identity. Economically and environmentally, culturally imageable corridors spur local enterprise and tourism while reducing car reliance, mitigating urban heat, and improving stormwater management and biodiversity, providing an evidence-based pathway to express urban cultural identity.