Walkability and soft mobility propensity: a research on two Italian urban neighbourhoods

The article explores the concept of walkability in urban neighborhoods, providing a way to calculate an objective walkability index (WI), based on five constructs related to the urban environment (such as population density, land use mix, connectivity, proximity to services and greenness) and a subjective soft mobility index (SMI), based on survey methods. The study has been conducted analyzing two neighborhoods of the city of Milan, with strong socio-spatial differences. A logistic regression has been run to explore the association among WI index, controlled by sociodemographic variables, and the SMI index. The outcomes show on the one hand different levels of WI and SMI, as hypothesized, but the association among the indexes seem to be very weak; on the other hand the effect provided by sociodemographic variables appears stronger, such as the length of residency.