Culture of Pedestrian Public Spaces

Abstract

The culture of pedestrian public spaces of the twenty-first century is a tool of various world urban planning development methods such as steady evolution, revitalization of historical urban landscape, disclosure of urban identity and others. However, alongside with cities in developed countries where the culture of public pedestrian spaces is highly developed, there are still some cities in developing countries where pedestrian life is practically reduced to zero. As a rule, the reasons for retarding the development of pedestrian public spaces are as follows: poor economy, lack of political will, unformed civil initiative. In relation to pedestrian public spaces, a retrospective analysis of the development of pedestrian culture in developed countries (Europe, America) was carried out and a graphic-analytical method of constructing an evolutionary scheme for changing the urban planning paradigm was used. Three periods of culture development of pedestrian public spaces have been identified. They are a spontaneous city (up to the 1920s), a city for cars (1920s–1960s) and a city for people (from the 1960s till the present time). In each period the key factors influenced the formation of the urban planning paradigm are identified, the pedestrian transport system and the functional city scenario are described as well. The results obtained during the research can serve as a tool in the process of conscious changing of the urban planning policy in developing countries from a city for cars to a city for people.