Urban and Regional Planning and Design

Streets constitute a significant part of open public space and are the most important symbols of the public realm. Streets that cater to the functional, social, and leisure needs of people have been positively associated with economic growth, physical health of people, and a sense of community. Increasingly, scholars suggest thinking of the street as a social space rather than just a channel for movement. Despite such suggestions, few studies have addressed the relationships between social behavior and the environmental quality of the street. Moreover, the studies that have, tend to separate the study of physical features from land uses, and hence do not deal with the interrelationships between behavioral patterns and the physical features of the street, and its sociability. This dissertation was an empirical examination of behavioral responses, perceptions, and attitudes of people to the physical characteristics, use, and management of the neighborhood commercial street in two cities and one town in the Boston metropolitan area. It used methods based in environment-behavior sciences involving extensive observations of these streets over eight months, and interviews with peopl