Evaluating sustainable housing locations : comparing the use of network to euclidean proximity in the scoring process

Pedestrians tend to walk using the street network rather than walking on unpaved and undeveloped land. They usually follow straight line segments of the street network and the total path length following the street network is called the network distance. The estimation of the network distance depends on the characteristics of the network in terms of sidewalks and barriers. Network distance has been recently introduced by researchers to replace the Euclidean distance in estimating proximity to services in land use models and in finding the suitable locations for sustainable housing projects. Despite the different research efforts and models that use network distance instead of Euclidean, Most suitability models are still using the Euclidean distance for estimating proximity to services such as transit, groceries and public schools. This paper will compare the proximity scores to services obtained by network distance to the scores based on Euclidean distance. The study will show that there is a significant difference between the scores obtained by network distance and the scores obtained by Euclidean distance. The study will also show that the scores will be lower if the network distance is used. The study will also will take existing housing sites In Ramallah District- Palestine to show that using network distance is a better estimation especially for places that have connectivity issues such as cul-de-sacs. The study will point out the impacts of such difference on sustainable housing and derive recommendations for policy makers and housing organization