Exuberant Vitality or Objective Walkability? Reframing Walkability in Downtown Baguio, the Philippines.

Abstract

The urban theorist Jane Jacobs's four conditions for “exuberant diversity” in The Death and Life of Great American Cities are more fundamental to the success of downtowns than objective walkability, which is the facilitation of convenient walking by measurable characteristics of the built environment. Because “walkability” as a concept is ambiguous in the literature, Jacobs's “exuberant diversity,” or lively and varied street life, allows a clearer understanding of why downtowns succeed or fail. This is important for cities of the Global South, where streets may be exuberant but fail to meet Global North standards of objective walkability. Baguio City in the Philippines is used as a case study. Key findings are the importance of forms such as the zakkyo building, which are multi-story buildings that permit commercial uses on all levels, and micro-entrepreneurship in creating street-level vitality. Walkability is reframed as also emergent and not only top-down or planned.