Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: KERICLES PINHEIRO DE OLIVEIRA SILVA

Walk, I will! ” Walkability in two active shopping centers in the city of Natal-RN.

Walkability. Pedestrians. Built environment. Mobility on foot

Walking is the most democratic, cheap, just and equal means of transport that can be carried out by everyone. But, contemporary cities were shaped and developed through planning characterized by urban expansion and the separation of functions, disregarding the pedestrian, cyclist and public transport users as protagonists of urban life, since a large part of the investments to make it possible for people to move in urban centers are used to condition the use of individual motorized transport. However, walking remains one of the most important modes of daily life in large cities, whether due to routes carried out exclusively on foot, or as part of intermodal routes. Though, there is a lack of attention by the Municipal Urban Management of Brazilian cities in considering walking as an inherent part of mobility, reflecting the poor management of urban space for pedestrians. The discussion about mobility in cities has been a recurring theme in several studies, and lately walking has gained space in the midst of this field of research, since several researchers have started to find evidence that the quality of the built environment can encourage or inhibit travel on foot, which in the literature became known as walkability. In view of this, the objective of this dissertation is to understand how/if the built environment affects the dynamics of walking, in two neighborhood in the city of Natal/RN, Cidade Alta e Alecrim. For this, identified indicators and walkability indexes and we aplly used different urban scales, as search strategy. In the construction of the analysis of the result, the variables and categories of analysis of this study will be crossed, in addition to the use of other studies cited throughout this search and that address the same issues, in order to achieve the objective of this dissertation.