Wired: "There’s a Science to Foot Traffic, and It Can Help Us Design Better Cities" (Wasted on the Brent Cross clowns, of course)

Link to web site

"...'If you consider where and how urbanization is happening in the world, the single biggest place is China,' said Tim Stonor, the CEO of Space Syntax Ltd, which guides architects and urban planners on the science of building cities. It opened an office in Beijing in November, hoping to use history’s largest urban migration as a stage for its unconventional approach to designing cities.

"Before there was Space Syntax the multinational company, there was space syntax, the science of how cities work. In the late 1970s, British architects Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson hit on the idea that any space within a city – or the entire city itself – could be analyzed in terms of connectivity and movement. They reasoned that a city’s success depended largely on how easy it was for people to move about on foot.

"This wasn’t a huge revelation. Studies reaching as far back as 1960s have shown walkable cities have higher property values, healthier residents, and lower crime."