Urban designers have a long tradition of examining the pedestrian environment. With recent attention to active transportation, health issues in urban planning and design, new urbanism, transit-oriented development, and traffic calming, there has been a growing body of empirical studies and policy interventions focused on this topic.
This special issue (2008) of the Journal of Urban Design, edited by Ann Forsyth, Cornell University, and Michael Southworth, University of California Berkeley, included original work on the issue of pedestrians, walking, and urban design.