Walking the Line. Exploring conflicts of rationality between formally scripted pedestrian planning and re-scripting urban green spaces with disobedient desire lines.

Urban greenspaces across the world are crisscrossed by informal footpaths (so-called desire lines) made by the disobedient footwork of citizens themselves.

Desire lines connect with formally planned pedestrian infrastructure to form integrated path-systems beneficial for urban mobility.

However, desire lines are not acknowledged in urban pedestrian planning and usually overlooked in walking research, remarkable given todays focus on ‘urban walkability’.

This project, the first of its kind in Sweden, will lift desire lines from obscurity by illuminating their rationales, perceived benefits and risks for walkers, and bring this knowledge into productive dialogue with pedestrian greenspace planning and walking research.

Because walking desires, practices and urban environments vary spatially and over time, we adopt a comparative approach focused on city parks and million homes areas in different areas of Stockholm.

We analyze possible clashes of rationality between today’s actual walking needs and, firstly, path-dependencies stemming from the original planning designs of the different study areas and, secondly, how planners design greenspaces today.

Mixed-methods (mapping, remote sensing, GIS, field observations, walking interviews, interactive workshops with stakeholders) will be used to examine both the disobedient walker perspective and planner perspective. Our project will deliver knowledge beneficial for a more sustainable and inclusive pedestrian planning.