Lifestyles, Residential Location Decisions, and Pedestrian and Transit Activity

Abstract

The idea of using land use patterns to influence people's behavior is popular in urban planning circles these days. Activity-based travel modeling has begun to make significant progress toward a more behavioral framework for simulating household travel behavior and understanding, in particular, pedestrian activity. A significant challenge remains in the need to address the interaction of pedestrian use with longer-term household choices of neighborhood choice, other activities, and overall travel. The choices often depend on one another and jointly define the lifestyle of an individual. This paper refines a framework to analyze household choices relating to three dimensions of lifestyle: travel patterns (including pedestrian activity), activity participation, and neighborhood characteristics. Cluster analysis on data from the Twin Cities metropolitan region in Minnesota uncovers seven classifications of lifestyle. These clusters demonstrate empirically how decisions about residential location reinforce and affect daily decisions related to travel patterns, pedestrian and transit use, and activity participation. The final section comments on the applicability of these lifestyle clusters for land use–transportation planning.