Recent studies indicate that the associations of walking behaviour with perceived neighbourhood environments (e.g., land-use mix and residential density) are ineffective or counterproductive in low-tier Chinese cities, leading to calls for understanding walking behaviour in relation to how local residents live, work and play. We aim to investigate empirical and theoretical knowledge on how built environment characteristics affect walking behaviour in low-tier Chinese cities.

A mixed-methods approach was conducted in Suihua (i.e., a low-tier Chinese city), including the adopted Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale-Abbreviated (NEWS-A) questionnaire (n="187)," face-to-face interviews (n="15)" and on-site observation. The process of factor-descriptive-bivariate-multivariate analyses was applied in the adopted NEWS-A questionnaire dataset. The associations of walking duration with sociodemographic characteristics, walking motivations and neighbourhood environmental attributes across three age groups were analysed. After then, the quantitative findings from the questionnaire were further explored with the thematic analysis from the observations and interviews. Finally, these findings in Suihua were further compared with a previous study in Yuncheng.

In general, most participants in Suihua and Yuncheng achieved the recommended walking duration, indicating a healthy life in low-tier Chinese cities. Unlike many previous studies, our results indicate that residential density and land-use mix might be not relevant in increasing walking behaviour. Walking duration was positively associated with recreational motivation, but negatively associated with commercial recreational amenities. Furthermore, we found the age-related associations of walking with the same amenities differed, such as walking to Internet bars was negatively associated with middle-aged adults’ walking duration but positively associated with younger. We also found that corporate worker is negatively associated with middle-aged adults’ walking duration.