Exploring the relationship between the psychological response of pedestrians and urban form

The accelerating trend of global urbanization presents considerable environmental and social challenges, making a shift toward more sustainable and resilient urban habitats imperative. In this context, it is essential to explore the extent to which urban spaces can serve as supportive environments, capable of enhancing the psychophysical well‐being and resilience of their inhabitants. A promising transdisciplinary approach in this regard is the concept of restoration, which is linked to the potential of environments to alleviate mental fatigue and foster cognitive clarity and overall mental well‐being. However, despite its relevance and broad application in environmental psychology, no studies have systematically examined its connection to urban morphology and morphometry. This paper addresses this research gap by: i. undertaking a web‐based survey across three UK cities (i.e., Glasgow, London, Winchester) of different sizes and socio‐economic profiles through a methodology specifically designed to assess the stress restoration potential of different urban environments; ii. using a comprehensive set of morphometric indicators to achieve a rich morphological description of the three cities under examination; and iii. investigating the relationship between survey outputs and the set of morphometric indicators through correlation analysis. Findings across the three cities combined suggest that more ordered and Euclidean urban layouts with buildings and plots aligned with their respective streets, simple building shapes, and rectilinear streets, tend to be associated with more stress restoration. Correlations at the city level generally align with this finding but also show locally specific trends. The contribution of this paper is two‐fold. It provides one of the first studies of the relationship between aspects of urban form and the psychological response of pedestrians to the urban environment. Second, findings can inform the development of new tools that assess walkability from a more people‐centered perspective.