FACTORS INFLUENCING CITIES PEDESTRIAN STREET FUNCTIONALITY AND SUSTAINABLE LAND USE

Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Aleksandras Stulginskis University. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. FACTORS INFLUENCING CITIES PEDESTRIAN STREET FUNCTIONALITY AND SUSTAINABLE LAND USE


INTRODUCTION
In 1992, in the Rio de Janeiro meeting of the United Nations Conference and after the adoption of Agenda 21, more and more often sustainable development strategy replaces traditional strategic city planning (Keivani, 2010).In addition, the signing of the European Charter for Sustainable Cities (Aalborg Charter) in 1994 Europe began to implement the Local Agenda 21 (Ciegis and Pareigis, 2010), and in 2007 the main urban development goal was identified in the Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities adopted by European Ministersto return back people, activities and investments to the urban centres, (Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities, 2007).
It is noted that in the city's public spaces institutions are strongly influenced by profit-oriented businesses (Grazuleviciutė-Vileniške and Urbonas, 2010), therefore fast erosion of public spaces occurs due to the commercialization of public space (Samalavicius, 2010).Another problem can be the fact that advances in technology and the increasing number of measures allowing the exchange of information reduce the need to be in space and this affects urban suburbanization processes, and potentially causes public spaces crisis.In addition, in Lithuania, shopping centres stimulate public space crisis and they are shaping a new culture of spending leisure time -attract more and more visitors and thus divert the flow of people from the city's cultural and community centre.The city centre is losing its attraction, social function, residents here cannot find entertainment, recreation and services, so they prefer more remote attractions and shopping centres, and tourists do not have the possibility to see the city life, to feel the mood of the city.After all, city centres have to do their best to serve people, to represent the city, to provide information, to create a favourable environment for social interactions.The renovation of the physical structure of the city centre, i.e. to reconstruct or renovate buildings, to clean up public spaces or upgrade infrastructure, is not enough to ensure the success of the city centre.Therefore, in order to revitalize the gravity of city centre, it is necessary to improve the city's image, to focus on the city's main pedestrian streets' sustainable pedestrian street development.The development of pedestrian zones infrastructure should be seen as an investment in an integrated solution of problems, including economic and social, health and environmental protection, urban development and other aspects.

SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT AND ELEMENTS
Recently, in order to form suitable conditions for the different needs of the people in the cities, great attention is paid not only to the development of physical infrastructure, but also to other aspects that will help to create sustainable balance of social, economic and environmental aspects.There is no single opinion, what should be a sustainable city, but in the United Nations Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 it was decided that the territorial development must be sustainablecovering economic, social and environmental urban aspects of life together (Freytag et al., 2014;Elgerta et al., 2012;Lidskog et al., 2012;Veis et al., 2012;Zaleckis, Matijosaitiene, 2012).However, "urban sustainability" attracted a lot of criticism, as Rees (1997Rees ( , 2012) ) states that "sustainable city" concept is an oxymoron, because cities are inherently unsustainable, due to the relative intensification of economic and social activities in those areas (Green et al., 2005), in addition, there is a strong negative correlation between the human welfare and environmental well-being (Kaivos-Oja et al., 2013).
European Urban Charter states that the city's main development objective is considered to be operational and investment return, but one needs to return back people to the urban centres (Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities, 2007), so downtown high-quality economic, community-based, three-dimensional, natural and physical environment creation must be regarded as a key downtown development purpose (Gul and Dulupcu, 2010;Winston, 2014), and the Brundtland report (World Commission on environment and Development, 1987) states that sustainable development is to ensure that sustainable development should meet human needs of today and should not create a menace to future generations to meet their own needs (WCED or Brundtland Commission, 1987, p. 8).
Most authors define sustainability and sustainable development as a set of characteristics that includes economic security and growth, environmental quality and integrity, social cohesion and quality of life (Turcu, in Bossel (1999) considers that sustainable development should be seen as a "total human and natural development of the system", which consists of six main elements: personal development, social system, government, infrastructure, economic system, resources and environment.Missimer et al. (2010) has argued that economic sustainability should be seen as part of ecological and social sustainability, stemming from these two definitions.Harmony in its social, economic and environmental sense means the conditions that are equally important and inter-related due to the sustainability of cultural resources, which is a key factor in the development of creative urban success regeneration process (Sepe, 2013).
Thus, a healthy environment, a vibrant economy, responsible society and investments are components of sustainable city, that interact with each other and are inseparable (Hansmann et al., 2012;Santana et al., 2014;Ciegis and Zaleviciene, 2012).Sustainable urban development promotes investments and a competitive economy, yet not only investments are important, so the city must improve the quality of life (Rangarajan et al., 2012) and seek to ensure the local population's living conditions (Ciegis and Zaleviciene 2012; Keivani, 2010), meeting current population's needs without harming future generations (Ciegis and Zaleviciene 2012; Streimikiene and Barakauskaite-Jakubauskiene, 2012), without wasting natural resources and without compromising the ecological balance (Juskevicius and Valeika, 2007) and to create sustainable living community (Maliene and Malys, 2009), to protect health while developing the safe and pleasant environment, to preserve natural diversity, to meet the cultural needs, rest and recreation and to respect the fundamental environmental interests (ODPM, 2005).

URBAN PUBLIC SPACES -CITY CENTER -THE IMPORTANCE AND FEATURES OF PEDESTRIAN STREETS
The concept of public spaces (for public use) is quite broad.This is a common use areas designated for public needs, they are formed by streets, roads, trails, corridors of engineering communications, recreational areas, sports fields and other spaces (Jankauskaite et al., 2014; Dringelis, 2011), as well as sidewalks, public buildings and other types of gathering places -where converge the city's, cultural and social events, it is -a living environment (Jakovlevas -Mateckis, 2012), "living rooms", where citizens can socialize (Arslanli et al., 2011), interact with each other, watch and be visible (Walljasper, 2012;Brunnberg and Frigo, 2012), to share different perspectives, stories, information (Lavrinec, 2013;Mehta, 2014) and has an important role in describing the community identity.We can say that the public space is a mirror of community values, traditions and culture (Sepe, 2013;Kratochvíl, 2013; Urbonaite, 2013), which, as a reflection of the interfaces between the physical, social, political and economic indicators.They symbolize the majority of society, values (Lubyte, 2011) or culture in which people exist (Johnson and Glover 2013).
Public spaces are easily recognizable in oldertraditionalparts of the city or center, as there are the majority of social functions and public spaces are being developed (Stauskis and Eckardt, 2011), where over five minutes you realize the spirit of the city (Kazakevicius, 2010).Public spaces do affect the city's image very much, and the viability of public spaces depends on the functions of public spaces and aesthetic quality (Grunskis, 2013).
Public spaces as cultural objects arise gradually, but over time, urban space takes on historical, social, cultural meaning, created by society (Young, 2014).Gehl (2010) considers that good public space is characteristic of protection from traffic and crime, as well as places for walking, coffee-klatch, observation, discuss opportunities, engagement in activities, enjoyment of good weather,..be characteristic of good aesthetic quality (Walljasper, 2012).Meanwhile, Mehta (2014) singles out 5 key features of successful public space: safety, comfort and convenience, meaningful activity, pleasure and involvement.
Meaningful activitysatisfaction of the main demands and the needs of shopping, eating, entertainment, opinion articles, discussions and the opposition (Mehta, 2014).
Security.In the context of public space security is the person's ability to feel safe at social and natural factorscrime and trafficdepending on how safe people feel like being in space at different times, under different physical circumstances and the supervision of space, as well as the existence of surveillance measures which promote them feel safer or not.Some studies have shown that public space perceived by people is a much safer place when there are more shops and other non-residential buildings in it (Mehta, 2014).
Comfort.A sense of comfort in the public space depends on many factors, including its perceived level of security, cognition of the environment and people, the air, physical conditions and convenience (Mehta, 2014).Comfortable climatic conditions, including temperature, direct rays of the sun, shadows and the wind are important for public spaces as well while engaging in some outdoor activities (Bosselmann et al., 1984 cit.Mehta, 2014).
Pleasure.Spaces become pleasurable when it is perceived that they have a high spatial quality.Lynch (1960) found that locations with a high ambient visualization, provide more comfort and are more pleasant.Most of the visual areas are those that some factors appear together with a clear emergence of the understanding of wonder."This is the shape, colour or tool that facilitates the identification of vitality, structuring and the use of supposed environment" (Mehta, 2014).
So, the city centreit is a living organism, a social space and that space should be allocated to the general public to interact and meet (Urbonaite, 2012).Historically, the public space in the city has been used as a place to satisfy the basic needs of life, communication and entertainment and carry out a number of political, religious, commercial, civil and social functions (Mehta, 2014).According to Stauskis (2010), it is very important that the urban public space would be appropriate to communicate, to rest, since namely the city's public spaces affect the quality of people's mental health.
The street has always played a significant role in ensuring public space in cities and is the most visible type of public space and the most important part of the city (Oranratmanee and Sachakul, 2014).Namely the street conveys the characteristics of urban areas and defines urban form and structure providing space for social interaction, exchange of commercial and outdoor activities (Shamsuddin, 2011).
Recently, the West is already beginning to realize that in order to revitalize urban centers development and quality of life, improvement of social resilience are necessary (Malinauskas et al., 2010).One of the ways of the return of the quality of life in the city, is the release of urban spaces for pedestrians as pedestrian zones highlight the city's historical and architectural values, use artistic lighting and other environmental elements.Only one problem is left, i.e. to solve the problem of how to reconcile the historical urban environment with the modern movement ideas.However, it is important that the environment would be formed maintaining and restoring streets, its historic identity and spirit (Jakovlevas-Mateckis, 2012).The development of the infrastructure of pedestrian areas is treated as an investment in an integrated solution of problems, including economic and social, health and environmental protection, urban development and other aspects (Mehta, 2007).
From ancient times to the end of the nineteenth century, the city square, the central street of the city generally met the needs of citizens.The public life of urban communities took place in them.Here people would come to meet, chat, shop, stroll, relax or take part in festivals and processions.Later, at the end of the nineteenth century, with the growth of industry and the rapid growth of population, these streets have frequently performed the role of trade and service, but they still retained the nature of community meeting and communication (Jakovlevas-Mateckis, 2012).Kashani Jou (2011) argues that the city's structure changed significantly due to automobiles.With the growing of cities motorization, urban centres were overcrowded with vehicles, resulting in street noise and pollution, where people feel unsafe, so all attention should be paid to the elimination of the cars from the main downtown public spaces and regarding public interests and the needs of the population to create pedestrian streets and zones (Jakovlevas-Mateckis, 2012), and already in 1960 and 1970 most of the streets in the cities were adapted to walking pedestrians only.In the United States, streets for pedestrians were named alleys-C which were used for walks and shopping.And in 1980 the traffic reduction concept was encouraged instead of a full banning of cars in those streets.In 1990 streets recovery concept was introduced as a traffic calming concept: it points out the social space recovery process (Kashani Jou, 2011).
The pedestrian street is a public urban space, characterized by full or partial restriction of vehicular traffic and is the basis for people walking, cycling or walking with strollers.Pedestrian zones are an effective tool to educate future generations, to pass on ecological and oral culture and promote interaction face to face (Kashani Jou, 2011).Review of various studies has shown that people depend on street provision of functional, social and recreational activities.The organization "Projects for Public Spaces" states that the place where people gladly choose has four characteristics: sociability, activity and use, accessibility, convenience and appearance:  Comfort and image.Does the space itself is comfortable and looks goodhas good imageis the key to its success.Comfort includes an awareness of the safety, cleanliness, and places to sit and accessibility. Use and activity.This activity is an essential local basis.The ability to do something gives people a reason to come to a specific placeand return to it.When there is nothing to do, the space is empty, which basically means that something is wrong. Sociability.It is difficult to reach place quality, but once you achieve it, it will definitely become critical.Some people seem friendly, meet, greet, and feel comfortable communicating with strangers, they tend to feel a stronger sense of place and attachment to the communitythis is a place that promotes these social activities. Accessibility includes not only access road to pedestrian zones, but also links to where to build the car, how to get to various attractions. Convenience and appearancedepending on how public space is arranged: a high quality coating for walks, a place to sit, attractions and entertainment, ie.this is what will encourage people to come back (Kelly, 2012).Sisman (2013) supplements and claims that the pedestrian zone should be safe.Sidewalks, pedestrian walkways and crossings must be designed in such a way that as much as possible minimize collisions with motorized and non-motorized vehicles, to reduce the risk of tripping and protruding objects, and promote personal safety awareness and implementation; also it should be available to everyone.To pedestrians of all ages and abilities it is important to ensure a safe and comfortable traveling by foot or mobile means.It should ensure a direct and easy access and provide a pleasant place for a walk, improve communication between communities, economic vitality and image of the city.Good design should improve the city's image and enhance the feel of pedestrian environment.The pedestrian environment includes such areas as squares, courtyards, squares, as well as buildings that give form to streets.Facilities, such as street equipment, desks, art, plants and special paving along with historical elements and cultural links should promote a sense of place.The pedestrians-oriented improvements should be cost-effective and financially sustainable.Also, pedestrian environment should be a place which promotes social activity.Commercial activities, such as catering, slot-machines and advertising should be permitted, if it does not jeopardize the security and availability.

Criteria of the pedestrian streets functionality and sustainable development
Having reviewed statements of various authors, we can conclude that the benefits of the pedestrian zone are as follows:  the improving social atmosphere.Urban pedestrian streets not only improve the quality of life, the developed infrastructure attracts more tourists (Newman, 2007;Kelly, 2012). economic benefitsadditional revenue from tourism, increase of real estate value in the pedestrian zone, the creation of new business (Jakovlevas-Mateckis, 2012). social benefitssafer space for pedestrians, cyclists, reduced crimes, promotion of healthy living, promotion of public life, the children, their parents and older people's employment increase (Sinkiene et al., 2012). effects on the environmentby reducing motor vehicle movement, reduces air pollution, improves the ecological balance support (Sinkiene et al., 2012). cultural benefits -the city's image and tourism attractiveness improvement, visitors and tourists with a possibility to get to know the city.
In order to create sustainable and attractive places in city, all components of sustainable urban development (economic, social, cultural and environmental) interact with each other and are inseparable (Mulliner and Maliene, 2011).Therefore, in order to get people back to downtown, you need to pay more attention to the city's main pedestrian street sustainable pedestrian street development, taking into account the characteristics of successful public space (Figure 1). Figure 1.The criteria of pedestrian streets functionality and sustainable development Sustainable development will create a healthy environment, a vibrant economy, social well-being and an active community, but in order to achieve the development of sustainable city, it is necessary to combine both social and economic interests, and those interests must be coordinated with environmental and cultural interests.

CONCLUSIONS
Pedestrian areas must be functional in all three aspects of sustainability, economically, socially and environmentally, in order to meet the comfort, relaxation, passive and active interaction needs.Functional, physical, social, convenience and security issues must be solved in order to ensure the city's main pedestrian zone vitality and a better quality of life for citizens.Also, a pedestrian zone must have its own image, a well-designed environment that thrives on art, culture.Community spirit should be felt as well.The use of pedestrian zones in sustainable city will provide with economic, social, environmental and cultural benefits only when all the listed aspects will be combined with each other.