Accessibility and Mobility in the Small Mountain Municipality of Zafferana Etnea (Sicily): Coupling of Walkability Assessment and Space Syntax

The new mobility paradigm, the spread of new city models and the recent pandemic have highlighted the variability and complexity of people’s mobility. There is a widespread need for dynamic urban planning strategies to adapt to circumstances and mitigate the risk of dangerous events such as natural disasters and pandemics. The last decade has been characterised by urban transformation processes that have often led to inequalities in spatial and infrastructural distribution and services. To reduce this criticality, it is necessary to investigate the reciprocal influence between the spatial configuration of the built environment and the way everyday mobility is implemented and becomes habitual, and its relationship with the inequalities mentioned above (e.g. suburbs, degraded areas, urban voids). This research focuses on studying the evolution of the accessibility of the small mountainous urban centre of Zafferana Etnea, which seismic phenomena have hit several times. In the first instance, the work identified and characterised the case study by estimating the mobility demand based on access and the analysis of the spatial configuration (buildings, infrastructures and services). Similarly, the research proposes the definition of the primary attractive nodes of the city, zoning and the purpose of key factors for the definition of mobility indicators that allow the realisation of a quantitative analysis of transport demand and supply based on indicators rather than on the configuration of the urban fabric, which will be addressed with theoretical and methodological tools provided by the spatial syntax.