Perceived environmental qualities and purpose-specific walking across neighborhoods: Evidence from working-age adults in a second-tier city in China

Introduction Walkable neighborhoods are central to public health agendas, yet how neighborhood environments shape everyday walking remains inconsistently understood and unevenly evidenced. Existing research relies mainly on objective spatial indicators, concentrates on well-studied megacities, and overlooks working-age adults. This study addresses these gaps by examining perceived qualities and purpose-specific walking among working-age adults in a non-western and non-mega context. Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted across four purposively selected residential communities in Ningbo, a second-tier city in eastern China. A total of 811 adults aged 19-59 were recruited. Ordinal logistic regression was used to identify associations between perceived built-environment qualities (26 items in four dimensions: accessibility, comfort, aesthetics, and safety) and three walking purposes (commuting, household errands, and leisure). Results Distinct patterns emerge across walking purposes. Perceived comfort and aesthetics show context-dependent associations with commuting walking, while perceived accessibility is positively associated with household walking, with limited evidence of contextual variation in the association with perceived safety. Leisure walking is most consistently associated with perceived accessibility and aesthetics. Notably, residents in the newly-built and relatively well-served community report lower levels of leisure walking despite higher perceived environmental ratings, suggesting a perception-behavior discrepancy within modern gated developments. Conclusions This study offers a comparative and perception-based approach, which provides transferable insights to other mid-sized Asian urban settings where megacity evidence may not hold. The findings suggest that urban planning should move beyond uniform infrastructure standards and physical provision, toward more diagnostic and trip-purpose-specific interventions that address the contextual constraints of different neighborhood environments.