The map and the walking account do not test the same city. Across Gothenburg, Dortmund and Genoa, Otsuka and colleagues combine a spatial walkability index, household surveys, walk-along interviews and a citizen-science Walking Route Assessment. This design does not simply add qualitative colour to quantitative scoring; the participant's route assessment, supported by photographic evidence, can mark apparently minor conditions such as daily maintenance, pedestrian conflict, safety and place-making that modelled proximity misses. Comparison is produced by crossing evidential registers with different sampling and interpretative constraints. The citizen is neither an informant reporting a settled attitude nor an infallible urban sensor: assessments respond to particular segments, social circumstances and interpretative prompts. Triangulation can expose contradictions but does not mechanically resolve them. The article's methodological innovation is to transform route-level disagreement into a diagnostic resource for urban design. It connects mobility modelling, co-produced field research and planning practice while challenging the assumption that a common spatial index can independently validate what it feels like to walk.
URBANISM MEETS ART