KNUST Research Week and Scientific Conference: Empowering Researchers to Achieve Impactful Outcomes

This paper examines cultural pathways as a strategy for designing walkable environments that foster exploration, engagement, and community interactions. Cultural pathways are pedestrian connections that integrate cultural, historical, and artistic elements into the urban landscape. They transform ordinary streets into lively corridors where walking becomes a meaningful cultural experience rather than a mere necessity. Through public art, heritage markers, interactive installations, and distinctive architectural features, these pathways stimulate curiosity, social interaction, and a sense of belonging. By adopting a comparative case study approach, the paper reviews global examples from cities such as Melbourne, Paris, and Berlin. These cases demonstrate how cultural pathways have been integrated into pedestrian networks through art installations, performance venues, and green areas to produce tangible impacts on urban vitality. While the examples are primarily from global north contexts, the paper suggests implications for rapidly urbanizing regions where walkability and cultural identity are increasingly critical to sustainable development. The discussion highlights walkability as extending beyond accessibility to include cultural participation, collective memory, and community gathering. Well-designed cultural corridors serve as avenues for spontaneous conversations, performances, and collective memory by addressing urban fragmentation and fostering social connectedness. The paper contributes to urban design discourse by positioning cultural pathways as a replicable framework for enhancing walkability, cultural heritage, creative expression, cohesion, innovation, human capital development, and economic resilience across diverse urban contexts.