Articulation between centralities: Primero de Mayo and TUM case, Portoviejo

Centralities are urban spaces that, due to their wide diversity of supply of public and private services from all sectors, provision of diversity of products, road infrastructure, and urban equipment, have the capacity to cover all the needs and expectations of the inhabitant, without requiring displacement to other places. In this context, the analysis of the urban articulation between the Primero de Mayo and Technical University of Manabí centralities in Ecuador is proposed, based on the citizen's perception approach according to road connectivity, commercial activities and urban facilities. The research is descriptive, non-experimental and cross-sectional, with a non-probabilistic convenience. It was found that road connectivity is perceived as good and that mobility preferences are due to taking less travel time and avoiding routes with a lot of vehicular activity, the private vehicle being the most used means. Regarding the commercial activity, it is considered positive, and the urban facilities between good and regular, making use mostly of public green spaces, also finding that sports centers are not enough, and that there is no presence of cultural centers. It is concluded that road connectivity must be planned recognizing the axiological needs of the various road users, that commercial activities should be improved by seeking the professionalization of the owners of establishments, and that it is necessary to promote the creation of cultural spaces aligned to the needs and customs of the inhabitants of the centralities under study, all this to achieve that these centralities have the capacity to guarantee the quality of life and a greater integrality where the protagonist is the inhabitant.


Introduction
Throughout history it is known that cities have undergone great transformations in their structure, form and function, influencing the dynamics of the inhabitants (Mandeli, 2019;Živković, 2020). These transformations have occurred due to political, cultural, economic, social, environmental, and technological aspects (Wichmann, Wißotzki & Sandkuhl, 2021). In response to this, an unplanned growth of human settlements is derived that negatively impact the city (Dodman et al., 2022).
The foregoing gives rise to urban articulations, which according to Colautti (2013), is related to the dynamics and urban growth in the process of change of a territory and how they connect with the various areas of the centralities, which fulfill the function of integrate fragments that transform over time and gradually consolidate. With this process, urban centralities thus appear, which are multifunctional spaces that have a defined role and that respond to different scales in a territory; centrality enriches the collective space with its expression, making it a community area with a high concentration of people and services; it is urban identity and at the same time a reference (Montañez, 2022).
Centralities are expressed in three ways. The first, called foundational centrality, which states that all centrality is historical, independent of origin, and its key functions are religion, the secondary sector (commercial / industrial / manufacturing / crafts), and administrative, both public and private. The second, designated as the Central Business activities, and urban equipment from the Perception of the urban inhabitant and user of the Primero de Mayo and Technical University of Manabí (TUM) sectors of the city of Portoviejo in Ecuador.
In this sense, urban road connectivity fulfills the role of interconnector through a system of road networks, which is considered the main pillar of a city, which allows its operation, likewise, the relationship of the network topology with the different measures of centrality and connectivity (Sharifi, 2019). Sosa-Compeán (2022) argues that, the development of a city depends on the configuration of its flows. That the use or preferences of the inhabitants when making decisions regarding the routes through which to transit are aligned with the perception, feelings, possibilities and behaviors that the users of the spaces have, against their own criteria, economic status, context of the environment both road and environmental infrastructure. Without leaving aside, factors such as the perception of security, travel time from one place to another, the conditions of the means of transport, aspects that influence and prevail when deciding the best route. For their part, Tsiotas and Polyzos (2017) reveals the growth patterns of Urban Road Networks (URN) are related to urban mobility, population, and market information.
Sosa-Compeán (2022) in his desire to have an approximation of the factors that users prioritize when choosing a route for their displacement, applied a survey to a sample of 410 people, aged between 18 and 71 years, who lives in the city of Monterrey, Mexico, which has more than 5 million inhabitants and more than 6 thousand km2 of territorial surface. It was found travel needs are due to studies, work, and daily activities in 74%. The remaining percentage is distributed in activities such as visiting relatives, socializing and recreation. The most used means of transport is the private car, whether it is your own or family, or a friend's.
On the other hand, Vega-Centeno (2017) found that, the main reason for traveling is work, followed by shopping, then studies, and finally leisure. The most used mode of travel is public transport (65%), followed by car or motorcycle (21%). It is perceived by the respondents that the centralities have good accessibility (70%), stating that it is easy or very easy to get to the place. While, the factor of commercial activities, are among the fundamental activities in new and existing urban settlements, which allows improving development opportunities and increasing productivity (Mohamad, Hassan & Abd, 2022). In this studio, it is established that traditional commercial activities are located in city centers, however, these same criteria are applied in the new centralities, such as accessibility, integration, consolidation, site design, computer support, distribution of goods, and community involvement. On this basis, e-commerce in the urban environment cannot be neglected in order to ensure business continuity.
In this context, Serrano and Durán (2020) studied the centralities of Cumbayá-Tumbaco (Ecuador), with a population of 81,407 inhabitants and an area of 92.13 km2, being considered as a commercial center for the variety of goods and services that have been forged along the route of the Interoceanic Avenue.
Murillo, Barrera and Campos (2020), in their eagerness to analyze the perception of the user-consumer in the face of the loss of commercial attractiveness in their object of study, applied the attributes of the Framework of the Four A's exposed by Cerda, Nogales and Arévalo (2007), which represents the model management for the success of commercial areas, based on accessibility, attractions, amenities and action. Of the 16 indicators that were integrated into the Four A's Framework for the case study (Murillo, Barrera & Campos, 2020), only seven obtained positive opinions from those surveyed, nine being qualified with negative perceptions; situation that for the authors is alarming and that maintains that the attractiveness of a commercial urban area is not forged exclusively by carrying out conservation strategies and/or remodeling of the built environment, but rather, the analysis of human factors, marketing tactics, good management, coordination and unity between merchants, as well as the support and management of local chambers of commerce, are necessary to achieve the success of the attractiveness of the object of study.
On the other hand, urban equipment refers to the installed capacity and service delivery standards such as educational centers, health centers, public administration, available in centralities (Cuenin & Silva, 2010). In this regard, Jáuregui (2021), applied a semi-structured survey to find out the perception and feelings of the degree of satisfaction of the basic urban facilities for living and with this to be able to generate strategies for a better articulation. As a result, a high satisfaction was found associated with the green and recreational spaces, and the use of religious spaces. Low satisfaction in terms of access to health and education, therefore, the inhabitants choose to move to other centralities. The surveyed population stressed the relevance of cultural activities as an attraction of centrality.
Given the above, the problem question arises: Do the Primero de Mayo and TUM sectors of the city of Portoviejo have the capacity to be urban centralities that guarantee the quality of life, relationships of various types, such as road connectivity, activities commercial and urban equipment? In this context, the objective of the study is to analyze the urban articulation in the Primero de Mayo and TUM centralities of the city of Portoviejo, Ecuador, 10.57030/23364890.cemj.31.2.73 709 | P a g e focused on the perception of the inhabitant according to road connectivity, commercial activities and urban equipment.

Methodology
The study was developed under a quantitative approach, with a non-experimental design, since there was no manipulation of variables. The scope of the research was descriptive and cross-sectional, since the characteristics of the phenomenon under study were described at a single moment and for a single occasion.
The delimited area of the study was the Primero de Mayo and TUM centralities (see figure 1) of the city of Portoviejo in the province of Manabí, Ecuador. The surface of the Primero de Mayo centrality is 1338716.00 m 2 , and the TUM centrality of 1263453.73 m 2 .  Figure 2 shows through a time line how Portoviejo began to grow and how these centralities began to grow over the years. And it is from 1911-1982 that the TUM centrality was born, with the creation of the Technical University of Manabí, which was founded in 1952. Likewise, there is the Reales Tamarindos Stadium, inaugurated in 1970 and located on Avenida Urbina, the main longitudinal artery of the Portoviejo canton. On this same road and being part of the centrality of the TUM, the Parque la Rotonda is presented, which, although it had its green area space, was not intervened until 2016 and inaugurated in 2017. As for the centrality of Primero de Mayo, formerly known as El Negrital, took its current name in 1972, extending its surface as soon as the urban limit of Portoviejo increased in the period 1982-1992. To know the perception of the various actors of the centralities under study, a survey was applied through Google Forms that measures the variables of road connectivity, commercial activities, and urban equipment. The structure of the survey was based on the use of questions already validated in other studies, as indicated below. The study population was the people who traveled through the studied centralities, with a non-probabilistic convenience sample of 130 respondents, selecting those who were available and who agreed to participate in the research. The results were processed using the statistical software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 and Microsoft Excel.
The data collection was organized in four dimensions. A sociodemographic dimension to know the particular characteristics of the population participating in the study, whose variables consulted were sex, age and parish of residence. For the road connectivity dimension, seven questions were extracted from the Sosa study-Compean (2022) and three questions from the study by Francel and Varón (2023), having a total of 10 items.
The commercial activities dimension was measured through the Framework of the Four A's (Cerda, Nogales & Arévalo, 2007), a methodology that aims to identify resources and capacities of commercial areas through four sections such as accessibility, attractions, amenities, and action; accessibility being an essential element in which the location, public transport, pedestrianization and parking lots are studied; attractions, focused on marketing, in order to know the behavior of the consumer in front of the variety of shops; amenities, elements that strengthen commercial activities, such as street furniture; and action, focused on the management competence of the merchant and the strategies of satisfaction and loyalty of the consumer user. Finally, the dimension of urban equipment, which was measured through 10 items based on the survey validated in the study of Jáuregui (2021).

Results and discussion
According to the instruments applied, the results of the measurement of each of the elements are presented. In the sociodemographic dimension (see table 1), it was found that the predominant sex of the participating population was female, and that they reside mostly in the urban parish of 18 de Octubre. In relation to the fact that the majority of the participating sample are women, according to Adame (2019), it is because the mobility patterns of women are often related to the size of the territory, so using the various means of displacement must be aligned to the urban model and the place where they live. The urban parish 18 de Octubre is located to the west of the Portoviejo canton, bordering the Portoviejo parish, which is considered the urban center of the city. The study centralities are implemented in the 18 de Octubre parish (see figure 3), passing with 29.22% the TUM centrality to the 12 de Marzo parish. This would explain why the majority of the sample participating in this study is from this parish.  Table 2 of the road connectivity dimension highlights that the participating sample generally travels by private car, prioritizing at all times arriving in less time, followed by reducing the possibility of generating pollution in the environment. These results also agree with what was observed by Varón and Francel (2022). This similarity could be due to the fact that mobility in private vehicles is preferred in the studies. On the other hand, the reason why they prefer a certain route to travel to the centralities is to spend less travel time, and they avoid certain routes due to the great vehicular activity. The respondents indicated they almost always use the same route, sometimes planning their route to go to usual places and new places by means of digital maps. In addition, they perceive the road infrastructure of the centralities as good, and that the activity carried out in the study sectors is visitor, with a visit frequency of once a week. The aforementioned is similar to what was stated by Sosa-Compean (2020), since the inhabitant decides which route to travel according to their possibilities and preferences, and perceives that the centralities have good infrastructure. However, it differs from the reason why they visit the study centers (Vega-Centeno, 2017; Sosa-Compean, 2020); the authors of the present study suppose that it could be due to the fact that the study sample was for convenience and not in the application of selection criteria for both inclusion and exclusion to carry out the sampling. In relation to travel by private vehicle, Fuentes (2008) relates it to the income levels of the population, and to long travel due to employment location, this could explain the responses in this study.
In relation to the commercial activities dimension (see table 3), the findings show that in relation to the accessibility factor, of the four indicators analyzed, the most relevant is having easy access to public transport, followed by the pedestrianization of the streets, and have enough parking area, data that differs from what was found in another study, in which the pedestrianization of the streets is the least important (Cerda, Nogales & Arévalo, 2007), and the one of the location the most scored (Murillo, Barrera & Campos, 2020). A tentative explanation for these results is the commercial dynamics existing in the analyzed centralities, in which the sociocultural, commercial and economic aspects are diverse. Source: self made.
In the attractions factor, focused on resources and capabilities, those surveyed in this study consider that the existence of a variety of businesses, the presence of banks, and the existence of businesses of the same type are relevant, coinciding with another study (Cerda, Nogales & Arevalo, 2017). These results can be explained by the fact that the diversity of commerce and the presence of banking entities is part of a healthy and cyclical economy in the centralities, which prevents its inhabitants from traveling to other places to purchase specialized products.
Thus, the least rated attractions were the quality assortment in stores, well-known brand stores, and the presence of a high number of establishments, data that contrasts with what was found by Cerda, Nogales and Arévalo (2007) in which the bars and restaurants and complementary services the least important. These apparent differences could be explained by the nocturnal dynamics of the centralities, especially the Primero de Mayo, in which, after the 2016 earthquake, the commercial activity of the urban area of the city of Portoviejo was forced to move to continue the business (Perez, 2018).
Regarding the amenities factor, commercial signage is very important for those surveyed, followed by the fact that the area is safe, that is free of crime, these indicators being totally similar to what was found by Cerda, Nogales and Arévalo (2007). In relation to the perception of security that the respondents aspire to have in the analyzed centralities, it conforms to the published literature, in which it is stated that one of the attributes to choose a commercial area is security inside and outside it (Kanasshiro & Cuevas-Calderon, 2017). These data, in addition, can be interpreted by the increase in crimes presented in the city of Portoviejo in recent years. Thus, it is added, with a quite important assessment, that the various businesses provide common services to the customer, such as home delivery, which due to mobility restrictions in the COVID-19 pandemic increased and is now a service that gives permanence and business continuity. Another of the relevant items in this factor was the exhibitions in the streets that encourage commerce, and that the urban furniture is adapted to the environment; and with a less relevant assessment is the frequency of sales promotions, in view of this, these should be highlighted aspects in the centralities, with the purpose of increasing the influx of consumers to the centralities. And with the lowest valuation, the existence of attractive buildings in the area was found. This last indicator is similar to what was found by Cerda, Nogales and Arévalo (2007).
The action factor, grouped into nine indicators, revealed that those surveyed perceive the management of vacant premises and autonomous financial management as the main ones. They infer that promotion and communication campaigns and active collaboration between managers-merchants are quite important; with medium importance, public relations with various organizations and frequent advertising campaigns; with an insignificant assessment of the items exclusive dedication of management and interest in consumer satisfaction and loyalty; and very little important the professionalization of the management in the area. The findings of this action factor related to strategic, financial, and advertising management are consistent with what was found by Cerda, Nogales and Arévalo (2007), and Murillo, Barrera and Campos (2020), which strengthens the benefits that are obtained when there is cooperation between the interested parties to achieve the expected results in the commercial zone of the centralities.
Finally, the results of the urban equipment dimension are shown in table 4. Most of the surveyed sample states that they make use of the green and public spaces of the centralities, which they perceive to be in good condition, as well as the centers, they also point out that more free sports centers should be built in the town, since the existing ones are not enough. More than half of those surveyed stated that they were unaware of the existence of cultural centers in the study centralities, and that they did not know their status. Likewise, they qualify the state of educational centers and health centers as regular; and that the study sample does not attend religious centers established in the Primero de Mayo and TUM centralities. According to the results, previous studies have shown a similarity (Jáuregui, 2021), inferring that this level of compliance with the quality of public green spaces is due to the diversity of parks in the area such as Rotonda Park, Botanical Garden and Forrest Park. On the other hand, the population expressed low satisfaction with the number of sports centers, which could be due to the fact that the population living in the centralities must travel to other places. Within the limitations detected in the study, it is argued that the type of sampling to obtain the sample did not allow for a representative sample of the centralities, since the selection criteria were not applied, therefore, they lead to the present biases in the responses of the respondents. The study focuses on the perception of the respondents and at no time did the study authors conduct an on-site observation to compare responses. It is not possible to make a comparison of extensive literature, due to the absence of similar studies that have comprehensively covered the analysis of the variables road connectivity, commercial activities and urban facilities.
It is proposed that based on these results, an analysis of the centralities was carried out through urban cartographies as proposed by Caporossi (2015), thus evaluating the deficiencies of the centralities and comparing what was exposed by the respondents, with the aim of visualizing opportunities for improvements and make good decisions in urban planning.
With what has been analyzed in this present study and with the shortcomings mentioned throughout its description, the following proposals are suggested as a way of consolidation. To strengthen the study centers, the support of urban planning is demanded based on the needs, emotions, and perceptions of the population. That the attributes that should be priorities to be intervened in relation to the consequences that could be incurred be considered and thus achieve the full use of the services and products that are generated in the centralities.
Carry out an analysis of the use of the road network in the centralities, with the aim of strengthening accessibility and mobility, adapting it for the different displacement patterns. For the analysis, planning should be considered from a gender perspective, in terms of necessity, social importance and sustainability. In addition, carry out a transport demand study in which travel times and routes are estimated. Taking advantage of technologies, for example, to indicate less traffic on certain centrality routes with a system that is connected to maps, this would solve people's desire to get there faster and over shorter distances.
The implementation of the issue of pedestrian mobility, cycle paths and public transport in urban centers is a multifaceted process that requires the collaboration of different actors and the application of multiple strategies.
Here are some measures that can be taken: 1. Establish a sustainable urban mobility plan: This plan must analyze the mobility needs of the population, identify deficiencies in the existing mobility network and propose appropriate solutions. 2. Promote and build safe and accessible infrastructures for pedestrians and cyclists: The creation of pedestrian zones and bicycle lanes, as well as the incorporation of signaling for cyclists, are some tools to improve the safety and accessibility of these means of transport in the city. 3. Increase the offer of public transport: Public transport must be accessible, efficient and economical. Agreements with transport service providers can be promoted in order to achieve a greater service offer. 4. Increase citizen awareness and education: Public awareness is key to the success of a sustainable mobility system. It is important to carry out awareness and education campaigns to promote a change in attitude among citizens. 5. Establish adequate norms and regulations: It is necessary to establish adequate policies and regulations to achieve a better distribution and organization of traffic. Regulations can be established for the construction and use of infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, in addition to regulations for the effective management of public transport.
In summary, the implementation of a sustainable mobility system will depend on the collaboration between the public sector, citizens and other key actors, who must work together to achieve a more accessible, sustainable and friendly city with pedestrian and cyclist mobility.
Prepare a matrix of the various commercial activities of each of the centralities, in order to carry out training and economic promotion interventions that strengthen the potential development of each centrality.
Develop the identification and evaluation of urban facilities such as sports centers, education, health, and cultural centers, which allows recognizing the needs of the population that inhabits the centralities and visitors, and answer if, it is the lack of equipment that causes the displacement of the population to other centralities?

Conclusions
At the end of this investigation, the following conclusions have been reached: • Centralities are urban spaces that, due to their wide diversity of supply of public and private services from all sectors, provision of diversity of products, road infrastructure, and urban equipment, have the capacity to cover all the needs and expectations of the urban inhabitant, without requiring displacement to other places. Therefore, the centralities must be fed through the recurrent use of urban design, as well as the participation and consultation of the community for planned decision-making so that no relevant element is excluded in the planning. • Four dimensions were established for data collection. The first dimension, sociodemographic of the population, the second road connectivity, the third commercial activities, and finally, the fourth urban equipment. Considering these last three variables in the study was because they are classified as that set of urban infrastructure that sustain a territory, and, therefore, are basic for human development in the urban inhabitant, as well as to analyze the priorities and user perceptions, which allows to propose comprehensive proposals for the future. • The sociodemographic characteristics found varied in age, sex, and parish of residence within the city, which possibly led to having a diverse perception of the dimensions and attributes analyzed in the centralities. • The road connectivity of the centralities analyzed through the description and perception of the users of the various routes, reveal that the greatest use is made by the private vehicle and that to choose a travel route they seek non-contamination. Faced with these data, it is pertinent to analyze the urban public transport service of the centralities and also, that the pedestrianization of roads, that is, that they can be equipped with components such as paths, sidewalks, urban furniture, that allow pedestrian use, and, the inclusion of cycle lanes, thus making the road network of the centralities dynamic. • For road connectivity, it is proposed to incorporate into the design studies of urban road spaces the relationship and axiological needs of the pedestrian, passenger, cyclist, motorcyclist, driver. In addition to recognizing that each user has their own characteristics and determinants in their displacement, both for children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, which increase the level of complexity of the infrastructure when designing the roads. • Of the 29 indicators that were considered in the Framework of the Four A's for the analysis of commercial activities in the centralities under study, only nine were classified under a negative perception. The results of this dimension show the priorities that the user has regarding the characteristics of the commercial areas of the centralities, and how the inclusion of these attributes makes it a success in the market. The data obtained in this dimension allow outlining the importance of security and mobility in the centralities, aspects that cannot be fully managed by the management of private commercial establishments, therefore, the action of the planning entities of the city by acting on the most relevant attributes obtained in this research. • To improve commercial activities, it is recommended to assess the professionalization of the management of the commercial establishments of the centralities, with the desire that the owners can generate advertising strategies inherent to their business, and, therefore, increase the interest and satisfaction of the consumer and their loyalty. Detect sources of insecurity, generate pedestrian paths and establish new public transport routes that promote the urban revitalization of centralities. • The urban facilities in the centralities were perceived by the population with different levels of satisfaction.
The highest level was associated with public green spaces and sports centers. It was possible to distinguish the needs against the current insufficient number of sports centers, as well as health and education. Therefore, it is essential to complement this study with an analysis of the recreational, cultural, and sports spaces in the centralities. • It is necessary that urban facilities within the framework of the right of the city and therefore of the inhabitant be strengthened with the creation of cultural spaces aligned with the needs and customs of the inhabitants of the centralities under study, thus achieving that the proposals that are generated have greater integrity and that the protagonist is the inhabitant. • The study carried out allowed us to glimpse the Primero de Mayo and TUM sectors of the city of Portoviejo have the capacity to be urban centralities that guarantee the quality of life, given the availability of relationships of various types such as road connectivity, commercial activities and urban equipment. The analyzed centralities have the characteristics that can be an independent unit, since an urban centrality is an area of a city that has a significant concentration of economic, social and cultural activities.
The Primero de Mayo and TUM centralities differ from other centralities because it is the main point of convergence and connectivity of the city, both for the mobility of people and for the interconnection of transport networks and services. Likewise, they bring together a diversity of uses and functions, including offices, shops, homes, facilities, public and cultural spaces, which makes them attractive for investment and development. In addition, its location is strategic, close to the main transportation routes and places of greatest interest to citizens such as landmarks such as Rotonda Park and the Technical University of Manabí, which makes it a point of reference and identity for the city and its inhabitants.
In conclusion, what makes the analyzed urban centers special is their ability to generate attraction and dynamism, fostering encounters and interaction between people, and favoring the creation of a more integrated, sustainable, and habitable city.