I really enjoyed Nick Stockton’s exploration of the space syntax concept in architecture in There’s a Science to Foot Traffic, and It Can Help Us Design Better Cities. He explains:

Space syntax [is] the science of how cities work. In the late 1970s, British architects Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson hit on the idea that any space within a city — or the entire city itself — could be analyzed in terms of connectivity and movement. They reasoned that a city’s success depended largely on how easy it was for people to move about on foot.

This wasn’t a huge revelation. Studies reaching as far back as 1960s have shown walkable cities have higher property values, healthier residents, and lower crime. What set Hillier and Hanson’s ideas apart was the notion that a city’s geometry did more for movement than any other design factor. They argued that every other cog in a city’s engineering depends on the walkable grid. Cars, buses, trains, and bikes play a role, too, but only as much as they transport people to places where they then proceed to walk around.

There’s some great examples in the article, including a case study on the redesign of Trafalgar Square in London.