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Design and Health Considerations
Published in Traci Rose Rider, Margaret van Bakergem, Building for Well-Being, 2021
Traci Rose Rider, Margaret van Bakergem
Research also indicates that achieving these benefits can still be attained by breaking up the 30 minutes into three 10-minute walking intervals throughout the day.18 The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Walkability Index19 actually ranks how different neighborhoods rank in terms or walkability, and is a metric frequently used by leading rating systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)20 explains how walking can be encouraged by community design:Community design can locate residences within short walking distance of stores and public transportation. Sidewalks or paths between destinations can be designed and maintained to be well-connected, safe, and attractive. Transportation and travel policies that create or enhance pedestrian and bicycle networks or expand public transportation systems can be another approach to encourage active transportation, such as walking or biking. Improving walkability of communities can also help people who participate in other types of physical activities, such as those who bike or use wheelchairs.
Towards an Operational Method
Published in Polpat Nilubon, Opportunistic Adaptation, 2021
Apart from the avoided flood risk due a given adaptation measure might provide, additional metrics can be included to evaluate some of the co-benefits the measure delivers. Metrics to evaluate the livability of an urban area have been developed, although these are often based on extensive surveys and stakeholder participation. For example, measures that help improving the livability by increasing the fraction of pedestrian infrastructure might be one metric by which this can be evaluated. Community design is a design process based on community participation, which emphasizes the involvement of local people in the social and physical development of the environment in which they live (Toker, 2007). On the other hand, this needs to be balanced with the effort put into to increase the quality of urban water management practices, which can be evaluated by the presence or absence of certain features, such as the extent to which it is embedded into the street design. Additional factors could be used to assess the flexibility of an urban plan for an area. Here, an explicit spatiotemporal evaluation of the EOLC could provide information on when (larger) areas are available for redevelopment. This allows to identify when an area can be adapted to possible new future requirements beyond the realm of natural hazards and more focused on typical urban properties and services such as livability, functionality (i.e. land use), typology, density, etc.
Salutogenic Design
Published in Debra Flanders Cushing, Evonne Miller, Creating Great Places, 2019
Debra Flanders Cushing, Evonne Miller
The WHO Healthy Cities initiative focuses on the city as a whole and integrates key people and place concepts, including urban form, transport and accessibility, green spaces, recreation and physical activity, infrastructure, environmental quality, and politics (Maass et al., 2016). Created in 1986 and now including more than 1000 cities worldwide in efforts to implement strategies to improve population health, the WHO Healthy Cities programs have resulted in a new understanding of the link between the environment and health outcomes, as well as creating intersectoral partnerships (WHO, 2019b). Designers and planners are further guided by the WHO definition of a health city as:one that is continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and developing to their maximum potential.(WHO, 2019b)City-wide and multi-city initiatives are growing. And we are seeing more research about the contextual factors that enable people to lead healthier lifestyles. Although the findings are sometimes conflicting and are not easily translated into design and planning practice, it is important to identify what we, as design educators, researchers and practitioners, can do to make a difference. The Center for Disease Control in the United States has developed the Healthy Community Design Checklist Tool to focus on health districts that are livable, walkable neighborhoods with at least one health facility (Cooper Marcus & Sachs, 2014). This tool provides residents with an easy list of health-promoting amenities they can look for in their community, such as farmers markets, sidewalks and street lighting. Context-specific strategies that incorporate community participation, local knowledge, and reliable data need to be prioritized as we move forward. And, as we have argued in this book, engaging with design theories – especially the place-orientated theories of genius loci and place attachment – provide a good starting place for this process.
Are people who use active modes of transportation more physically active? An overview of reviews across the life course
Published in Transport Reviews, 2022
Stephanie A. Prince, Samantha Lancione, Justin J. Lang, Nana Amankwah, Margaret de Groh, Alejandra Jaramillo Garcia, Katherine Merucci, Robert Geneau
Transport professionals are well positioned to contribute to the improvement of public health by promoting active living through supportive community design. Collaboration between the transport, planning and public health fields continues to be important and continues to further our understanding of the public health implications of infrastructure investment (Sallis, Frank, Saelens, & Kraft, 2004). The relationships between built environments, individual behaviour and health are complex. Community design that is based on evidence-based strategies can ensure that healthier choices (e.g. walking instead of taking motorised transport) are easier choices. Built environment features such as walkability, greater street connectivity, mixed land-use, AT infrastructure and public transit access can support active ways to get to locations and improve public health (Karmeniemi, Lankila, Ikaheimo, Koivumaa-Honkanen, & Korpelainen, 2018). Built environments that promote AT, also have several co-benefits including the promotion of social belonging and human capital, environmental sustainability through reduced emissions and pollutants, the prevention of injuries from motorised vehicles, and economic benefits related to land value, job development, reduced healthcare costs, and improved economic performance of cities (Sallis et al., 2015).
How do the effects of local built environment on household vehicle kilometers traveled vary across urban structural zones?
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 2018
Zuopeng Xiao, Qian Liu, James Wang
The global proliferation of explorations of the interactions between land use and travel behaviors could date to the popularity of New Urbanism during the 1990s in North America (Badoe & Miller, 2000). According to this theory, compact, mixed, and transit-oriented community design can reduce car usage and increase nonmotorized travel (Khattak & Rodriguez, 2005). The neighborhood type has therefore become an important determinant in travel behavior studies. For example, considering four traditional and four suburban neighborhoods in Northern California as cases, Cao (2009) found that the impacts of neighborhood type on driving distance represented 16% of individuals’ overall vehicle miles driven. Neighborhood type was further found to have influences on commuting mode choice in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area (Cao, 2015). After categorizing 64,877 census tracts in the United States into 10 types of neighborhoods, Lin and Long (2008) also found that the availability of transit services around neighborhoods encourages residents to use public transit as a mode of commuting travel.