Walkability

Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference I attended a three day conference that focused on collective action to address childhood obesity. I attended sessions on topics including childhood diabetes, school health policies, built environment, and community engagement. I worked as a volunteer where I prepared the room, gave time signals, and collected time signals. After attending the conference, I facilitated a roundtable discussion at the San Joaquin County Obesity Task Force Meeting where 20…

appropriate for a general case. For a more specific case, further and broader research is suggested to gather comprehensive information. According to the analysis above, an attractive square should have high imageability, a high sense of enclosure, high walkability…

Traffic-free and Walkability The wider street design would create barriers to pedestrian movement and limit the area for walking to encourage making motorised trip in short-distance so with narrowing the road or restricting vehicular traffic accessibility could reduce the barrier to encourage walking so the walkability catchment can be extended. By integrating the traffic-free concept and walkability, the superblock model implemented in Barcelona reconsidered…

McFarland, U.S.A., began by showing the White’s arrival in McFarland, CA and also noted that it was one of the poorest towns in the country (Ciardi, Gray, & Caro, 2015). When Coach White first arrived at McFarland, it was obvious that most of the community was Hispanic. This was evident as many of the students were pickers, alongside their parents, when they were not in school. While Coach White was, at first, hesitant when he began his new job at the local High School, as time went by he…

Some people say that there is a difference between urban and suburban sprawl. Mrs. Lowry states that urban and suburban sprawl is the same thing as urban sprawl is people leaving the cities for housing options that allow them to spread out more but still close enough to the city to work. This is exactly was suburban sprawl is. However, suburban areas encourage more commuting as it takes longer to get from place to place, which increases gas emissions, and using farmlands as land for new housing…

State of Science The idea that environmental factors influence on ageing is not new and it has been considered by environmental gerontologists since 1970s (Lawton & Nahemow, 1973). However, the idea is drawn attention a decade ago under the name of age-friendly environment. A key driver of this movements toward age-friendly environment is the Global Age-Friendly Cities project by WHO. This initiative has been focused on urban areas (WHO, 2007) and there is another trend of age-friendly…

3.1 NEIGHBORHOOD SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS: FROM PLANNING THEORIES Howard’s idea to divide the “Garden city” into wards is considered to be one of the earliest notions of neighborhood in city planning. He visualized self-sustainable, compact neighborhoods with easy access to jobs, parks and shops for daily necessities. Howard clearly emphasized on efficient transportation network, combination of various social groups and integration of human and nature. Inspired by the “garden city”, Perry’s…

In Control or Victims of our Environment in terms of Health Behavior – Do we Actually have Free Will? The age-old debate of whether free will exists or not is a thorny subject, particularly in the health field, since the days of Freud. Does an individual have complete autonomy over their health choices or do environmental and situational factors collectively act as a grand puppeteer in manipulating our choices? The arguments for both sides are met with personal baggage because to declare one…

Components of age-friendly cities Age-friendly neighbourhood design incorporates modifications, adaptations and improvements to three key areas of the community and city design: (1) the physical and built environment; (2) the social environment; and (3) housing. Physical and built environment Menec et al. (2011) describe the built environment as comprising the outdoor spaces (e.g. green spaces, parks, walking trails), buildings and natural environment of a community, such as its air and water…

As a Planning and Zoning Technician during the development of the 2030 Master Plan I was encouraged to provide long-range planning initiatives. I made the recommendation in the 2030 Master Plan to integrate form based development code in the zoning ordinance. For a small town, we are blessed with consistent industry investment but downtown has challenges with vacant parcels and structures. For a successful downtown, it is important to create a sense of place. I believe downtown will benefit by…