Healthy cities — walkability as a component of health-promoting urban planning and design

Abstract

Health impairments due to inactivity are related to the car-oriented urban development of recent decades, along with sedentary lifestyles. A health-maintaining environment must therefore not only reduce direct health risk factors (pathogenic concept), but also contribute to health chances that may indirectly support health (salutogenic concept). Walking has been identified as the most influenceable behavior; it is also the most environmental friendly mode of transport, social and health. From the planning view, the concept of walkability therefore aims at a built environment facilitating physical activity. It is increasingly recognized that walkability has become an important topic in the field of planning, urban design and health, since the built environment affects certain behaviors. From practice, concrete guidance is demanded as to the type of urban design features to be captured or applied to evaluate the walkability or to create active cities. The measurement of features of the built environment plays a special role in this context, but also the question of how research results can reach policies as well as planning and building practice

Obesity and Urban Environments

“…The appropriate focus in obesity interventions is also currently being discussed. For example, a Spanish study [51] emphasizes food access and improved access to POS and sports facilities, while other studies [52] put focus on health-promoting urban design and improved walkability.…”

Total heritage: future Eopolis for cultural urban singularity

“…The philosophers of antiquity used not only to teach their disciples while walking but also by walking and teaching they used to create the new knowledge; therefore, the implementation of this particular practice meets the requirement of total heritage. Moreover, the health benefits of walkability (Tran, 2016;Rebecchi et al, 2019) and proximity to nature (Heerwagen, 2009;Gillis and Gatersleben, 2015) are well documented by the existing research.…”

Walkability as the key element of urban planning within the Healthy Cities concept (systematic review)

“…Помимо использования стандартных опросников для выявления сильных и слабых мест в городском планировании американские исследователи предлагают проводить «пешеходный аудит» с применением современных цифровых технологий, таких как специально разработанные приложения для мобильных телефонов и биосенсоры, позволяющие регистрировать движения участников проекта, измерять их реакции на определенные городские ситуации (волнение, заинтересованность, уровень стресса), а также находить и визуализировать их на карте [27].…”

“…Помимо того, что временные изменения требуют относительного небольшого количества ресурсов, это еще и обратная связь, позволяющая оценить эффективность принятых мер, а также обеспечить максимальную вовлеченность населения в процесс создания нового общественного пространства. На практике временные изменения часто давали импульс для постоянной трансформации: то, что изначально рассматривалось городом как эксперимент, после получения множества положительных оценок было преобразовано в постоянное решение [27].…”