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The Irvine Minnesota Inventory (IMI) was designed to measure environ- mental features that may be associated with physical activity and particularly walking. This study assesses how well the IMI predicts physical activity and walking behavior and develops shortened, validated audit tools. A version of the IMI was used in the Twin Cities Walking Study, a research project measuring how density, street pattern, mixed use, pedestrian infrastructure, and a variety of social and economic factors affect walking. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to assess the predictive value of the IMI. We find that while this inventory provides reliable measurement of urban design features, only some of these features present associations with increased or decreased walking. This article presents two versions of shortened scales—a prudent scale, requiring association with two separate measures of a physical activity or walking behavior, and a moderate scale, requiring association with one measure of physical activity or walking. The shortened scales provide built environment audit instruments that have been tested both for inter- rater reliability and for associations with physical activity and walking. The results are also useful in showing which built environment variables are more reliably associated with walking for travel—characteristics of the sidewalk infrastructure, street crossings and traffic speeds, and land use are more strongly associated with walking for travel, while factors that measure aesthetics are typically less strongly associated with walking for travel.

This paper reports the findings from a research project that examines the relationship between urban design and the physical environment, and aspects of social and communal life in suburbs. Australian suburbs are perceived to be lacking in vitality and sociability. To address this, three suburban commercial streets were selected for investigation. Through documents and maps of the residents’ activities and behaviour, this study aims to identify the popular zones of activity and investigate the physical characteristics that encourage a sociable atmosphere in activity zones. The observation of activities in the three streets has been registered in tables relative to the date and time of occurrence. According to the behavioural mappings, the zones of activity are mostly shaped around pavement cafes and popular everyday food stores. Since more than half the activities have been observed to be initiated from the pavement cafes, this paper will investigate how the physical qualities of commercial streets such as the width of the pavements, personalization, soft edges and greenery have contributed to the pavement café culture in the selected neighbourhood centres.

This research examines the relationship between the perception and fear of crime on the one hand and neighborhood cohesion, social activity, and affect for the community on the other, using survey data collected from interviews with a sample of residents of a western Canadian city. The hypotheses that the perception of increased crime and the fear of crime would be inversely related to neighborhood cohesion and social activity were not supported. But as hypothesized, the fear of crime was negatively related to affect for the community. And the prediction that the experience of actual victimization would not affect these hypothesized relationships was supported. When various social and residential variables were included with fear of crime in a multiple regression to predict community affect, low fear and older age were found to result in greater affect both for the neighborhood and the city. In addition, females and the less well-educated had more affect for the city. An exploration of possible interaction effects between fear of crime and the social and residential variables did not yield any significant results.

This article examines park use in relation to neighborhood social (safety and poverty) and urban form (pedestrian infrastructure and street network pattern) characteristics among youth and adult subpopulations defined by age and gender. We utilized System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) and Geographic Information Systems to objectively measure park use and park and neighborhood characteristics in 20 neighborhood parks. Heterogeneous negative binomial regression models indicated that the relationship between park use and types of activity settings, and park use and neighborhood attributes vary by age and gender. In general, the study found that park and activity setting size; activity settings such as playgrounds, basketball courts, pool and water features, shelters, and picnic areas; and availability of sidewalks and intersections in the park’s neighborhood were positively associated with park use, whereas crime, poverty, and racial heterogeneity of the surrounding neighborhood were negatively associated with park use.

As the obesity epidemic in children increases, it is important to consider the role of neighborhoods in supporting children's physical activity and healthy development, especially in low- income communities where obesity levels among children are higher than for their middle-income counterparts. I present a participatory and qualitative GIS approach to mapping children's own perceptions and use of their neighborhood for physical activity with ten and eleven year-olds growing up in a diverse low-income community in Denver, CO. Girls walk shorter distances to and use different types of community spaces for play and recreation from boys, some of which is explained by the differing environmental-socialization approaches employed by parents and carers. Children's perceptions of risk align spatially with features of the built environment, but do not correlate with reported crime. Results illustrate the utility of qualitative spatial analysis to understand relationships between children's perception, the built environment, and social factors that shape children's active transport, leisure, and recreation in their neighborhood. Children's local knowledge should be valued and solicited in community-level health and planning interventions to promote physical activity.

Leisure preferences and open space needs were explored within a discrete, homogeneous ethnic community: the Chinese Americans of Chicago's Chinatown. Face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions were used to identify outdoor leisure patterns and preferences, in general, and with respect to new park development being planned for the community. Findings show that although some popular activities are no different from what might be expected for the mainstream Anglo American population, the meaning and significance of these activities have clear and unique ties to Chinese culture. Preferences for the new Chinatown park development mirror activity preferences, emphasizing facilities that enhance the natural environment for passive activities. Notable differences in activity preferences were found within the sample of respondents according to age, generational status, and other factors. Park planning considerations and future research needs are identified.

Drawing on some results of a broader research project, this paper aims to discuss the relation between urban design and creative dynamics in cultural districts. Appropriation and production of public spaces in three ‘creative quarters’ are analyzed, through a photographic approach, covering material aspects, human appropriation and symbolic dimensions in these areas. Discussing the boundaries of public spaces and their relevance for creative activity (through the conviviality and sociability they promote), it is argued that urban design characteristics and specific place morphologies significantly influence the appropriation of these areas and the development of specific creative dynamics.

This paper reports on a research study that examined if and how older adults use urban waterfront promenades for physical activity. The research involved case studies of three waterfront promenades in Vancouver, British Columbia. Research methods included field observations and surveys. The findings conclude that older adults use Vancouver's waterfront promenades in significant numbers, overwhelmingly for walking; that more of them walk with others rather than alone; that nearness to home may be a determining factor as to which promenade they use; and that the most important environmental characteristics of promenades may be well-separated walking and biking paths, trees, shade when it's hot, and sun when it's cool.

This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results of a new “neighborhood-effects” literature that examines social processes related to problem behaviors and health-related outcomes. Our review identified over 40 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals from the mid-1990s to 2001, the take-off point for an increasing level of interest in neighborhood effects. Moving beyond traditional characteristics such as concentrated poverty, we evaluate the salience of social-interactional and institutional mechanisms hypothesized to account for neighborhood-level variations in a variety of phenomena (e.g., delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behavior), especially among adolescents. We highlight neighborhood ties, social control, mutual trust, institutional resources, disorder, and routine activity patterns. We also discuss a set of thorny methodological problems that plague the study of neighborhood effects, with special attention to selection bias. We conclude with promising strategies and directions for future research, including experimental designs, taking spatial and temporal dynamics seriously, systematic observational approaches, and benchmark data on neighborhood social processes.

This paper is drawn from a larger research project exploring young people, leisure activities and alcohol consumption. The study draws on the concept of affordances from environmental psychology as a way of framing the debate of what young people need in neighbourhood parks. Parks are important to this age group since they provide a setting for physical activity, relaxation and social interaction. However, human development at this life stage also includes indulging in experimental and/or deviant behaviour. In the eyes of the young people involved, however, their behaviour is mostly benign, even if/when it causes conflict with other users. Furthermore, they often take particular measures to avoid other age groups (defined in environmental psychology as ‘retreat’) and while often voluntary, it may also be enforced. The research suggests that while the park is the most important place for this age group to socialise outside the home, young people themselves often feel poorly provided for and unwelcome. The fact that they adopt what they find in parks to suit their needs is motivated by interconnecting aspirations, perceptions and needs. Developing a more sophisticated understanding of these issues may lead to more appropriate and satisfactory design for all users.

Critics have long denounced the design of suburban communities for fostering political apathy. We disaggregate the concept of suburban design into four distinct attributes of neighborhoods. We then use tract-level Census data, the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, and multilevel models to measure the relationship between these design features and political participation. Certain design aspects common in suburban neighborhoods are powerful predictors of reduced political activity, illustrating a potential link between neighborhood design and politics. Yet low-density environments appear to facilitate some types of participation. Suburban designs vary, and so do their likely impacts on political participation.

This paper examines the opportunities for social activities in public outdoor spaces associated with high-density residential living. This study surveyed activities in outdoor spaces outside three high-density residential communities in Brisbane. Results indicated that activity patterns in public outdoor space outside residential communities are different to general urban public outdoor space. This broadly, but not fully, supports current theories concerning activities in public space. That is some environmental factors have impacts on the level of social interaction. The relationship between outdoor space and a residential building may have a significant impact on the level of social activities. As a consequence, a new classification of activities in public space is suggested. In improving the level of social contact in public outdoor space outside a residential community, the challenge is how to encourage people to leave their comfortable homes and spend a short time in these public spaces. For residential buildings and public space to be treated as an integrated whole, the outdoor open spaces close to and surrounding these buildings must have a more welcoming design.

Ghats have come about as a response to religious, spiritual and social needs along the water edges in India and have become places of human congregation. This study is limited to the main ghat area of the waterfront in Ujjain, a historic city and a significant Hindu spiritual center in India. The objective is to identify forces that underpin and threaten this valuable environment and propose strategies that could be implemented to salvage it. Research was conducted through detailed examination of physical aspects of the urban public realm, activity patterns and environmental conditions. Text, data and drawings were systematically collected through various sources. Key concerns are discussed in the light of current thinking on the subject to propose strategies and draw up conclusions for necessary conservation and revitalization to take place.

Recent critiques of conventional poverty research have highlighted the need to move beyond the conceptual limitations of “neighborhood effects” models and the use of the tropes of “adaptation” or “resistance” to explain the behaviors and actions of the urban poor. We use ethnographic field observations and interviews with public-housing residents to address these limitations in the poverty literature, assess competing explanations of poor people’s agency, and provide insight into the importance of space as a mediating link between macrostructural constraints and locally situated behaviors. We theorize agency and identity as spatial phenomena—with spatial attributes and spatial influences—and examine how different spatial meanings and locations enable or constrain particular forms of social action and behavior. Our ethnographic and interview data depict several strategies by which residents “use space” to provide a measure of security and protection, to designate and avoid areas of criminality and drug activity, and to challenge or support the redevelopment of public housing. From these data we show that urban space is not a residual phenomenon in which social action occurs, but a constitutive dimension of social life that shapes life experiences, social conflict, and action.

Urban public space is once again a 'hot' topic and figures strongly in place quality discourse. City spaces are being recycled, reinterpreted and reinvented in a drive for a competitive quality of place. This article illustrates the changing face of contemporary UK public space through a qualitative analysis of the perceptions held by public and professional-bureaucratic actors. Drawing on empirical case study research of five recent enhancement schemes at prominent nodes throughout the North East of England, the research explores the culture and economics of urban public space design. Tentative observations are expressed in terms of the links between cultural activity and economic vitality, and some reflections on policy and practice are put forward.

The way urban solids relate to urban voids, the spatial relations of urban space itself and all other characteristics that define urban space are paramount in determining human distribution in any given community. This determines social relations that in turn reproduce spatial relations. This kind of process determines what sort of community and hence environment that is eventually generated. It is the intention of this paper to establish urban variables and hence urban patterns that promote human distribution, which in turn creates a sustainable community. A further intention is to establish a language that could be used to generate policies and design rules for such communities.

Although a number of environmental and policy interventions to pro- mote physical activity are being widely used, there is sparse systematic information on the most effective approaches to guide population-wide interventions. Methods: We reviewed studies that addressed the following environmental and policy strat- egies to promote physical activity: community-scale urban design and land use policies and practices to increase physical activity; street-scale urban design and land use policies to increase physical activity; and transportation and travel policies and practices. These systematic reviews were based on the methods of the inde- pendent Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Exposure variables were classified according to the types of infrastructures/policies present in each study. Measures of physical activity behavior were used to assess effectiveness. Results: Two interventions were effective in promoting physical activity (community-scale and street-scale urban design and land use policies and practices). Additional information about applicability, other effects, and barriers to implementation are provided for these interventions. Evidence is insufficient to assess transportation policy and practices to promote physical activity. Conclusions: Because com- munity- and street-scale urban design and land-use policies and practices met the Community Guide criteria for being effective physical activity interventions, implementing these policies and practices at the community-level should be a priority of public health practitioners and community decision makers.

Urban designers are interested in the environmental qualities of places that make them better for walking, not only as settings for physical activity, but also as sensorial and social settings. Research in walkability lacks qualitative studies that address the microscale analyses of the environment. This paper is an empirical examination of the relationship of the physical, land-use, and social characteristics of the environment at the microscale to people’s behavior and perceptions toward walking. Using the data from surveys and interviews, this research emphasizes the integration of user perceptions and subjective measures to understand the impact of environmental characteristics on walking behavior on Main Streets. Adding to previous research, this study demonstrates the significance of social qualities in supporting walking. The findings expand our understanding of the hierarchy and criteria of walking needs and suggest that, given a safe and comfortable setting, people look for usefulness, sense of belonging and pleasurability as additional and distinct needs to enhance their walking experience.

This paper explores the place-based meanings of an urban public space, MacArthur Park, in a Latino and immigrant neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis revealed a broad range of park experiences that were both positive and negative and produced meanings that were individual, social, cultural, and political. The study found that MacArthur Park affirms traditional national, cultural, and ethnic identities for immigrants and supports their construction of a new, translocal and Central American identity in Los Angeles. Although the study found that the park also serves as a restorative, entertaining, and social space for park goers, these positive experiences were accompanied by negative experiences and meanings of the park related to maintenance and crime and conflicts associated with inequality and access, confirming the importance of considering the full range of social, cultural, and political meanings associated with place.

Using a narrative methodology involving 216 older people in six urban aging environments in the Netherlands, we examined how they use and experience (semi-)public spaces as spaces of encounter, and the meanings they derive from using and experiencing these spaces. The research shows that, first, older people prefer commercial spaces like shopping malls to planned and designed activity spaces in care homes or neighborhood centers. Second, older people struggle with the transformations that have taken place in urban social life since they were young adults. Third, especially frail older people derive meaning from a more passive experience of urban social life, in an observer role. The findings allow us to contribute to ongoing debates on the shifting boundaries between public and private space, and the moral implications of these shifting boundaries from the perspective of a diverse group of older users.