The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Problem: Localities and states are turning to land planning and urban design for help in reducing automobile use and related social and environmental costs. The effects of such strategies on travel demand have not been generalized in recent years from the multitude of available studies. Purpose: We conducted a meta-analysis of the built environment-travel literature existing at the end of 2009 in order to draw generalizable conclusions for practice. We aimed to quantify effect sizes, update earlier work, include additional outcome measures, and address the methodological issue of self-selection. Methods: We computed elasticities for individual studies and pooled them to produce weighted averages. Results and conclusions: Travel variables are generally inelastic with respect to change in measures of the built environment. Of the environmental variables considered here, none has a weighted average travel elasticity of absolute magnitude greater than 0.39, and most are much less. Still, the combined effect o...

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Travel and the Built Environment

▪ Abstract The thesis of this article is that multilevel interventions based on ecological models and targeting individuals, social environments, physical environments, and policies must be implemented to achieve population change in physical activity. A model is proposed that identifies potential environmental and policy influences on four domains of active living: recreation, transport, occupation, and household. Multilevel research and interventions require multiple disciplines to combine concepts and methods to create new transdisciplinary approaches. The contributions being made by a broad range of disciplines are summarized. Research to date supports a conclusion that there are multiple levels of influence on physical activity, and the active living domains are associated with different environmental variables. Continued research is needed to provide detailed findings that can inform improved designs of communities, transportation systems, and recreation facilities. Collaborations with policy resear...

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.27.021405.102100

An ecological approach to creating active living communities.

Introduction:The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in empirical investigation into the relations between built environment and physical activity. To create places that facilitate and encourage walking, practitioners need an understanding of the specific characteristics of the built en

Built environment correlates of walking: a review.

https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Infrastructure-Programs-and-Policies-to-Increase-Bicycling-An-International-Review.pdf

Infrastructure, programs, and policies to increase bicycling: An international review

This disaggregate cross-sectional study uses primary data on the cycling behavior of 608 randomly sampled respondents in urbanized King County, Washington, and objective parcel-level GIS measures of land use and infrastructure conditions. Binary logit model findings provide new insights on who bicycles, and on perceived and actual built environmental conditions associated with the likelihood of cycling in neighborhoods, controlling for socio-demographic variables. A high 21% of the respondents report cycling at least once a week in their neighborhood, more often for recreation or exercise than for transportation. Cycling is more popular among male, younger adults, transit users, and those who are physically active and in good health. Both perceived and objective environmental conditions contribute to the likelihood of cycling. Proximity to trails and the presence of agglomerations of offices, clinics/hospitals, and fast food restaurants, measured objectively, are significant environmental variables. Previously researched correlates of cycling, such as the presence of bicycle lanes, traffic speed and volume, slope, block size, and the presence of parks, are found insignificant when objectively measured. A non-linear relationship is found between the odds of cycling and the perception of traffic problems and automobile-oriented facilities. Overall, cycling is only moderately associated with the neighborhood environment. It appears to be an individual choice that is independent from environmental support. This finding likely reflects the limited bicycle infrastructure in the sample frame—an unfortunate condition found in most US metropolitan regions. Policy and intervention programs could increase cycling by improving both actual and perceived environmental conditions.

Cycling and the Built Environment, a US Perspective

Background: The concept of walkable neighborhoods is increasingly important in physical activity research and intervention. However, limited theoretical understanding and measurable definitions remain a challenge. Methods: This paper reviews theories defining neighborhoods and offers an empirical approach to identify measurable attributes and thresholds of walkable neighborhoods. Bivariate and multivariate analyses are used for self-reported socio-demographic background, neighborhood walking behavior and perception, and objective measures of environments. Results: Environmental attributes positively associated with walking sufficiently to meet health recommendations included higher residential density and smaller street-blocks around home, and shorter distances to food and daily retail facilities from home. Threshold distances for eating/drinking establishments and grocery stores were 860 and 1445 feet. Conclusions: Results questioned theoretical constructs of neighborhoods centered on recreation and educ...

/pdf/operational-definitions-of-walkable-neighborhood-theoretical-36j9t7v59c.pdf

Operational Definitions of Walkable Neighborhood: Theoretical and Empirical Insights.

This paper focuses on objectively measured and individually observable micro-scale environmental variables. The process consists of initial variable screening, variable grouping and selection, variable prioritization, and statistical modeling. Using this method, small subset of correlates is isolated to be strongly associated with walking, that are grouped as destinations, distance, density, and route: the 3Ds + R. Distance measures to routine daily destinations are shown to be simple and effective alternatives to complicated composite measures often used to capture land use mix and street connectivity. The 3Ds + R can serve as the core constructs to quantify neighborhood walkability, and as practical targets for policies and interventions aimed at promoting walkable communities.

The 3Ds + R: Quantifying Land Use and Urban Form Correlates of Walking

Purpose. This paper reviews existing environmental audit instruments used to capture the walkability and bikability of environments. The review inventories and evaluates individual measures of environmental factors used in these instruments. It synthesizes the current state of knowledge in quantifying the built environment. The paper provides health promotion professionals an understanding of the essential aspects of environments influencing walking and bicycling for both recreational and transportation purposes. It serves as a basis to develop valid and efficient tools to create activityfriendly communities. Data Sources. Keyword searches identified journal articles from the computer-based Academic Citation Databases, including the National Transportation Library, the Web of Science Citation Database, and MEDLINE. Governmental publications and conference proceedings were also searched. Study Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria. All instruments to audit physical environments have been included in this review, considering both recreation- and transportation-related walking and bicycling. Excluded are general methods devised to estimate walking and cycling trips, those used in empirical studies on land use and transportation, and research on walking inside buildings. Data Extraction Methods. Data have been extracted from each instrument using a template of key items developed for this review. The data were examined for quality assurance among three experienced researchers. Data Synthesis. A behavioral model of the built environment guides the synthesis according to three components: the origin and destination of the walk or bike trip, the characteristics of the road traveled, and the characteristics of the areas surrounding the trip’s origin and destination. These components, combined with the characteristics of the instruments themselves, lead to a classification of the instruments into the four categories of inventory, route quality assessment, area quality assessment, and approaches to estimating latent demand for walking and bicycling. Furthermore, individual variables used in each instrument to measure the environment are grouped into four classes: spatiophysical, spatiobehavioral, spatiopsychosocial, and policy-based. Major Conclusions. Individually, existing instruments rely on selective classes of variables and therefore assess only parts of built environments that affect walking and bicycling. Most of the instruments and individual measures have not been rigorously tested because of a lack of available data on walking and bicycling and because of limited research budgets. Future instrument development will depend on the acquisition of empirical data on walking and bicycling, on inclusion of all three components of the behavioral model, and on consideration of all classes of variables identified. (Am J

/pdf/walking-and-bicycling-an-evaluation-of-environmental-audit-4exw4yzfy0.pdf

Walking and bicycling: an evaluation of environmental audit instruments.

Background: Walking is a popular recreational activity and a feasible travel mode. Associations exist between walking and the built environment, but knowledge is lacking about specific environmental conditions associated with different purposes of walking. Methods: This cross-sectional study used a survey of 438 adults and objective environmental measures. Multinomial logit models estimated the odds of walking for recreation or transportation purposes. Results: Utilitarian destinations were positively associated with transportation walking, but recreational destinations were not associated with any walking. Residential density was correlated with both purposes of walking, and sidewalks with recreation walking only. Hills were positively associated with recreation walking and negatively with transportation walking. Conclusions: Physical environment contributed significantly to explain the probability of walking. However, different attributes of environment were related to transportation versus recreation w...

/pdf/correlates-of-walking-for-transportation-or-recreation-1ne6u621fz.pdf

Chanam Lee

Papers

Cycling and the Built Environment, a US Perspective

Operational Definitions of Walkable Neighborhood: Theoretical and Empirical Insights.

The 3Ds + R: Quantifying Land Use and Urban Form Correlates of Walking

Walking and bicycling: an evaluation of environmental audit instruments.

Correlates of Walking for Transportation or Recreation Purposes.