Urban Design

Designing streets for pedestrians requires consideration of a basic concern—safety. Yet, many safety installations, such as raised islands, installed sidewalks, and pedestrian overpasses can be expensive to design and install. Can lower-cost interventions be effective?

Why go to the mall? Two articles examine shopper motivation and how shoppers' mall memories and preferences affect shopping behavior.

The September 2003 issue of the American Journal of Public Health focuses on the influence of the built environment on health.

You may have heard the design maxim that the most preferred designs are visually neither too simple, nor too complex—but is that true?

Health-related behaviors, like many others, can be influenced by the physical environment. This book’s aim is to elucidate the connection.

One of the often-touted goals of neotraditional neighborhood design is to create a more pedestrian-friendly environment—one where residents walk and bike to local attractions, rather than drive. Several recent studies look at how people’s actions may support or hinder those aims.

What influence does urban design have on human health at the scale of individual buildings and surroundings, neighborhoods, and towns and regions? Laura Jackson (National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, EPA) surveyed the literature.

In today’s urban environments, sound reduction often can make outdoor spaces more comfortable for people. One method is to block sound through dense vegetation to reduce sound spillover.

Anyone who has sought out a choice spot under a tree on a hot day knows that a single tree can create its own microclimate. In small, tree-rich urban parks, the effect can be significant.

Neal Kumar Katyal of the Georgetown University Law Center breaks that mind-set and reviews in detail several effective design strategies to reduce crime.