Residential Neighborhood/Area

Latham and Clarke investigated the relationship between neighborhood design and the recovery of older people from mobility related injuries.  As might be expected, they learned “Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; 1996–2008) . . . .

New research on crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) dovetails with previous findings.  (For related information, see https://researchdesignconnections.com/pub/how-can-design-help-prevent-crime.) Mennis and Wolfe found that in cities “vegetation, when well-maintained, can lower the rates of certain types of crime, such as aggravated assault, robbery and burglary. . . . the presence of grass, trees and shrubs is associated with lower crime rates in Philadelphia . . .

Research has shown that walking is good for our physical health and mental performance, but how can design encourage people to take a stroll? (For more information on walking see encouraging walking at work).  Researchers at the University of Melbourne set our to answer that question and found “Residents of new housing developments increased their exercise and their wellbeing when they had more access to shops and parks. . . .

More than one factor influences home-selection decisions.  Zahabi and his teammates learned from a study focused on “the relationships between Land-use (LU), public transit accessibility (PT), parking policies, and mode choice for suburban Montreal” that decisions about where to live are made simultaneously with decisions about how to travel to and from work – the two are fully interrelated.  That means that home-selection decisions are tightly related to how residents prefer to travel to and from work.

Baran and colleagues investigated the relationship between street design and park use (for related information, see, for example, http://researchdesignconnections.com/pub/learning-urban-planner-06-03-11).  Their research indicates that “neighborhood urban form variables have positive associa­tions with the number of youth and adults observed in park zones, although only the number of street intersections was statistically significant for most subpopulations (boys, young children, and women) . . .

Forgotten what you learned reading Jane Jacobs?  Need more convincing that the design of a neighborhood influences whether the people living there feel like an integrated community or lone wolves?  French and her team researched neighborhood design and community spirit among the residents.  They found that “Sense of community was positively associated with walking for transport and positive perceptions of neighborhood quality, and negatively associated with residential density.

Nathan, Wood, and Giles-Corti share information collected in focus groups with people living in retirement villages related to older individuals and walking. They report that “the presence of services and facilities within retirement villages facilitated active living among residents . . . .

Neighborhood and urban design that encourages walking is frequently researched (see, for example, http://researchdesignconnections.com/content/new-walkability-research-co...).  Dills, Rutt, and Mumford have new findings related to walkability, particularly design elements that encourage people to walk to neighborhood parks.  This walking is in itself valuable exercise, and the assumption is that once people arrive at parks they continue to exercise.  Dills and his team compared the paths to neighborhood parks available to park

Nathan, Wood, and Giles-Corti moved knowledge on designing for exercise forward by noting “that locating retirement villages in neighborhoods with many local destinations may encourage more walking than providing many services and facilities within villages. Indeed, safe villages rich with amenities were shown to be related to less walking in residents . . .