Research on social capital and physical activity has relied on proxy measures of trust and participation to assess individuals’ social capital. However, less is known about how social network capital is associated with physical inactivity. More recently, the association between neighbourhood context and health behaviours has been highlighted, suggesting that the social and physical environments can enhance or deter physical activity. The purpose of these two studies was to 1) assess and compare the association of trust, participation and network capital with physical inactivity; and 2) to assess the association between neighbourhood factors and physical inactivity in Montreal. These studies used data from the 2008 Montreal Neighbourhood Networks and Health Survey (MoNNET-HA), which consisted of 2707 adults residing in 300 Montreal neighbourhoods. Physical inactivity was assessed using an adapted version of the short International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Social capital was measured in three forms: generalized trust, social participation, and network capital. Network capital was measured using a position generator and consisted of network diversity, upper reachability, and range dimensions. Neighbourhood socioeconomic status and population density were used to assess aspects of the neighbourhood social and built environment. Multilevel logistic regression was used to examine the association of physical inactivity with social capital and neighbourhood factors. In the first study, network diversity (OR: 0.88; 95% CIs: 0.80-0.96), and social participation (OR: 1.81; 95% CIs: 1.08-3.01) were significantly associated with lower odds of physical inactivity. This study directs attention towards the association between network capital and physical inactivity. Further investigation of network capital might lead to a better understanding of how social capital is associated with physical inactivity. In the second study, population density was significantly associated with lower odds of physical inactivity (OR: 0.97 95% C.I: 0.95, 0.99). Further investigation of neighbourhood context is recommended to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in the association of neighbourhood population density and physical inactivity. Greater knowledge of neighbourhood context could lead to the development of supportive neighbourhood social and physical resources that promote and enhance physical activity behaviour. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-08-30 16:22:36.884

The objective of this research is to produce a critical case study of the European Union's modus operandi in approaching urban issues through an analysis of the formulation and operationalisation of its Structural Fund Initiative for deprived neighbourhoods, URBAN (1994-1999). The key actors and major events in the decision-making process, together with their methods of determining URBAN's main objectives, are the focus of the empirical study. The member states' strategies to operationalise the Community guidelines are illustrated by four local URBAN projects in London (Park Royal), Merseyside, Berlin and Duisburg-Marxloh. The central research question addresses the decisions regarding URBAN at EU, national and local case study level. More specifically, the study investigates the inputs and processes of the URBAN Initiative by applying the theoretical framework of policy networks and multi-level governance to EU decision making at the conceptual level. The investigation was undertaken by means of qualitative "elite" interviews with EU representatives, central and local government officials, and local project staff in the UK and Germany. By intensive analysis grounded in the empirical accounts, the study aims to identify three main issues: i) do professional elites and policy networks determine the EU's structural funding framework; ii) do policy networks evolve and operate conditionally to European, national and local circumstances; and iii) are the nature and characteristics of policy networks and multi-level governance related to the policy output. In the analytical framework, the concept of Multi-level Governance is understood to comprise the three notions of Participation, defined as Network Actor, Partnership. perceived as Network Interaction, and Multi-dimensionality, considered as Network Range. Hence, the study illustrates the conceptualisation process of the URBAN programme at EU level, as well as the national and local variations in the URBAN projects' formulation and operationalisation. These are a function of the specific constellation of and interplay between Participation, Partnership and Multi-dimensionality. The outcome of this study is a critical analysis of EU decision-making processes and policy performance related to urban governance, a governance which advances, albeit in a limited way, the EU's cohesion policy. Additionally, existing bodies of literature for the European, national and local level were drawn together into one multi-layered analytical framework of policy making and policy implementation.

Following World War Two, land use and transport policy and practice in most major Australian cities was modelled on the US experience. As such, these cities have become characterised by urban sprawl (indicated by segregated zoning and low development densities) and car dependence. In Perth, Western Australia, these characteristics are particularly evident despite, or perhaps because, the city has a strong regional planning system unlike most American cities. Car dependence and sprawl are in turn linked to dependence on fossil fuels for transport energy. Increasingly, too, links are being found between conventional planning outcomes and public health. For example, research has linked car dependence with a variety of health conditions including respiratory illness, overweight and obesity. Moreover, research is increasingly linking sprawl and car dependence with social justice issues because people on limited income and with decreased mobility struggle to undertake their life’s work. In response to these concerns the Western Australian planning system introduced Liveable Neighbourhoods, a new design code, which was meant to reduce car dependence and sprawl. This code has its roots in New Urbanism and appears to have been taken up more rapidly in Perth than elsewhere. No large-scale evaluation of New Urbanism has previously been conducted anywhere. This thesis reports on an extensive literature review, travel survey (n=211), perceptual study (n=992) and environmental study, which together sought to evaluate whether the Liveable Neighbourhoods (LN) design code is contributing to a sustainable transport agenda. In total, 46 neighbourhoods (11 LNs and 35 CNs) were compared. The research found that despite residents of Liveable Neighbourhoods driving less and walking more than residents of conventional neighbourhoods (CNs) (a switch of 9% with some associated health advantages), there was little else to indicate that LN is achieving its goals as transport VKT and fuel use was identical due to regional transport requirements diminishing any local walkability advantages. There was strong supportive evidence that LNs were not significantly different to CNs. For example, there were few differences in perception of opportunity for more sustainable travel and residents of CNs actually had better access, on average, to key destinations, including shops (i.e. the average distance to key destinations was 2.2 kilometres compared with 2.5 kilometres in LNs). Also, residential lot densities were well below what were intended by LN and in both LNs and CNs the time for public transport to get people to work was over 90 minutes compared with around 30 minutes by car. The results reveal that there must be significant revisions to the LN code and how it is applied, because there is no evidence that new neighbourhoods are improving regional transport sustainability. In particular, residential densities and land use mix appear to be too low to encourage community self-sufficiency, indicated by few neighbourhoods being anchored by key destinations. These matters are not mandated in the LN guidelines making them powerless to bring significant change. More generally, the thesis questions the extent to which New Urbanism can promote a sustainable transport agenda wherever it is applied unless it mandates real changes in land use and transit not just local walkability.

This research project explores the integration of the concept of urban green infrastructure (GI) into three “green plans” developed by four Winnipeg inner-city neighbourhoods. Through a literature review, “green plans” evaluation, key-informant interviews, and a focus group interview, many factors that influence on the urban green infrastructure planning in Winnipeg have been identified. These factors were synthesized with a SWOT-TOWS framework to identify strategies and measures to address situations that these inner-city neighbourhoods might face in the process of urban GI planning. Several conclusions have been drawn to summarize the research results, including: green infrastructure planning in the Winnipeg urban neighbourhood context will be taking different physical forms in terms of network connection, which will have great impact on the GI benefits, GI planning principles and processes, and planning practices in those Winnipeg inner-city neighbourhoods; the “green plans” of the four Winnipeg inner-city neighbourhoods provide valuable lessons for preparing for future urban GI planning; and incorporating urban green infrastructure into current neighbourhood “green plans” will face various opportunities and challenges. Combined with some internal factors, these opportunities and challenges put GI planning in different situations, each of which needs their own strategies and measures.

This thesis explores variations in employment outcomes among youth living under similar structural conditions of poverty and unemployment in ghetto neighbourhoods. It challenges structuralist accounts that ignore the role of personal agency and hold that structures alone determine action. The critical realist framework offers a helpful understanding of social structures as both material and cultural since human agency, or action, is influenced by circumstances that are both materially objective and culturally subjective. By probing the interaction of agency and structure this research shows that individual agency is a response to cultural beliefs and competing cultural norms. The ensuing worldview informs decisions and actions of youth which, under different cultures and material family structures, either reproduce or transform their educational and employment prospects in ghetto neighbourhoods. Ten case studies are analysed from youth in Manenberg, Cape Town, a neighbourhood that was historically segregated through the apartheid system of forced removals and resettlement. In-depth interviews provide evidence from life histories, experiences of education institutions and of looking for work. Further information is gathered from interviews with secondary participants, apart from participant observation in family and community activities through an ethnographic approach. Findings reveal that the culture of disengaged parenting leaves youth exposed only to the influence of low education and employment expectations such that they despondently relinquish career aspirations by dropping out of school, remaining unemployed and underemployed as a result. By contrast, consistent mentoring from parents entails a culture that competes with the negative influence of gangs and enables resilience among youth to pursue tertiary education. Youth thereby transform, rather than reproduce, their position in the labour market as unemployed or underemployed unskilled manual workers. Similarly, social networks beyond the neighbourhood provide youth with job information, supportive resources, and cultural capital, which enable them to conceptualise ideas of professional careers. This transforms the historical and contemporary material structure of ghetto neighbourhoods with socially isolated networks that limit youth to low-skilled employment opportunities. Such networks do not support personal agency towards alternative employment and youth resort to cultural practices of gangsterism, irregular and informal work.

This thesis explores Neighbourhood and Building Environmental Assessment Tools’ (NBEATs’) function as assessment tools and decision support, and their relation to environment, architecture and architects. This is done by analysing, testing, and discussing a number of NBEATs (LEED-NC, Code for Sustainable Homes, EcoEffect, LEED-ND, BREEAM-C, and ENSLIC-tool), their manuals and use. Moreover, professionals’ (architects’) self-rated opinions regarding use and knowledge of NBEATs and environmental aspects are surveyed. Similarities and differences in NBEATs are found regarding: content, structure, weighting and indicators used. Indicators distinguished as procedure, performance and feature are used to varying extents to assess social, environmental and technical aspects. NBEATs relation to environmental sustainability has limitations due to: non-transparency, tradable indicators, relative measures, low criteria levels, limited life cycle perspective, and exclusion of relevant environmental aspects, such as embedded toxic substances, nutrient cycles, land use change, and ecosystem services. Ratings and architecture are influenced by NBEATs in varying ways. Higher criteria levels would probably increase their impact on architecture. Thus more research regarding NBEATs and links to architectural design, theory and practice is welcomed. There is limited use of NBEATs as decision support in early design phases such as in architectural competitions. Architects rate the importance of environmental aspects high, but few rate their skill in handling environmental aspects high. This calls for increasing knowledge and know-how of environmental strategies and solutions among architects and adaptation of NBEATs to early design processes. The values NBEATs reflect and the values we want them to create is also important. To support ‘environmental’ architecture, an increased socio-eco-technological system perspective is put forward, and other measures besides NBEATs are needed. / <p>QC 20160926</p>

The work summarized in this book was undertaken for a course at the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. The course was entitled Theory and Methods of Urban Design and it covered the fundamentals of urban design by inviting students to apply theory to neighbourhood design. The course surveyed major historical and contemporary trends in urban design theory and practice, and introduced contemporary theories on the future forces affecting the development and functioning of urban regions. Students discussed cities at multiple scales and applied their evolving understanding to neighbourhood scale development in the Marine Drive Station Area in Marpole, Vancouver. This book presents the weekly progression of designs with summaries of the design interventions and critiques. The final outcome represents weeks of deliberation, discussion, and incremental growth towards a neighbourhood that is responsive to the anticipated challenges of climate change, peak oil, increased and aging population, and the need for complete healthy walkable communities.

Schools have always played an important role in modern society. They are a reflection of local values and changing educational and societal trends. The 21st century brings with it a multitude of challenges as we design schools and communities that embrace and engage learners in an era of global communication and unfettered knowledge exchange. This project explores the concept of a school-centred neighbourhood in response to these changes. Through a case study review of Grande Prairie’s Community Knowledge Campus, the study looks at the social influences of a multi-use school facility through the use of indicators of social capital, lifelong learning and learning-based community development. Interviews with school and municipal planners as well as facility users are used to explore the intended purpose of the development and to measure the effectiveness of this concept. The study concludes that multi-use school facilities have a measurable impact on the promotion of these social elements and thus contribute to the creation of a school-centred neighbourhood. Six recommendations are presented at the end of this study for use by school and municipal planners. These include: i) central locations and community linkages, ii) efficiencies and flexibility through multi-use school facilities, iii) the promotion of joint-use agreements, iv) coordinated school board capital planning and municipal land use planning, v) establishing a common planning language between schools and municipalities and vi) community planning and neighbourhood design through CKCs.

Much of the literature on the determinants of health, including alcohol consumption, has focussed on differences in individual socio-economic status as a primary risk factor. However, it has been shown that variation in health between places can be attributed to both the characteristics of the people who live in those places (composition) and also to the characteristics of the places where people live (context). From the 1990s, there has been considerable interest in the role of neighbourhoods, specifically whether their social and physical characteristics are important in explaining inequalities in health. The main aim of this thesis is to determine the influence of ‘place’ effects on alcohol-related behaviour and health and social outcomes in New Zealand. To achieve this, data was obtained for hospitalisation and mortality directly related to alcohol consumption. Age standardised rates of alcohol related hospitalisation and mortality were calculated for different census areas units over time. Secondly, a database of all alcohol outlets including type and category was obtained from the Liquor Licensing Authority and geocoded for all meshblocks in New Zealand. Using ArcGIS road network functionality, least cost distance to nearest alcohol outlets was calculated. In addition, two buffers (800 and 3000 metres) were created around the population weighted centroids of each meshblock. Statistical analysis was undertaken to examine the distribution of alcohol outlets in areas of differing socio-economic status. Thirdly, binary logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between various access measures developed and individual alcohol related behaviour from the New Zealand Health Survey (2006/07). Lastly, Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to establish the association between the density of alcohol outlets and crime, and alcohol related hospitalisation. The results reveal there is increasing geographic inequality of both hospitalisation and mortality between the most and the least deprived areas in New Zealand. Secondly, the results consistently show there is inequity in the availability of alcohol outlets; there are clear social patterns in the distribution of alcohol outlets with disproportionately high numbers in more socially deprived neighbourhoods. Thirdly, at the national level, after controlling for potential confounding factors, there was no association between either hazardous or frequent consumption of alcohol and access to alcohol outlets. However, there was an association for particular sub-populations in regards to hazardous and frequent consumption and access to alcohol outlets. Fourthly, although the explained variance was often quite low in outcome models for crime and hospitalisation, nevertheless most of the variance for crime was predicted by the density of alcohol outlets. A number of important theoretical and policy implications flow from this study. Alcohol outlets are modifiable structures in the environments that are amenable to policy interventions at a community and national level. Interventions could concentrate on three aspects to reduce excess consumption; zoning ordinances, reducing alcohol outlets in deprived areas and increased alcohol taxation. Starting with the first proposed intervention, zoning ordinances provide communities and local governments with the opportunity to regulate outlet numbers and locations as well as their trading hours. This intervention has the potential to reduce opportunities for obtaining alcohol. Secondly, a reduction in the number of alcohol outlets is likely to reduce consumption and consequently improve health and social outcomes. Finally, higher alcohol prices via increased taxation is likely to be a deterrent to excess consumption and related health outcomes. Three priority areas are identified and recommended for future research. Studies using a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods, to better understand the association between local purchases of alcohol, consumption and proximity to alcohol outlets would be beneficial. In addition, the use of qualitative methods to examine the influence of social capital and cohesion, culture and norms on alcohol consumption in areas with higher densities of, and better access to alcohol outlets, is imperative. Lastly, longitudinal studies are also recommended to investigate increases or decreases in the number of alcohol outlets over time and the impact of such changes on the consumption patterns of different sub-populations.

The global burden of disease attributable to mental illness is high, and as a result people with serious mental illness are at greater risk of indicators of social exclusion, such as poverty, homelessness and social isolation. Since deinstitutionalisation began in the 1960s, a variety of housing and support models have been used for this group. „Housing first‟ models are proving superior to „continuum of care‟ models in achieving positive housing outcomes and improving indicators of social exclusion. Housing first programmes are also believed to be more effective as they offer consumers choice, are not contingent on treatment, and are, therefore, empowering and philosophically compatible with harm reduction and recovery approaches. The physical and social environments have also been found to influence housing satisfaction and well-being outcomes for this group, but are often poorly measured or inadequately defined in the few studies which have been conducted. As little recent New Zealand research has examined housing, support and environmental effects for people with serious mental illness, this twelve-month prospective cohort study provides a more current account of the experiences of this group. Thirty six participants were recruited from a group of people with serious mental illness referred to the Comcare Housing Service for assistance to obtain independent, community-based housing. An examination of the variables influencing housing and overall well-being ratings was conducted. Peace and Kell's (2001) sustainability framework, outlining four categories of resources required for this group to maintain housing, was also evaluated. The results demonstrate the success of housing support in improving outcomes for people with serious mental illness, particularly in terms of improved housing quality and satisfaction, and residential stability. They also provide further evidence that this group have high rates of homelessness and are frequently in situations where they are at risk of homelessness. The physical environment appeared to have little influence on housing satisfaction or other well-being measures, however, the social environment seemed to play a role in higher ratings on these outcomes. Participants rehoused by Comcare Housing reported higher housing satisfaction and fewer housing problems, indicating that the service was providing effective housing support. Peace and Kell‟s framework is a good model for conceptualising housing for this group, although environmental and neighbourhood effects need to be included in the model in order for it to have international applicability. The omission of those at risk of homelessness from the New Zealand definition is a serious concern and has policy implications as support to address housing issues for this group may be neglected due to their invisibility in the statistics.