This master's dissertation aimed to comprehensively investigate the influence of green spaces and path connectivity on walking behavior in the context of Uppsala, Sweden. The research questions that guided this study were twofold: (1) To what extent does the presence of green spaces influence the amount of walking occurring within a city? and (2) Can path connectivity significantly affect the amount of walking taking place in a city? Two primary hypotheses were formulated: first, that areas characterized by greater path connectivity would attract more transport walkers, and second, that areas with a higher abundance of green spaces would attract more leisurely walkers. The research adopted a rigorous quantitative approach, employing a multi-faceted methodology that encompassed both spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and field observations to capture real-world behavior. The initial phase of the study involved a meticulous examination of walkability attributes, focusing on the spatial characteristics of green spaces and path connectivity within Uppsala. This spatial analysis provided valuable insights into the potential relationships between these attributes and walking behavior. Subsequently, extensive field observations were conducted to gather empirical data that enabled statistical validation of the associations between the identified spatial factors and actual walking behaviors. Employing robust statistical analysis techniques, the collected data were analyzed to uncover patterns and draw meaningful conclusions. The results revealed a significant interaction between path connectivity and walking behavior, indicating that the extent and quality of path networks have a discernible impact on the walking patterns observed within the city. However, no significant interaction was found between the quantity of green spaces and walking behavior. Nonetheless, when considering the absolute number of walkers, a notable association emerged between both walkability attributes and the total count of walkers within the observed areas. The implications derived from this study indicate that the influence of walkability attributes on walking behavior is multifaceted and not entirely straightforward. While GIS analysis proved to be a valuable tool for evaluating walkability behaviors at a macro level, it became apparent that other microscale factors, including individual perceptions of the built environment, play a substantial role in shaping walking behaviors. Therefore, future studies should consider these microscale aspects to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between walkability attributes and walking behavior. Nevertheless, in general, areas exhibiting greater path connectivity and abundant green spaces showcased higher numbers of walkers in comparison to areas with fewer of these attributes. Thus, the research questions were affirmatively answered, demonstrating that both green spaces and path connectivity have a positive influence on the overall amount of walking within a city. This comprehensive study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on the subject, shedding light on the intricate dynamics between urban design, green spaces, path connectivity, and walking behavior. The findings serve as a valuable resource for urban planners, policymakers, and stakeholders interested in creating sustainable, walkable environments that promote active lifestyles and enhance the overall quality of life for residents in urban settings.

The aim of this project report is to investigate and identify the needs of the historic area (focus area) in the City of Milpitas, to positively contribute to the City’s planning process, and to make recommendations for the focus area’s future development. In the first chapters, City and focus area research results are presented. Currently, there is a lack of exclusive regulatory standards for attractive development in the City’s historic core. The project report then discusses the results of a short empirical everyday user survey, a parcel-by-parcel land use survey, and a walkability analysis. Research results indicate that the focus area could benefit from historic identity preservation, additional public open space and recreation, and economic development. The project report then identifies three case studies and analyzes each under an urban design framework regarding walkability and gateway development. Here, the project report draws on a number of sources regarding positive place making and urban design to highlight the focus area’s opportunities and constraints. In conclusion, the project report argues that the City’s location in the Bay Area and proximity to Silicon Valley requires accommodation and competition for development while coordinating current focus area development to contribute to an overall well-designed site plan with a focus on walkability and an attractive gateway image. Recommendations are provided in the form of design guidelines.

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<p>A critical factor in transit mode share analysis is the level of accessibility to transit services. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationships between accessibility and the built environment, and the use of transit. To do so, the proportion of transit users is modeled as a function of socio-economic characteristics, transit level of service, and built environment characteristics. While accessibility to transit has been the object of previous research, accessibility <em>by</em> transit is a factor that has received only limited attention in prior transit modal share research. The case study is the city of Hamilton, and the geographic unit of analysis is the Dissemination Area. A logistic model for proportions with a spatial filter (for spatial autocorrelation) and an over-dispersion parameter is found to provide the best fit and statistical properties. The results of analysis at the meso-scale show that accessibility by transit contributes positively to usage of transit. The possibility that factors at the micro-scale may also influence use of transit, suggests the development of a methodology, based on the use of spatial filtering, to systematically select walkability audit sites. The proposed methodology is demonstrated by means of a case study of neighborhoods in Hamilton. Statistical analysis of walkability audit information shows that the proposed selection strategy can be used to better target limited resources for field-based work, and produce valuable insights into the micro-level factors that may affect transit use.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Hyung Jin Kim / Obesity levels—related to an increase of physical inactivity—are rapidly rising in the United States (CDC 2010; Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion 2008). Reportedly, African-American women have the highest obesity rates when compared to any other demographic in the United States—especially those residing in crime-plagued urban environments (CDC 2010). Yet active living strategies by designers have been least effective amongst this demographic (Day 2006). Researchers report crime-safety perceptions are one of the biggest environmental factors influencing physical activity levels amongst low-income African-American women (Foster and Giles-Corti 2008; Codinhoto 2009). Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) has been the most common practice towards an intervention of criminal activity in the built environment; however, little practice has addressed both CPTED and physical activity. While first and second generation crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) are inclusive of addressing both physical and social aspects of the built environment (Cleveland and Seville 2008; Griffin et al. 2008; Dekeseredy et al. 2009), they have yet to effectively address crime-safety needs and its potential relationship with physical activity behaviors of low-income African-American women and their neighborhoods. Therefore, what built environment changes tailored for this target population—African- American women—are necessary? This study examines 1) what crime safety perceptions of the built environment are affecting low--income African American women’s physical activity levels in Kansas City, Missouri and 2) what design solutions these women suggest could help increase their physical activity levels, through improving their perceptions of neighborhood safety. As a place-specific study on a low income neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, selected through GIS suitability analyses with literature-based criteria, this study used survey and focus group interview methods to identify the target group’s design suggestions. The findings resulted with a connection from research to design solutions—neighborhood and street-level design strategies with CPTED guidelines linking the researched participant’s perceptions of crime in their built environment to the effect of crime on their own physical activity.

No description available.

To increase real estate values, developers often apply designs on the land. In the case of a single family housing development, the designs are applied to the unit of subdivisions. In this study, the designs are defined as “value creation concepts,” which increase housing values at the subdivision level. The value creation concepts are classified into five categories – the sense of arrival, product mix, walkability, circulation system, and amenity. This cross-sectional study focuses on exploring the effects of value creation concepts in the subdivision. Two methodologies – the Hedonic Price Model (HPM) and the Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) – are used to test whether or not the value creation concepts would increase or decrease single family housing values. The study sample is composed of 6,562 single family houses nested in 85 subdivisions in College Station, Texas. Data are composed of two levels: the housing level and the subdivision level. The scores of the sense of arrival were provided by sixtyone graduate students at Texas A&M University using photograph evaluations. Most structural variables were obtained from the Brazos County Appraisal District, and physical environmental variables were objectively measured using the Geographical Information System. In the both models, sense of arrival, greenway connectivity, sidewalk connectivity, and median length of cul-de-sac variables have positive effects on single family housing values while phased project, the number of accessible entrances, street density, single family density, and median length of block variables have negative effects on single family housing values. At the housing level, several structural variables (e.g. bathrooms, attached garage, porches, etc), attached to a golf course, sports facilities, network distance from the nearest elementary school, population density, and personal variables (i.e., tenure, workable age, employment) were significant (p<.05) predictors of single family housing value. Findings support that the value creation concepts have effects on increasing housing values at the subdivision level, which would provide thoughtful insights for developers in residential areas. In addition, the HLM can be used as the complement of the HPM by controlling interaction terms between housing variables and subdivision variables, or among the subdivision variables themselves.

Despite the benefits of applying methods of geographic information science (GIScience), the use of such methods in health service planning and provision remains greatly underutilized. Spread of epidemic diseases is a constant threat to mankind and the globalization of the world increases the risk for global attacks from multi-resistant bacteria or deadly virus strains. Therefore, research is needed to better understand how GIScience could be used in epidemiologic analyses and other health applications. This thesis is divided into two parts; one for epidemiologic analyses and one for neighbourhood studies. The overall objective of the epidemiologic part of this research is to understand more about the spatial spread of past pandemics and to find out if there are any common patterns. This overall objective is divided into four specific research objectives; 1) to describe the spatial spread of the Russian Influenza in Sweden, 2) to create models of propagation of the Black Death in Sweden, 3) to establish spatiotemporal characteristics common to past pandemics in Sweden and 4) to visualize the spatiotemporal occurrence of salmonella among animal herds in Sweden. This thesis also discusses some other aspects of health related to place. Are differences in neighbourhood deprivation related to the amount of presence of goods and services? Is the way cities are planned affecting the behaviour within the local population regarding spontaneous walking and physical activity? The specific research objectives for this part are to define how deprivation is related to presence of goods and services in Sweden and to create walkability indices over the city of Stockholm including a quality test of these indices. Case data reported by physicians were used for the epidemiologic studies. The pandemics discussed covered the entire world, but our data is from Sweden only and as regards the Black Death there was no case data at all. The data for the goods and services analyses are from all of Sweden, whereas the walkability indices are based on data from the city of Stockholm. Various methods have been used to clean, structure and geocode the data, including hand written reports on case data, maps of poor geometric quality, information from databases on climate, demography, diseases, goods and services, income data and more, to make this data feasible for spatial analysis, modeling and visualization. Network analysis was used to model food transports in the 14th century as well as walking in the city of Stockholm today. Proximity analysis was used to assess the spatio-temporal spread of the Russian Influenza. The impact of climatological factors on the propagation of the Asian Influenza was analyzed and geographically weighted mean (GWM) calculations were used to discover common characteristics in the spatio-temporal spread of three past pandemics. Among the results generated in the epidemiologic study the following should be noted in particular; the local peaking periods of the Asian Influenza were preceded by falling temperature, the total peaking period for the three pandemics (Russian, Asian and A(H1N1)pdm09) was approximately 10 weeks and their weekly GWM followed a path from southwest to northeast (opposite direction for the A(H1N1)pdm09). From the neighborhood studies one can note that compared to the results measured and reported by tested individuals there is a positive (small but significant) association between neighborhood walkability and physical activity outcomes. The main contribution of this work is that it gives epidemiologists and public health specialists new ideas, not only on how to formulate, model, analyze and visualize different health related research questions but also ideas on how new procedures could be implemented in their daily work. Once the data reporting is organized in a suitable manner there is a multitude of options on how to present important and critical information to officials and policy makers. / <p>QC 20140313</p>

This thesis demonstrates that New Urbanism is both an advisable and feasible method for reducing carbon emissions to mitigate global climate change. New Urban areas commonly generate lower carbon emissions compared to conventional suburban development due to lower car use and higher levels of walking and use of other forms of transportation. Economic and political feasibility of New Urban development is determined by analyzing case studies, housing price premia, financing, and fiscal impact. The many contexts and perspectives involved in the planning process are analyzed to determine if New Urbanism is advisable in the larger setting in which developers, advocates, and governments operate. In order to enable the planning strategy to achieve a more positive effect and become more widespread, key policy changes and strategic enactment measures are delineated. This thesis finds that New Urbanism has very strong potential to have a significant positive impact on urban sustainability.

Study 1 - Individual - The purpose was to determine whether a 12-week behavioural risk reduction intervention caused self-reported MVPA to increase and to identify associated Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) constructs. Three hundred twenty-four physically inactive (<150 minutes/week moderate-vigorous PA) participants were included. Intervention participants were significantly more likely to meet PA guidelines at 12-weeks (OR=3.54, 95% CI 2.22-5.63, p<.001), which was significantly correlated with increases in TPB constructs. // Study 2 - Family - Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 36 participants to elicit perceptions of factors that influence PA. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, coded and analyzed. Spouses were more likely to engage in PA with their spouse after the CHD event; however this may be limited by their partners’ capabilities. The data suggests awareness of an increased susceptibility to CHD is not stimulating participants to increase their own PA to prevent future risk, particularly among offspring, but they may take other actions. The shared family environment can promote PA, although intensity may be limited. // Study 3 - Neighbourhood - Self-reported PA from a prospective behavioural risk reduction intervention was explored in the context of objectively measured Walk Scores and neighbourhood walkability in Ottawa, Canada. Participants in the intervention arm had significantly higher odds of meeting PA guidelines at 12-weeks compared to the standard care control group. This was not influenced by Walk Scores or walkability. This individual-level intervention was effective in assisting participants to overcome potential structural barriers presented by their neighbourhood to meet PA guidelines at 12-weeks.