City form and well-being: what makes London neighborhoods good places to live?

What is the relationship between urban form and citizens’ well-being? In this paper, we propose a quantitative approach to help answer this question, inspired by theories developed within the fields of architecture and population health. The method extracts a rich set of metrics of urban form and well-being from openly accessible datasets. Using linear regression analysis, we identify a model which can explain 30% of the variance of well-being when applied to Greater London, UK. Outcomes of this research can inform the discussion on how to design cities which foster the wellbeing of their residents

Diet patterns and dental caries in third grade U. S. children

The purpose of this study was to investigate further the relationship between intake of sucrose-containing foods and the prevalence of caries in a natural population of children. The study population was made up of 958 Caucasian third grade children from Minneapolis. Diet and brushing information was collected through personal interviews with the children. Four methods of coding diet information were used: (1) Confection Counting (the number of sucrose-containing items consumed during a 24-hour period); (2) Exposure Counting (to collapse sucrose-containing items consumed in a 30-min interval into one sucrose exposure); (3) Minneapolis Oral Retention Estimate (an assessment of usual consumption, 24-hour recall, brushing and consumption of water to estimate likelihood that the individual had sucrose in the oral cavity during a typical day); and (4) Hidden Sugar Estimate (utilization of food composition tables to estimate in teaspoons how much sucrose was consumed during a 24-hour period). The study shows few, if any, relationships existing between consumption of sucrose-containing foods and def or DMF teeth in both mealtime and between-meal periods.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72430/1/j.1600-0528.1974.tb01653.x-i1.pd

Whose Sense of Place? A Political Ecology of Amenity Development

Using a political ecology framework, this chapter examines the ways in which sense of place and amenity migration contribute to alternative residential development, which relies on uneven use of conservation subdivision features in the American West. Using case studies from Central Oregon, this chapter demonstrates how senses of place and developer decision-making are tied to wider political economic changes. It highlights the roles that amenity migrants and developers, two groups that are sometimes identical, play in landscape transformations that simultaneously draw on a particular sense of place and commodify landscapes in new ways

Obesity, physical activity, and the urban environment: public health research needs

Persistent trends in overweight and obesity have resulted in a rapid research effort focused on built environment, physical activity, and overweight. Much of the focus of this research has been on the design and form of suburbs. It suggests that several features of the suburban built environment such as low densities, poor street connectivity and the lack of sidewalks are associated with decreased physical activity and an increased risk of being overweight. But compared to suburban residents, inner city populations have higher rates of obesity and inactivity despite living in neighborhoods that are dense, have excellent street connectivity and who's streets are almost universally lined with sidewalks. We suggest that the reasons for this apparent paradox are rooted in the complex interaction of land use, infrastructure and social factors affecting inner city populations. Sometimes seemingly similar features are the result of very different processes, necessitating different policy responses to meet these challenges. For example, in suburbs, lower densities can result from government decision making that leads to restrictive zoning and land use issues. In the inner city, densities may be lowered because of abandonment and disinvestment. In the suburbs, changes in land use regulations could result in a healthier built environment. In inner cities, increasing densities will depend on reversing economic trends and investment decisions that have systematically resulted in distressed housing, abandoned buildings and vacant lots. These varying issues need to be further studied in the context of the totality of urban environments, incorporating what has been learned from other disciplines, such as economics and sociology, as well as highlighting some of the more successful inner city policy interventions, which may provide examples for communities working to improve their health. Certain disparities among urban and suburban populations in obesity and overweight, physical activity and research focus have emerged that are timely to address. Comparable research on the relationship of built environment and health is needed for urban, especially inner city, neighborhoods

African Americans, Gentrification, and Neoliberal Urbanization: the Case of Fort Greene, Brooklyn

This article examines the gentrification of Fort Greene, which is located in the western part of black Brooklyn, one of the largest contiguous black urban areas in the USA. Between the late 1960s and 2003, gentrification in Fort Greene followed the patterns discovered by scholars of black neighborhoods; the gentrifying agents were almost exclusively black and gentrification as a process was largely bottom-up because entities interested in the production of space were mostly not involved. Since 2003, this has changed. Whites have been moving to Fort Greene in large numbers and will soon represent the numerical majority. Public and private interventions in and around Fort Greene have created a new top-down version of gentrification, which is facilitating this white influx. Existing black residential and commercial tenants are replaced and displaced in the name of urban economic development

New urbanism, crime and the suburbs: a review of the evidence

Sustainability now influences government policy in the UK, Australia and USA and planning policy currently advocates high density, mixed-use residential developments in 'walkable', permeable neighbourhoods, close to public transport, employment and amenities. This clearly demonstrates the growing popularity, influence and application of New Urbanist ideas.This paper reviews the criminological research relating to New Urbanism associated with the three key issues of permeability, rear laneway car parking and mixed-use development. These key issues are discussed from an environmental criminology perspective and challenge New Urbanist assumptions concerning crime. The paper proposes that crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and its crime risk assessment model represents a valuable tool for New Urbanists to utilise to reduce opportunities for crime and tackle fear of crime in the community. Recommendations for future research and collaboration are discussed