Book review: A handbook for wellbeing policy-making by Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel

In A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making, Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel offer a new guide to wellbeing-driven public policy, focusing on the proposal to replace GDP with wellbeing as the key metric to assess societal progress. With the book comprehensively exploring the theoretical and methodological assumptions and implications of the wellbeing approach, Paulo Anciaes recommends this timely work to practitioners at all levels of government. A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making. Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel. Oxford University Press. 2021

Book review: what is environmental history? by J. Donald Hughes

In the second edition of What is Environmental History?, J. Donald Hughes outlines the development of the study of the relationship between humans and nature across time. In tracing the emergence of the field, Hughes’s work underscores the extent to which environmental history is a necessarily interdisciplinary endeavour covering a wide geographic scope. Paulo Rui Anciaes positions this as a text to be approached as a concise reference work to supplement environmental history research

Book review: rights of way to Brasília Teimosa: the politics of squatter settlement by Charles J. Fortin

The site of Recife’s Brasília Teimosa favela emerged as a flash point of economic and political interests in the 1930s and the scene of subsequent strife into the 1980s. This book aims to unearth events surfacing through periods of revolution, dictatorship, populism, Cuban Communism, the 1964 military coup d’état and crackdown to the amplified reverberation of civil society voices and engagement decades later. Paulo Rui Anciaes finds that the book helps us to understand the type of context that feeds the resentment against the state that explodes once in a while, as we have seen in the wave of protests that have recently swept Brazilian cities

Book review: A handbook for wellbeing policy-making by Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel

In A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making, Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel offer a new guide to wellbeing-driven public policy, focusing on the proposal to replace GDP with wellbeing as the key metric to assess societal progress. With the book comprehensively exploring the theoretical and methodological assumptions and implications of the wellbeing approach, Paulo Anciaes recommends this timely work to practitioners at all levels of government. A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making. Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel. Oxford University Press. 2021

Transport equity: why we need a better understanding of LGBTQ+ travel needs

There is too much hope among scientists and governments that infrastructure and technology will solve all transport problems. This is a view focused on efficiency. But the benefits and costs of transport are not distributed fairly. Transport allows people to access resources and opportunities, but only if they have access to a car or to reliable, safe, and convenient public transport. Transport inequities have been studied concerning age, gender, income, and ethnicity. There is little knowledge on the travel needs of LGBTQ+ populations and on how not meeting these needs may exacerbate social exclusion and contribute to poor economic and health outcomes. Areas of concern include: 1) poor access to health/community facilities and social networks due to lack of transport, especially in the case of older people, in rural areas, and in the Global South, 2) perceived personal insecurity in streets and public transport. There are also methodological barriers to research, since many LGBTQ+ populations are “invisible” in surveys. In this presentation, I talk about my research in transport equity (which focused on age and income) and outline an agenda for further research on LGBTQ+ travel behaviour

The best bookshops in Tirana, Albania

Paulo Rui Anciaes explores Tirana, Albania’s best bookshops. If there’s a bookshop that you think other students and academics should visit when they’re undertaking research or visiting a city for a conference, find more information about contributing after this article

Book review: justice and fairness in the city: a multidisciplinary approach to ‘ordinary’ cities edited by Simin Davoudi and Derek Bell

In Justice and Fairness in the City: A Multidisciplinary Approach to ‘Ordinary’ Cities, editors Simin Davoudi and Derek Bell present a collection that explores notions of justice in and of the city, with particular focus upon the case of Newcastle. Traversing a range of themes, including questions of mobility, food poverty, education and green space, this cohesive volume underscores the interwoven sites and spaces of inequality experienced within contemporary cities, finds Paulo Rui Anciaes

Visual aspects of transport: the last frontier for transport and health research?

BACKGROUND: Transport infrastructures such as roads, car parks, and railways, have a large imprint in urban landscapes. Two perspectives can be considered: 1) View from the infrastructure – what users of motorised modes see when travelling. This view can be enjoyable and relaxing, but also distracting, fatiguing, and disturbing, with possible impacts on road safety and stress. 2) View of the infrastructure - what people see from buildings or when walking around. Visually intrusive infrastructure (e.g., elevated roads) may reduce residential satisfaction and subjective wellbeing. These visual aspects of transport have received little attention as a link between transport and health, when compared with other sensory aspects of the local environment (e.g., noise, air pollution). This study reviews the literature on the health and wellbeing effects of views from/of transport infrastructure, bringing together evidence scattered across many disciplines. METHODS: 1) View from infrastructure: A systematic review was performed, focusing on car drivers, and separating the effects of different types of roadside landscapes and visual elements. 2) View of the infrastructure: A narrative review was performed, given the small number of studies found. RESULTS: 1) View from infrastructure - most evidence relates to the driving task (e.g., distraction, fatigue), not to wider wellbeing aspects (e.g., stress). Monotonous views are consistently linked to fatigue and roadside advertisements linked to distractions. Roadside vegetation has a mix of positive and negative effects on stress and safety behaviour. There is mixed evidence on the effect of other visual elements (e.g., memorials, drones, utility poles, wind turbines) on distraction and safety behaviour. The links between long-term exposure to certain views and car commuter stress have not been studied. 2) View of infrastructure - Studies have found associations between lower subjective wellbeing and views of busy roads and/or car parks, for people at home, in their workplaces, or walking. Views of roads have also been linked with a slower recovery from stress and with reduced restorativeness of green areas. The only study testing the link between views of roads and physical activity did not find significant evidence CONCLUSIONS : Some links have been identified between visual aspects of transport and road safety, stress, and subjective wellbeing. However, the evidence is still incomplete, not covering all the relevant visual characteristics of transport infrastructure and all possible effects on health and wellbeing. This is a gap in the transport and health field, requiring more empirical studies

Book review: A handbook for wellbeing policy-making by Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel

In A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making, Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel offer a new guide to wellbeing-driven public policy, focusing on the proposal to replace GDP with wellbeing as the key metric to assess societal progress. With the book comprehensively exploring the theoretical and methodological assumptions and implications of the wellbeing approach, Paulo Anciaes recommends this timely work to practitioners at all levels of government

Barriers to pedestrians in a growing African city: how to quantify them using minimal data

BACKGROUND: Wide and busy roads are barriers to pedestrians, possibly affecting physical activity, independent mobility, social interaction, and physical and mental health. This ‘barrier effect’ is a pressing problem in many African cities, where, despite the growth in car traffic, walking is still the dominant mode, especially for the poor, women, and older people. This study quantifies the barrier effect of roads for the first time in an African city (Praia, capital of Cabo Verde), mapping the effect at the city level, and analysing its distribution across areas and social groups. The indicators account for land use (i.e., what is on the other side of the road). METHODS: We estimated, for each building, indicators of the barrier effect for trips to houses of other people and to food shops. To overcome lack of data, we manually compiled and mapped many of the variables used (road characteristics, food shops, informal settlements, census data). Barrier effects were defined as the proportions of the areas of other buildings and of food shops within 600m that are located across main roads. We analysed the distribution of the effect using descriptive statistics, cumulative frequencies, bivariate associations, and regression models. RESULTS: Strong barrier effects were found across the city, in some areas reaching 70% (i.e., roads curtail 70% of the walking accessibility potential of residents). The effect tends to be higher in older informal settlements than in formally planned areas and newer informal settlements, and it disproportionately affects individuals aged 65+. The effect is higher for households with high, medium, or low socio-economic status than for those with very high and very low status. The indicators were robust to changes in the assumptions, including type of roads included, maximum walking distance, and attractiveness of buildings and food shops. The indicators were also able to capture differences between effects in areas near roads and with many potential destinations across the road and areas near similar roads but with no destination across the road. Simpler indicators (e.g., considering only distance to roads) were less variable (as they do not consider land use). CONCLUSIONS: The barrier effect of roads is generally high and affects some areas with vulnerable populations. Mitigation measures (e.g., good crossing facilities) are needed. The indicators used performed well and are a good option for the assessment of barrier effects in data-poor contexts