This chapter traces the history of select endeavors that focused on place-based changes as a mechanism to improve the health, safety, and well-being of urban residents. Unfortunately, these endeavors evolved in silos, with urban planners and public-health and criminal-justice practitioners working largely in isolation from one another. The successes and limited uptake of these isolated endeavors are brought to light as the chapter looks at how they were overshadowed by individually focused therapies and interventions. Many people probably think that good science is already inherently involved when a place gets altered or a development gets built; this is perhaps the case with respect to the physical science of certain placemaking endeavors. However, the health and biological impacts of buildings and larger developments are very often left out, or only modestly considered as part of environmental or health-impact assessments. As such, there is a need to invigorate a new movement that connects social scientists, planners, and policy makers. Indeed, the best placemaking occurs when it is supported by empirical evaluation of its impacts on humans with the active involvement of scientists.
{"title":"A New Movement Based on Old Ideas","authors":"J. Macdonald, C. Branas, R. Stokes","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.6","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter traces the history of select endeavors that focused on place-based changes as a mechanism to improve the health, safety, and well-being of urban residents. Unfortunately, these endeavors evolved in silos, with urban planners and public-health and criminal-justice practitioners working largely in isolation from one another. The successes and limited uptake of these isolated endeavors are brought to light as the chapter looks at how they were overshadowed by individually focused therapies and interventions. Many people probably think that good science is already inherently involved when a place gets altered or a development gets built; this is perhaps the case with respect to the physical science of certain placemaking endeavors. However, the health and biological impacts of buildings and larger developments are very often left out, or only modestly considered as part of environmental or health-impact assessments. As such, there is a need to invigorate a new movement that connects social scientists, planners, and policy makers. Indeed, the best placemaking occurs when it is supported by empirical evaluation of its impacts on humans with the active involvement of scientists.","PeriodicalId":253299,"journal":{"name":"Changing Places","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115900983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter examines how the features of the built environment affect health and safety. It focuses on why and how the design of places shapes people's lived experience. Moreover, it introduces an emerging scientific movement concerned with the way changes to the built environment, from buildings and parks to streets, impact health and safety. Changing places is one of the best ways to produce sustained improvements in well-being for large groups of people over long periods of time. Certain characteristics of place-based designs can be chosen to maximize success. Altering the structures of the built environment to basic principles of simplicity, scalability, and ease of use can be employed as a model for producing place-based changes that have the most significant and lasting impact. The chapter then illustrates why place-based strategies should be among the first set of policy choices for enhancing the health and safety of urban residents.
{"title":"Our Surroundings, Ourselves","authors":"J. Macdonald, C. Branas, R. Stokes","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.5","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines how the features of the built environment affect health and safety. It focuses on why and how the design of places shapes people's lived experience. Moreover, it introduces an emerging scientific movement concerned with the way changes to the built environment, from buildings and parks to streets, impact health and safety. Changing places is one of the best ways to produce sustained improvements in well-being for large groups of people over long periods of time. Certain characteristics of place-based designs can be chosen to maximize success. Altering the structures of the built environment to basic principles of simplicity, scalability, and ease of use can be employed as a model for producing place-based changes that have the most significant and lasting impact. The chapter then illustrates why place-based strategies should be among the first set of policy choices for enhancing the health and safety of urban residents.","PeriodicalId":253299,"journal":{"name":"Changing Places","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115665500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter looks at interventions for land and open spaces and their impact on public health and safety. Abandoned, vacant, and neglected land is of great and growing concern in many cities. The chapter considers recent efforts to address this sort of land-based blight and how planners can partner with scientists to implement and evaluate land-remediation and zoning strategies to best improve public health and safety. In many ways, these changes represent the innate human desire for nature and green spaces. Without action from planners and landscape architects, such natural spaces would not exist in many of the cities. The chapter then showcases several studies that provide evidence that the mere presence of green spaces have healing and calming effects, an effect that occurs even if residents do not actively use these spaces. Indeed, there have been myriad efforts over the past decade or so by cities to revisit and reinvigorate their green and open-space planning efforts. Much of this effort has been to insert managed green spaces into smaller parcels and equitably distribute them across neighborhoods that lack access to larger green spaces. This pocket-park movement has economic drivers but, in some cities, also seeks to leverage the likely health benefits to local residents.
{"title":"The Nature Cure","authors":"J. Macdonald, C. Branas, R. Stokes","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.9","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter looks at interventions for land and open spaces and their impact on public health and safety. Abandoned, vacant, and neglected land is of great and growing concern in many cities. The chapter considers recent efforts to address this sort of land-based blight and how planners can partner with scientists to implement and evaluate land-remediation and zoning strategies to best improve public health and safety. In many ways, these changes represent the innate human desire for nature and green spaces. Without action from planners and landscape architects, such natural spaces would not exist in many of the cities. The chapter then showcases several studies that provide evidence that the mere presence of green spaces have healing and calming effects, an effect that occurs even if residents do not actively use these spaces. Indeed, there have been myriad efforts over the past decade or so by cities to revisit and reinvigorate their green and open-space planning efforts. Much of this effort has been to insert managed green spaces into smaller parcels and equitably distribute them across neighborhoods that lack access to larger green spaces. This pocket-park movement has economic drivers but, in some cities, also seeks to leverage the likely health benefits to local residents.","PeriodicalId":253299,"journal":{"name":"Changing Places","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125621633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter provides a guide to scientific evidence and explores how field experiments can be used as a scientific standard for determining what place-based policies to adopt, refine, or abandon. It also discusses what types of evidence to rely on when experiments are not possible for various ethical or pragmatic reasons. Experimentation is at the very heart of science, and relying on a scientific model for deciding how, and in what forms, the built environment should be modified is a dynamic process that can ultimately inform the efficient and effective expenditures of limited resources by policy makers. Rather than provide a treatise on the scientific method and the value of experiments, the chapter provides a short discussion of the benefits of different methods of evaluation and focuses more attention on the utility of a science-based policy agenda for changing places. The scientific model allows people to evaluate the influence that environments may have on health and safety while also encouraging them to pursue discoveries of innovative new place-based strategies that can achieve the greatest health and safety benefits at relatively low costs.
{"title":"Establishing Evidence","authors":"John Macdonald, C. Branas, R. Stokes","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvgc608k.7","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides a guide to scientific evidence and explores how field experiments can be used as a scientific standard for determining what place-based policies to adopt, refine, or abandon. It also discusses what types of evidence to rely on when experiments are not possible for various ethical or pragmatic reasons. Experimentation is at the very heart of science, and relying on a scientific model for deciding how, and in what forms, the built environment should be modified is a dynamic process that can ultimately inform the efficient and effective expenditures of limited resources by policy makers. Rather than provide a treatise on the scientific method and the value of experiments, the chapter provides a short discussion of the benefits of different methods of evaluation and focuses more attention on the utility of a science-based policy agenda for changing places. The scientific model allows people to evaluate the influence that environments may have on health and safety while also encouraging them to pursue discoveries of innovative new place-based strategies that can achieve the greatest health and safety benefits at relatively low costs.","PeriodicalId":253299,"journal":{"name":"Changing Places","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124987221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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