Image was made by authors for the Zhuzhou Complete Street Design Manual ( Image source )
“Urban design is key to healthy environments for all”
SDG 3 (Good health and well-being) focuses on ‘ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages’, and prioritises the study of health for the period 2016-2030, since the rapid global urbanisation continues to challenge the health burden of the environments we live in, with the world’s urban population set to increase by 70% by 2050.
A 2016 report by the World Bank Group and the World Health Organization found that mental disorders account for 30% of the global burden of non-fatal disease, affecting 10% of the world’s population. Mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and stress can be linked not only to unhealthy behaviours such as sleeplessness and physical inactivity, but also to cancer and other chronic diseases, leading the WHO to advocate for “making mental health a global priority”.
Successful implementation of health initiatives requires a comprehensive understanding of urban environments, aspects that are commonly studied in urban health research. As for urban streets. The most important task is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of urban environments from a human perspective.
Image taken by Zhaoxi Zhang for the Zhuzhou Complete Street Design Manual ( Image source )
Authors
Lulu Xue, Daizong Liu, Lvye Yang, Yong Chen, Zhaoxi Zhang, Mengqi Quan, Hongmei Zhong, Xiaowei Hu, Yanli Ma, Xuyang Yuan, Yining Li, Zhuyun Wang, Youqi Wu and Yanjing Qing
License
Creative Commons
Contact:
Lulu Xue
Zhuzhou Complete Street Design Manual
Streets are at the center of urban life. Streets consist of a small fraction of urban spaces, but they play a vital role to facilitate urban mobility, social interactions, and economic vibrancy. Although in China, the concept of “complete street” has been adopted in a few Chinese cities, it has yet been mainstreamed in small- and medium-sized Chinese cities. Given the unique spatial characteristics of these small Chinese cities, designing complete streets requires contextualizes solutions.
The manual sets a local baseline for Zhuzhou—a small-sized Chinese city to design streets and public spaces while redefining the role of streets in the urban redevelopment and economic transformation context.
More information: https://wri.org.cn/en/research/zhuzhou-complete-street-design-manual
The diagram was created by Zhaoxi Zhang for the master thesis.
Citation:
Wu, H., Zhang, Z., Chen, Y., & Jiao, J. (2020). The impact of street characteristics on older pedestrians’ perceived safety in Shanghai, China. Journal of Transport and Land Use, 13(1), 469-490. doi:10.5198/jtlu.2020.1588
Contact:
Zhaoxi Zhang
The impact of street characteristics on older pedestrians’ perceived safety in Shanghai, China
Abstract:
Land-use patterns and rapid urban sprawl greatly influence older adults’ mobility in China. Older pedestrians’ safety issues are crucial because these people are more frequently injured in traffic accidents. This research aims to investigate what street characteristics influence perceived safety among older pedestrians in Shanghai, China. A mix of research methods containing both quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed. The researchers recruited 68 elderly urban dwellers who each agreed to take a perceived safety survey using 39 simulated streetscape images that contained 12 street characteristics extracted from four sectional zones of streets. Ordinal logit regression was performed to investigate the impact of street characteristics on older pedestrians’ perceived safety. A semi-structured, in-depth interview was conducted with 8 out of the 68 participants. It was found that the street interface type, elevation differences, footpath width, paver directions, isolation facility type, and vehicle traffic all affected pedestrians’ perceived safety after adjusting for individual demographic attributes and the physical limitations of the participants. Understanding the street characteristics related to perceived safety will contribute to making more inclusive and walkable cities.