Wind disasters adaptation in cities in a changing climate: A systematic review

Wind-related disasters will bring more devastating consequences to cities in the future with a changing climate, but relevant studies have so far provided insufficient information to guide adaptation actions. This study aims to provide an in-depth elaboration of the contents discussed in open access literature regarding wind disaster adaptation in cities. We used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to refine topics and main contents based on 232 publications (1900 to 2019) extracted from Web of Science and Scopus. We conducted a full-text analysis to filter out focal cities along with their adaptation measures. The results show that wind disaster adaptation research in cities has formed a systematic framework in four aspects: 1) vulnerability and resilience of cities, 2) damage evaluation, 3) response and recovery, and 4) health impacts of wind disaster. Climate change is the background for many articles discussing vulnerability and adaptation in coastal areas. It is also embedded in damage evaluation since it has the potential to exacerbate disaster consequences. The literature is strongly inclined towards more developed cities such as New York City and New Orleans, among which New York City associated with Hurricane Sandy ranks first (38/232). Studies on New York City cover all the aspects, including the health impacts of wind disasters which are significantly less studied now. Distinct differences do exist in the number of measures regarding the adaptation categories and their subcategories. We also find that hard adaptation measures (i.e., structural and physical measures) are far more popular than soft adaptation measures (i.e., social and institutional measures). Our findings suggest that policymakers should pay more attention to cities that have experienced major wind disasters other than New York. They should embrace the up-to-date climate change study to defend short-term disasters and take precautions against long-term changes. They should also develop hard-soft hybrid adaptation measures, with special attention on the soft side, and enhance the health impact study of wind-related disasters.

Examining the distributional equity of urban tree canopy cover and ecosystem services across United States cities

Examining the distributional equity of urban tree canopy cover (UTCC) has increasingly become an important interdisciplinary focus of ecologists and social scientists working within the field of environmental justice. However, while UTCC may serve as a useful proxy for the benefits provided by the urban forest, it is ultimately not a direct measure. In this study, we quantified the monetary value of multiple ecosystem services (ESD) provisioned by urban forests across nine U.S. cities. Next, we examined the distributional equity of UTCC and ESD using a number of commonly investigated socioeconomic variables. Based on trends in the literature, we predicted that UTCC and ESD would be positively associated with the variables median income and percent with an undergraduate degree and negatively associated with the variables percent minority, percent poverty, percent without a high school degree, percent renters, median year home built, and population density. We also predicted that there would be differences in the relationships between each response variable (UTCC and ESD) and the suite of socioeconomic predictor variables examined because of differences in how each response variable is derived. We utilized methods promoted within the environmental justice literature, including a multi-city comparative analysis, the incorporation of high-resolution social and environmental datasets, and the use of spatially explicit models. Patterns between the socioeconomic variables and UTCC and ESD did not consistently support our predictions, highlighting that inequities are generally not universal but rather context dependent. Our results also illustrated that although the variables UTCC and ESD had largely similar relationships with the predictor variables, differences did occur between them. Future distributional equity research should move beyond the use of proxies for environmental amenities when possible while making sure to consider that the use of ecosystem service estimates may result in different patterns with socioeconomic variables of interest. Based on our findings, we conclude that understanding and remedying the challenges associated with inequities requires an understanding of the local social-ecological system if larger sustainability goals are to be achieved.

Community resilience and urban planning in tsunami-prone settlements in Chile

Urban planning can serve to minimise the effects of a tsunami and enhance community resilience. This study explores to what extent urban planning has addressed tsunami resilience in four villages on Chile's South Pacific coast, each of which was struck by tsunamis in 1960, 2010, and 2015. Through a detailed policy review and semi-structured interviews with residents, this paper analyses whether tsunami mitigation policies were incorporated into regional and local planning tools. It finds that although the government proposed relocation to tsunami-safe areas after the tsunami of 1960, urban development continued mainly in tsunami inundation zones-in the context of weak local planning frameworks and in the absence of community participation. In only one of the four case studies did participatory planning bring about the relocation of an entire village to a safe location. This paper concludes that incorporating participatory risk zone planning into urban planning enhances tsunami resilience.

Resilience actions to counteract the effects of climate change and health emergencies in cities: the role of artificial neural networks

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) with its 2015 "Climate and Health Country Profile Project" and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) with its 2018 "Health and Climate Change", agree on the emergency generated by the climate change and concerning health problems. The mitigation strategy suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) against greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on climate change, has not yet yielded the desired results. It is therefore necessary to focus on adaptation strategies, to immediately counter the effects of climate change (CC) on most vulnerable people and environments, by increasing their resilience through local interventions and targeted resilience actions. Coordinated resilience actions are necessary to combat the effects of CC especially in urban areas. Useful tools to manage and optimize resilience actions are artificial neural networks (ANN) in complex and dynamic domains as cities are. The case of ANN applied to a city is presented as an example to increase the climate resilience of health local systems. In the current state of knowledge, ANN prove to be the most advanced and global solution to coordinate and manage a set of resilience actions in urban areas.

Analysis of Environmental Issues with an Application of Civil Complaints: The Case of Shiheung City, Republic of Korea

The aim of this study was to better identify the information generated by citizens and to explore the regional social phenomenon whereby higher quality urban services focused on understanding regional issues are promoted. Citizens voluntarily and continuously communicate with local government both online and offline. We wanted to determine how civic information can be applied to urban planning. We selected Shiheung City, Republic of Korea, as our study area, as the city is formed of various types of land use: industrial areas, agricultural land, and residential areas. This area is facing developmental pressure with released development-restricted areas, and has been environmentally damaged by industrial complexes. We conducted a semantic network analysis of the top 10% most commonly used nouns in civil complaints to determine the keywords. Each thematic map we created was based on geographical information to explain the temporary, continuous, and chronic issues. The chronic problems were discussed in relation to the regional development process. The process of identifying and analyzing local issues by analyzing information voluntarily provided by citizens plays an important role in government-led urban management planning and policy formation and can contribute to decision making in the development of future urban policies.

Growing Canopy on a College Campus: Understanding Urban Forest Change through Archival Records and Aerial Photography

Many municipalities are setting ambitious tree canopy cover goals to increase the extent of their urban forests. A historical perspective on urban forest development can help cities strategize how to establish and achieve appropriate tree cover targets. To understand how long-term urban forest change occurs, we examined the history of trees on an urban college campus: the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Using a mixed methods approach, including qualitative assessments of archival records (1870-2017), complemented by quantitative analysis of tree cover from aerial imagery (1970-2012), our analysis revealed drastic canopy cover increase in the late 20th and early 21st centuries along with the principle mechanisms of that change. We organized the historical narrative into periods reflecting campus planting actions and management approaches; these periods are also connected to broader urban greening and city planning movements, such as City Beautiful and urban sustainability. University faculty in botany, landscape architecture, and urban design contributed to the design of campus green spaces, developed comprehensive landscape plans, and advocated for campus trees. A 1977 Landscape Development Plan was particularly influential, setting forth design principles and planting recommendations that enabled the dramatic canopy cover gains we observed, and continue to guide landscape management today. Our results indicate that increasing urban tree cover requires generational time scales and systematic management coupled with a clear urban design vision and long-term commitments. With the campus as a microcosm of broader trends in urban forest development, we conclude with a discussion of implications for municipal tree cover planning.

Use of science to guide city planning policy and practice: how to achieve healthy and sustainable future cities

Land-use and transport policies contribute to worldwide epidemics of injuries and non-communicable diseases through traffic exposure, noise, air pollution, social isolation, low physical activity, and sedentary behaviours. Motorised transport is a major cause of the greenhouse gas emissions that are threatening human health. Urban and transport planning and urban design policies in many cities do not reflect the accumulating evidence that, if policies would take health effects into account, they could benefit a wide range of common health problems. Enhanced research translation to increase the influence of health research on urban and transport planning decisions could address many global health problems. This paper illustrates the potential for such change by presenting conceptual models and case studies of research translation applied to urban and transport planning and urban design. The primary recommendation of this paper is for cities to actively pursue compact and mixed-use urban designs that encourage a transport modal shift away from private motor vehicles towards walking, cycling, and public transport. This Series concludes by urging a systematic approach to city design to enhance health and sustainability through active transport and a move towards new urban mobility. Such an approach promises to be a powerful strategy for improvements in population health on a permanent basis.

City planning and population health: a global challenge

Significant global health challenges are being confronted in the 21st century, prompting calls to rethink approaches to disease prevention. A key part of the solution is city planning that reduces non-communicable diseases and road trauma while also managing rapid urbanisation. This Series of papers considers the health impacts of city planning through transport mode choices. In this, the first paper, we identify eight integrated regional and local interventions that, when combined, encourage walking, cycling, and public transport use, while reducing private motor vehicle use. These interventions are destination accessibility, equitable distribution of employment across cities, managing demand by reducing the availability and increasing the cost of parking, designing pedestrian-friendly and cycling-friendly movement networks, achieving optimum levels of residential density, reducing distance to public transport, and enhancing the desirability of active travel modes (eg, creating safe attractive neighbourhoods and safe, affordable, and convenient public transport). Together, these interventions will create healthier and more sustainable compact cities that reduce the environmental, social, and behavioural risk factors that affect lifestyle choices, levels of traffic, environmental pollution, noise, and crime. The health sector, including health ministers, must lead in advocating for integrated multisector city planning that prioritises health, sustainability, and liveability outcomes, particularly in rapidly changing low-income and middle-income countries. We recommend establishing a set of indicators to benchmark and monitor progress towards achievement of more compact cities that promote health and reduce health inequities.

Mapping Environmental Inequalities Relevant for Health for Informing Urban Planning Interventions-A Case Study in the City of Dortmund, Germany

Spatial differences in urban environmental conditions contribute to health inequalities within cities. The purpose of the paper is to map environmental inequalities relevant for health in the City of Dortmund, Germany, in order to identify needs for planning interventions. We develop suitable indicators for mapping socioeconomically-driven environmental inequalities at the neighborhood level based on published scientific evidence and inputs from local stakeholders. Relationships between socioeconomic and environmental indicators at the level of 170 neighborhoods were analyzed continuously with Spearman rank correlation coefficients and categorically applying chi-squared tests. Reclassified socioeconomic and environmental indicators were then mapped at the neighborhood level in order to determine multiple environmental burdens and hotspots of environmental inequalities related to health. Results show that the majority of environmental indicators correlate significantly, leading to multiple environmental burdens in specific neighborhoods. Some of these neighborhoods also have significantly larger proportions of inhabitants of a lower socioeconomic position indicating hotspots of environmental inequalities. Suitable planning interventions mainly comprise transport planning and green space management. In the conclusions, we discuss how the analysis can be used to improve state of the art planning instruments, such as clean air action planning or noise reduction planning towards the consideration of the vulnerability of the population.

Design of a Health-Promoting Neighborhood Intervention

Design and implementation of health-promoting community interventions can advance public health and community well-being; however, realization of such programs is often challenging. Even more challenging is the implementation of ecologic interventions to revitalize built urban environments. A structured intervention entitled `Intersection Repair` was devised in Portland, Oregon, by a non-profit organization, to implement urban gathering places in the public right of way; specific steps included situation analysis, community outreach, asset mapping, design workshops, construction permitting, building workshops, and process evaluation. The community created human-scale urban landscapes with interactive art installations to encourage social interactions. Such aesthetic improvements, which included painted street murals, information kiosks, hanging gardens, water fountains, benches, and so on, were intended to strengthen social networks and social capital by providing places for residents to engage in conversation. Community engagement in neighborhood design benefits the public at multiple levels, by promoting a healthier lifestyle, over and above urban landscape improvements.

Knowledge Co-production at the Research-Practice Interface: Embedded Case Studies from Urban Forestry

Cities are increasingly engaging in sustainability efforts and investment in green infrastructure, including large-scale urban tree planting campaigns. In this context, researchers and practitioners are working jointly to develop applicable knowledge for planning and managing the urban forest. This paper presents three case studies of knowledge co-production in the field of urban forestry in the United States. These cases were selected to span a range of geographic scales and topical scopes; all three are examples of urban researcher-practitioner networks in which the authors are situated to comment on reflexively. The three cases resemble institutional structures described in the knowledge co-production literature, including participatory research, a hybrid organization of scientists and managers, and a community of practice. We find that trust, embeddedness, new approaches by both practitioners and researchers, and blending of roles all serve to recognize multiple forms of capability, expertise, and ways of knowing. We discuss the impacts of knowledge co-production and the ways in which hybrid institutional forms can enable its occurrence.

European Healthy City Network Phase V: patterns emerging for healthy urban planning

There is a tradition of planning cities and their infrastructure to successfully tackle communicable disease arising from urban development. Non-communicable disease follows a different course. Development brings in its wake a basket of adverse health and health equity outcomes that are proving difficult to tackle. In response, within Phase V of the European Healthy Cities Network, municipalities have implemented a range of policy and physical interventions using a settings approach. Owing to the time lag between physical interventions and health outcomes, this research interrogates city activity itself to develop better understanding. Self-reported city case studies and questionnaire data were analysed to reveal patterns using an inductive approach. Findings indicate that some categories of intervention, such as whole city planning and transport, have a systemic impact across the wider determinants of health. Addressing transferability and stakeholder understanding helped cities create conditions for successful outcomes. Cities had varying urban development approaches for tackling climate change. Improvements to current practice are discussed, including; a distinction between supply side and demand side in healthy urban planning; valuing co-benefits and developing integrative approaches to the evidence-base. This evaluative article is important for cities wanting to learn how to maximize benefits to public health through urban development and for researchers exploring, with a systemic approach, the experiences of European cities acting at the interface of urban development and public health. This article also provides recommendations for future phases of the WHO European Healthy Cities programme, posing questions to better address governance and equity in spatial planning.

Public Health Adaptation to Climate Change in Large Cities: A Global Baseline

Climate change will have significant impacts on human health, and urban populations are expected to be highly sensitive. The health risks from climate change in cities are compounded by rapid urbanization, high population density, and climate-sensitive built environments. Local governments are positioned to protect populations from climate health risks, but it is unclear whether municipalities are producing climate-adaptive policies. In this article, we develop and apply systematic methods to assess the state of public health adaptation in 401 urban areas globally with more than 1 million people, creating the first global baseline for urban public health adaptation. We find that only 10% of the sampled urban areas report any public health adaptation initiatives. The initiatives identified most frequently address risks posed by extreme weather events and involve direct changes in management or behavior rather than capacity building, research, or long-term investments in infrastructure. Based on our characterization of the current urban health adaptation landscape, we identify several gaps: limited evidence of reporting of institutional adaptation at the municipal level in urban areas in the Global South; lack of information-based adaptation initiatives; limited focus on initiatives addressing infectious disease risks; and absence of monitoring, reporting, and evaluation.

Climate resiliency: A unique multi-hazard mitigation approach

Baltimore's unique combination of shocks and stresses cuts across social, economic and environmental factors. Like many other post-industrial cities, over the past several decades, Baltimore has experienced a decline in its population -- resulting in a lower tax base. These trends have had deleterious effects on the city's ability to attend to much needed infrastructure improvements and human and social services. In addition to considerable social and economic issues, the city has begun to experience negative impacts due to climate change. The compounding nature of these trends has put Baltimore, like other post-industrial cities, in the position of having to do more with fewer available resources. Rather than wait for disaster to strike, Baltimore took a proactive approach to planning for shocks and stresses by determining unique ways to pre-emptively plan for and adapt to effects from climate change and incorporating these into the City's All Hazard Mitigation Plan. Since adopting the plan in 2013, Baltimore has been moving forward with various projects aimed at improving systems, enhancing adaptive capacity and building a more resilient and sustainable city. This paper describes the basis for the city's approach and offers a portrait of its efforts in order to broaden foundational knowledge of the emerging ways that cities are recasting the role of planning in light of unprecedented circumstances that demand complex solutions that draw on few resources.

Prioritizing action on health inequities in cities: An evaluation of Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART) in 15 cities from Asia and Africa

Following the recommendations of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2008), the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (HEART) to support local stakeholders in identifying and planning action on health inequities. The objective of this report is to analyze the experiences of cities in implementing Urban HEART in order to inform how the future development of the tool could support local stakeholders better in addressing health inequities. The study method is documentary analysis from independent evaluations and city implementation reports submitted to WHO. Independent evaluations were conducted in 2011-12 on Urban HEART piloting in 15 cities from seven countries in Asia and Africa: Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Local or national health departments led Urban HEART piloting in 12 of the 15 cities. Other stakeholders commonly engaged included the city council, budget and planning departments, education sector, urban planning department, and the Mayor's office. Ten of the 12 core indicators recommended in Urban HEART were collected by at least 10 of the 15 cities. Improving access to safe water and sanitation was a priority equity-oriented intervention in 12 of the 15 cities, while unemployment was addressed in seven cities. Cities who piloted Urban HEART displayed confidence in its potential by sustaining or scaling up its use within their countries. Engagement of a wider group of stakeholders was more likely to lead to actions for improving health equity. Indicators that were collected were more likely to be acted upon. Quality of data for neighbourhoods within cities was one of the major issues. As local governments and stakeholders around the world gain greater control of decisions regarding their health, Urban HEART could prove to be a valuable tool in helping them pursue the goal of health equity.

'Including health in systems responsible for urban planning': a realist policy analysis research programme

INTRODUCTION

Realist methods are increasingly being used to investigate complex public health problems. Despite the extensive evidence base clarifying the built environment as a determinant of health, there is limited knowledge about how and why land-use planning systems take on health concerns. Further, the body of research related to the wider determinants of health suffers from not using political science knowledge to understand how to influence health policy development and systems. This 4-year funded programme of research investigates how the land-use planning system in New South Wales, Australia, incorporates health and health equity at multiple levels.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The programme uses multiple qualitative methods to develop up to 15 case studies of different activities of the New South Wales land-use planning system. Comparison cases from other jurisdictions will be included where possible and useful. Data collection includes publicly available documentation and purposively sampled stakeholder interviews and focus groups of up to 100 participants across the cases. The units of analysis in each case are institutional structures (rules and mandates constraining and enabling actors), actors (the stakeholders, organisations and networks involved, including health-focused agencies), and ideas (policy content, information, and framing). Data analysis will focus on and develop propositions concerning the mechanisms and conditions within and across each case leading to inclusion or non-inclusion of health. Data will be refined using additional political science and sociological theory. Qualitative comparative analysis will compare cases to develop policy-relevant propositions about the necessary and sufficient conditions needed to include health issues.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethics has been approved by Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committee (2014/802 and 2015/178). Given the nature of this research we will incorporate stakeholders, often as collaborators, throughout. We outline our research translation strategies following best practice approaches.

An active city approach for urban development

With an increasing percentage of the global population living in cities and the concurrent decrease in physical activity in daily life, public health issues for urban development have arisen. This study responds to that trend by presenting an approach to measure city-wide physical activity levels. Comparing of city indices for active sports and the active transportation shows differences between subject cities and activity level of age groups in sports as well as walking and cycling. Therefore, our study lends itself to implications for urban development towards creating a healthier city.

Linking disaster resilience and urban sustainability: a glocal approach for future cities

Resilience and sustainability will be two primary objectives of future cities. The violent consequences of extreme natural events and the environmental, social and economic burden of contemporary cities make the concepts of resilience and sustainability extremely relevant. In this paper we analyse the various definitions of resilience and sustainability applied to urban systems and propose a synthesis, based on similarities between the two concepts. According to the proposed approach, catastrophic events and the subsequent transformations occurring in urban systems represent a moment in the city life cycle to be seen in terms of the complex sustainability framework. Hence, resilience is seen as a requirement for urban system sustainability. In addition, resilience should be evaluated not only for single cities, with their physical and social systems, but also on a global scale, taking into account the complex and dynamic relationships connecting contemporary cities.

[Scientific approaches to modernization of the regulatory framework in the field of hygiene of planning and building of settlements in Ukraine]

In the paper there are investigated and analyzed the new laws and regulations of sanitary and town planning legislation, introduced in 2011-2012 which concern issues of planning and building of settlements. It is established that the functions of the State for Sanitary and Epidemiological Oversight have been given up and the necessity of incorporation in the Law of Ukraine "On ensuring sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population" alterations which touch upon the implementation of a new approach to the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Oversight of the objects, namely for the placement of objects with low and moderate epidemic risk accordingly to hygienic declarations, objects with high risk--using an approach directed to the risk assessment of the impact of such facilities on public health.

Urban planning for healthy cities. A review of the progress of the European Healthy Cities Programme

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the progress made by European cities in relation to Healthy Urban Planning (HUP) during Phase IV of the World Health Organization's Healthy Cities programme (2003-2008). The introduction sets out the general principle of HUP, identifying three levels or phases of health and planning integration. This leads on to a more specific analysis of the processes and substance of HUP, which provide criteria for assessment of progress. The assessment itself relies on two sources of data provided by the municipalities: the Annual Review Templates (ARTs) 2008 and the response to the Phase IV General Evaluation Questionnaire. The findings indicate that the evidence from different sources and questions in different sections are encouragingly consistent. The number of cities achieving a good level of understanding and activity in HUP has risen very substantially over the period. In particular, those achieving effective strategic integration of health and planning have increased. A key challenge for the future will be to develop planning frameworks which advance public health concerns in a spatial policy context driven often by market forces. A health in all policies approach could be valuable.

Promoting active living in healthy cities of Europe

Local governments in Europe have a vital role in promoting physical activity in the daily life of citizens. However, explicit investment in active living has been limited. One of the four core themes for Phase IV (2003-2008) of the World Health Organization (WHO) European Healthy Cities Network (WHO-EHCN) was to encourage local governments and their partners to implement programs in favor of active living. This study analyzes the performance of network cities during this period. Responses to a general evaluation questionnaire are analyzed by content according to a checklist, and categorized into themes and dimensions. Most cities viewed "active living" as an important issue for urban planning; to improve visual appeal, enhance social cohesion, create a more sustainable transport system to promote walkability and cyclability and to reduce inequalities in public health. Almost all member cities reported on existing policies that support the promotion of active living. However, only eight (of the 59) responding cities mentioned an integrated framework specific for active living. Many efforts to promote active living are nested in programs to prevent obesity among adults or children. Future challenges include establishing integrated policies specifically for active living, introducing a larger range of actions, as well as increasing funding and capacity to make a difference at the population level.

Evaluation of partnership working in cities in phase IV of the WHO Healthy Cities Network

An intersectoral partnership for health improvement is a requirement of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network of municipalities. A review was undertaken in 59 cities based on responses to a structured questionnaire covering phase IV of the network (2003-2008). Cities usually combined formal and informal working partnerships in a pattern seen in previous phases. However, these encompassed more sectors than previously and achieved greater degrees of collaborative planning and implementation. Additional WHO technical support and networking in phase IV significantly enhanced collaboration with the urban planning sector. Critical success factors were high-level political commitment and a well-organized Healthy City office. Partnerships remain a successful component of Healthy City working. The core principles, purpose and intellectual rationale for intersectoral partnerships remain valid and fit for purpose. This applied to long-established phase III cities as well as newcomers to phase IV. The network, and in particular the WHO brand, is well regarded and encourages political and organizational engagement and is a source of support and technical expertise. A key challenge is to apply a more rigorous analytical framework and theory-informed approach to reviewing partnership and collaboration parameters.

Evaluating WHO Healthy Cities in Europe: issues and perspectives

In this introductory article, we situate the findings of the Phase IV evaluation effort of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network in its historic evolutionary development. We review each of the contributions to this supplement in terms of the theoretical and methodological frameworks applied. Although the findings of each are both relevant and generated with a scholarly rigor that is appropriate to the context in which the evaluation took place, we find that particularly these contextual factors have not contributed to optimum quality of research. Any drawbacks in individual contributions cannot be attributed to their analysts and authors but relate to the complicated and evolving nature of the project. These factors are also reviewed.

[Evolution and discrimination of ecological planning and its related conceptions]

Ecological planning is one of the most important tools in realizing city's sustainable development. The ecological planning in China was started in the 1980s, and on the basis of assimilating the existing theoretical and practical experiences from western countries, basically formed a theoretical system in accordance with the Chinese characteristics and acquired a series of practical results. This paper reviewed the research and development processes of China' s ecological planning. It is considered that the study of our ecological planning was derived from the geographical principles of land resources ecological utilization, the ecological principles of complex ecological system theory, and the combination of these two principles. The ecological planning has experienced three research stages, i. e., single-disciplinary exploration, multi-disciplinary and multi-perspective study (including landscape ecology, ecology and urban planning), and interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaboration research. The ecological planning and the related conceptions, primary principles, main academic points, and representatives at each research stage were summarized, and through the discrimination of the basic conceptions of ecological planning and other related plans, it was pointed out that ecological planning is an general conception which includes land ecological planning, urban ecological planning, and eco-city planning, and the principles and theories of ecological planning should be integrated into, led and restricted the present planning system to promote the city's and regional sustainable development.

Assessment for active living: harnessing the power of data-driven planning and action

BACKGROUND

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living by Design (ALbD) grant program funded 25 communities across the U.S. The ALbD National Program Office (NPO) supported grantee community partnerships with technical assistance for assessment, planning, and implementation activities intended to increase population levels of physical activity.

PURPOSE

This paper analyzes and summarizes the range of assessments conducted to identify local barriers and opportunities for active living as important elements of a thorough intervention planning process.

METHODS

Evaluation of the partnerships focused on documenting community changes and strategies used to produce those changes. With support from NPO staff and external evaluators, partnerships tracked and summarized their community assessment approaches as well as strengths and challenges in conducting assessments.

RESULTS

The partnerships documented a range of assessment strategies and methods. Partnerships used several qualitative methods, including focus groups, individual and group interviews, and public meetings. Quantitative methods included surveys, audits, observations, and analysis of existing data, among others. The environmental audit was the most common assessment method used by the partnerships. Assessment processes and findings were used for not only intervention planning but also community engagement and direct advocacy. Assessment data collectors varied from professional staff to community volunteers.

CONCLUSIONS

Assessments were essential to the identification of local barriers and assets related to active living, which in turn helped ALbD partnerships prioritize and refine their action strategies. Assessment processes were also valuable in building relationships with new partners, community members, and local officials.

The regeneration games: purity and security in the Olympic city

This paper examines the wider social impacts of hosting the London 2012 Olympic Games and its 'legacy' ambitions in East London, emphasizing securitization as an inbuilt feature of the urban regeneration project. Drawing on extensive original empirical research, the paper analyses the modalities of Olympic safety and security practices within the Olympic Park itself and their wider impact, while also connecting this research to theorization and debates in urban sociology and criminology. In this complex setting, a raft of formal and informal, often subtle, regulatory mechanisms have emerged, especially as visions of social ordering focused on 'cleansing' and 'purifying' have 'leaked out' from the hyper-securitized 'sterilized' environment of the Olympic Park and become embedded within the Olympic neighbourhood. In such complex circumstances, applying Douglas' (1966) work on purity and danger to the spatial realm provides a key conceptual framework to understand the form and impact of such processes. The imposition of order can be seen to not only perform 'cleansing' functions, but also articulate multiple symbolic, expressive and instrumental roles.

Investigating the impact of a smart growth community on the contexts of children's physical activity using Ecological Momentary Assessment

This quasi-experimental research used Ecological Momentary Assessment with electronic surveys delivered through mobile phones to determine whether children change the type of contexts (i.e., settings) where they engage in physical activity after a recent move to a smart growth (SG) community in the U.S. as compared to children living in conventional low-to-medium density U.S. suburban communities (controls). SG vs. control children engaged in a greater proportion of physical activity bouts with friends, a few blocks from home, and at locations to which they walked. Over six months, the proportion of physical activity bouts reported at home (indoors) and in high traffic locations decreased among SG but not control children. Six-month increases in daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity did not significantly differ by group. Children might have altered the type of contexts where they engage in physical activity after moving to SG communities, yet more time may be necessary for these changes to impact overall physical activity.

Barriers to municipal planning for pedestrians and bicyclists in North Carolina

BACKGROUND

The Guide to Community Preventive Services recommends implementing community- and street-scale urban design, as well as land use policies and practices, to promote walking and bicycling. To better understand barriers to municipal walking and bicycling projects and policies, we surveyed municipal staff in North Carolina.

METHODS

We surveyed all 121 municipalities with at least 5,000 persons, and 62% responded. We also surveyed 216 of 420 municipalities with less than 5,000 persons, and 50% responded. The municipal staff member most knowledgeable about walking and bicycling planning was asked to complete the survey. Responses were weighted to account for the sampling design, to reflect prevalence estimates for all North Carolina municipalities.

RESULTS

Common barriers to walking and bicycling projects and policies were selected from a 14-item list. For walking, barriers included lack of funding (93% of responding municipalities), other infrastructure priorities (79%), automobile infrastructure priorities (66%), and staffing challenges (65%). For bicycling, barriers included lack of funding (94% of responding municipalities), other infrastructure priorities (79%), automobile infrastructure priorities (73%), issues were not high priorities for the municipality (68%), staffing challenges (68%), and insufficient support from residents (63%). Barriers generally were more prevalent among rural municipalities than among urban municipalities (9 of 14 barriers for walking and 5 of 14 for bicycling; P < .10).

LIMITATIONS

The study relied on 1 respondent to report for a municipality. Additionally, job titles of respondents varied with municipality size.

CONCLUSIONS

Health professionals and multidisciplinary partners can assist in overcoming the common local- and state-level barriers to walking and bicycle projects and policies that are reported by North Carolina municipalities.

Exercise Tiger: assessing the BCM impact of the 2012 Olympics on Canary Wharf

In this paper, collective corporate resilience is studied to see how a culture of sharing information and planning may assist other business communities to prepare for future events. The London 2012 Summer Olympic Games will see huge opportunity for businesses in London, and across Europe, but not without cost. Canary Wharf lies in the heart of London's Docklands and less than three miles from the Olympic Park at Stratford. Purpose-built as a business district, it accommodates a working population of 95,000 people, is home to some of the world's leading brands and has a vibrant retail complex of over 200 shops, bars and restaurants. This business community is preparing for every aspect of the Olympics and, in particular, the disruption the Games will bring. As a private estate, the community resilience approach fostered here is both better defined and finite in terms of those it includes as a result. Preparing together with joint exercises, forums and open communications in a network of trusted partners is yielding collective benefits and lending a stronger voice in the call for more information from official agencies. This paper outlines the benefits of collective planning and reports on the success of Canary Wharf's annual estate-wide business continuity exercise - the first major collective Olympics planning exercise in London.

Identifying crash-prone locations with quantile regression

Identifying locations that exhibit the greatest potential for safety improvements is becoming more and more important because of competing needs and a tightening safety improvement budget. Current crash modeling practices mainly target changes at the mean level. However, crash data often have skewed distributions and exhibit substantial heterogeneity. Changes at mean level do not adequately represent patterns present in the data. This study employs a regression technique known as the quantile regression. Quantile regression offers the flexibility of estimating trends at different quantiles. It is particularly useful for summarizing data with heterogeneity. Here, we consider its application for identifying intersections with severe safety issues. Several classic approaches for determining risk-prone intersections are also compared. Our findings suggest that relative to other methods, quantile regression yields a sensible and much more refined subset of risk-prone locations.

[Sanitary and hygienic requirements for location of cars in a megapolis]

The paper points out that the requirements given in the guidelines to SanPiN 2.2.1/2.1.1.1200- 03 for locating garages and parking places of different types and capacities in Moscow define uniform approaches to solving the problems of arranging garage car parks of different types and capacities. The accumulated experience in exercising control over the location of garage car parks, by applying the requirements laid down in the Guidelines, has been kept in mind when developing SanPinN 2.2.1/2.1.1.1200-03 (new wording) approved by the 25 September, 2007 Resolution No. 74 by the Principal State Sanitary Inspector.

[Future built-up area zoning by applying the methodology for assessing the population health risk]

Using the methodology for assessing the population health risk provides proposals on the functional zoning of the reorganized area of a plastics-works. An area has been allocated for possible house-building.

[Sanitary-and-epidemiological support of town-planning activities at all stages of an investment-construction cycle]

The paper provides evidence for a need for a systems approach to the sanitary-and-epidemiological support of construction projects at all stages of an investment-construction cycle, considers individual stages of work execution, and notes the increasing role of laboratory and instrumental studies and measurements at each stage. It is emphasized that sanitary-and-epidemiological support (or, in other words, sanitary-and-epidemiological audit) of a project (construction products) at all stages of an investment-construction cycle is an important and promising line in town-planning activities.

[Population health risk assessment on designing the transport streams of Moscow]

The population health risk was assessed in the microdistricts adjacent to a future road interchange area in Moscow. Its possible negative impact was studied by many parameters, including the carcinogenic risk. Evidence is provided to a need for planning decisions on the optimization and reduction of the possible risk.

The Promise of Wisconsin's 1999 Comprehensive Planning Law: Land-Use Policy Reforms to Support Active Living

Weaving together the disciplines of planning and policy change with the emerging research of active living, this article explores the competing interests and underlying political forces behind the design and passage of Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Law of 1999. While Wisconsin's law remains a work in progress, it illustrates the contemporary policy battles over land use and smart growth and the resurgence of the property-rights movement. It further highlights the influence of smart-growth coalitions and policy networks on planning reform. The authors suggest that planning practitioners and active-living proponents can adapt and transfer these policy lessons from Wisconsin to address the complex relationships of the built environment, physical activity, and the nation's current obesity problem through state and local planning reforms.

Advocating for active living on the rural-urban fringe: a case study of planning in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area

This case study is about the politics of incorporating active-living elements into a concept plan for a new community of about 68,000 people on the edge of the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. Development on the rural-urban fringe is ongoing in metropolitan areas around the United States. In this article, we evaluate the product of the concept-planning process from the standpoint of the extent to which environmental elements conducive to active living were included. We also analyze four issues in which challenges to the incorporation of active-living features surfaced: choices related to transportation facilities, the design and location of retail stores, the location of schools and parks, and the location of a new town center. Overall, the Damascus/Boring Concept Plan positions the area well to promote active living. Analyses of the challenges that emerged yielded lessons for advocates regarding ways to deal with conflicts between facilitating active living and local economic development and related tax-base concerns and between active-living elements and school-district planning autonomy as well as the need for advocates to have the capacity to present alternatives to the usual financial and design approaches taken by private- and public-sector investors.

Developing a national approach to building healthy and sustainable cities

Effective strategies to build a national approach to the integration of health and urban planning at all levels of government is essential if the health problems of urban Australians, such as obesity and respiratory illnesses, are to improve. This paper examines some policies and initiatives that could facilitate intergovernment cooperation on health and sustainability within the constraints of Australia's federal government system. These include recommendations for an Australian Sustainability Commission and Charter of Sustainability, evaluations of the Better Cities Program of the 1990s, and current proposals for improving urban governance to enable the implementation of a healthy and sustainable cities agenda.

Protecting health using an environmental impact assessment: a case study of San Francisco land use decisionmaking

Laws and regulations for an environmental impact assessment enable a health impact assessment whenever physical changes in the environment may significantly affect health. In this case study, I describe 2 instances in which a local public health agency used the procedural requirements for an environmental impact assessment to account for societal-level health determinants that are not traditionally evaluated in land-use decisions. These examples show that a public health critique can contribute both to the scope of analysis in an environmental impact assessment and to substantive changes in land-use decisions. I have evaluated this health appraisal approach as a form of a health impact assessment and will make recommendations for law, research, and practice that support its technical, cultural, and political feasibility.