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The study utilises the ‘natural experiment’ of COVID-19 to explore how disruption affected individuals’ perceptions and experiences of cycling, through semistructured interviews with eight cycle-shop owners and 30 residents in the Liverpool City Region, UK. It provides an account of the rapidly changing conditions that helped to support greater participation in cycling. Primarily this was due to reduced conflict between cyclists and others for road space. This was supported, though less significantly, by the provision of temporary cycling infrastructure as well as diminished competition for an individual’s time and energy from alternative leisure activities which were outlawed through COVID-19-related regulations. By disrupting car-dominated environments, the change in infrastructure and reduction in traffic flows contributed towards reducing the skills and confidence required to begin cycling. Nevertheless, as traffic rebounded to pre-pandemic volumes it was evident that the opportunity offered by disruption failed to be fully realised within the region. Despite this, the period has illustrated the potential for broader participation in cycling, though the paper finds that significant disruption to the infrastructures and traffic flows within the urban environment is required if a long-term modal shift is to occur following the surge in participation in cycling observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, the paper identifies several interventions that can be implemented to imitate the disruption observed in our study, and in doing so support a transition towards a low-carbon mobility system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst urban areas are thriving in trialling new mobility services (NMS), rural environments, often perceived as areas of low demand for travel, struggle to attract investments for creating more mobility solutions alongside traditional public transport (PT) services, making residents more reliant on private cars. This paper describes how policy interventions for introducing NMS in rural areas should be guided by big data to capture real and accurate travel behaviours, therefore avoiding perceived biases and potentially underestimating demand. In the UK, the provision of transport in rural areas is solely linked to population density and does not consider differences between places and residents' travel habits. The proposed data‐driven decision‐making process used trip‐chains from mobile network data (MND) to derive recent and accurate travel patterns from residents and provide the right mix of on‐demand mobility services alongside existing fixed scheduled public transport (PT). The manuscript describes the steps carried out to study three rural areas at low, medium and high population density in the UK: a data landscape to select study areas; the development of an activity‐based model, which uses anonymised mobile network data (MND) aggregated at trip‐chains level to derive travel patterns; and the development of an on‐line questionnaire and focus groups with rural communities to co‐designing solutions based on attitudes towards NMS. Results demonstrated that a data‐driven decision making process to introduce NMS is a viable solution for updating demand for travel in rural areas, offering a broad understanding of mobility needs and the relationship of interdependency with nearby areas, therefore allowing policy makers to create users‐centric transport solutions. The study concludes by drawing recommendations for NMS for passengers and goods for the NMS proposed for a rural areas [Demand Responsive Transport (DRT), Micro‐mobility and delivery drones]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much recent interest in the 'resilience' of cities (and regions) to shocks of various kinds. Studies have found, for example, that cities (and regions) appear to have different degrees of resistance to and recoverability from economic shocks, such as major recessions.1–3 In this paper we explore whether and to what extent the clustered personality traits of a city's population, as measured by the so-called 'Big Five' traits, might be relevant to explaining these differences. The paper utilises the personality scores of more than 400,000 UK residents across some 63 cities to examine how far variations in these scores help to account for differences in how those cities have reacted to major recessions. We find that for the three recessionary shocks in our sample period, the trait openness (to experience) has a strong significant relationship with city resilience. Cities with a higher degree of openness to experience turn out to be more resilient to UK-wide recessionary shocks. These results also hold when account is taken for the age and location of birth of a city's residents. We also briefly discuss potential policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tracks how a trope of middle-class household thrift, grounded on the autarchic Aristotelian oikos, has long fueled derogatory discourses in Britain aimed at low-income urban residents who practice quite different forms of thrift. Since the 1970s this trope has migrated across scales, proving a potent metaphor for national economic policy and planetary care alike, and morally and economically justifying both neoliberal welfare retraction compounded by austerity policies and national responses to excessive resource extraction and waste production. Both austerity and formal recycling schemes shift responsibility onto consumer citizens, regardless of capacity. Further, this model of thrift eclipses the thriftiness of low-income urban households, which emerges at the nexus of kin and waged labor, sharing, welfare, debt, conserving material resources through remaking and repair and, crucially, the fundamental need for decency expressed through kin care. Through a historicized ethnography of a London social housing estate and its residents, this paper excavates what happens as these different forms and scales of household thrift coexist, change over time, and clash. Ultimately, neoliberal policy centered on an inimical idiom of thrift delegitimizes and disentitles low-income urban households and undermines their ability to enact livelihood practices of sustainability and projects of dignity across generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the negative effects of motorised road traffic on the travel and walking behaviour of local residents in Great Britain and the cost of the wider negative impacts on local economic activity, external effects of motorised transport, social exclusion, neighbourhood social capital, self-rated health, and subjective wellbeing. We use the results of a survey (n = 3038) and models linking the characteristics of roads and pedestrian crossing facilities in each participant's local area, travel and walking behaviour, and the level and monetary value of the wider impacts of travel behaviour. The costs of road traffic borne by local communities were estimated as £31.9 billion per year, i.e. 1.6% of the Gross Domestic Product, or £631 per person. This value varies within the interval £569-£698/person/year, depending on the assumptions made. The highest estimated costs of motorised road traffic are reduced neighbourhood social capital (£236) and reduced subjective wellbeing (£196/person/year). The costs for some population segments, such as London residents, city residents, and people aged 25–34 are higher than the average. The characteristic of roads causing the highest costs is volume of motorised traffic above low (£264/person/year), followed by multiple lanes (£148), traffic speeds above low (£119), and absence of a median strip (£60). By quantifying for the first time, at the national level, the costs of the negative community effects of motor vehicles, this study provides evidence supporting policies to reduce traffic volumes and speeds and reallocate roadspace to pedestrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The paper presents an overview of air quality in the 27 member countries of the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (previous EU-28), from 2000 to 2017. We reviewed the progress made towards meeting the air quality standards established by the EU Ambient Air Quality Directives (European Council Directive 2008/50/EC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines by estimating the trends (Mann-Kendal test) in national emissions of main air pollutants, urban population exposure to air pollution, and in mortality related to exposure to ambient fine particles (PM2.5) and tropospheric ozone (O3). Results: Despite significant reductions of emissions (e.g., sulfur oxides: ~ 80%, nitrogen oxides: ~ 46%, non-methane volatile organic compounds: ~ 44%, particulate matters with a diameter lower than 2.5 µm and 10 µm: ~ 30%), the EU-28 urban population was exposed to PM2.5 and O3 levels widely exceeding the WHO limit values for the protection of human health. Between 2000 and 2017, the annual PM2.5-related number of deaths decreased (- 4.85 per 106 inhabitants) in line with a reduction of PM2.5 levels observed at urban air quality monitoring stations. The rising O3 levels became a major public health issue in the EU-28 cities where the annual O3-related number of premature deaths increased (+ 0.55 deaths per 106 inhabitants). Conclusions: To achieve the objectives of the Ambient Air Quality Directives and mitigate air pollution impacts, actions need to be urgently taken at all governance levels. In this context, greening and re‐naturing cities and the implementation of fresh air corridors can help meet air quality standards, but also answer to social needs, as recently highlighted by the COVID-19 lockdowns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Roman conquest, agricultural production in Britain faced increasing demand from large urban and military populations. While it has long been thought that this necessitated an increase in agricultural production, direct archaeological evidence for changes in cultivation practices has been scarce. Using a model that conceptualises cereal farming strategies in terms of intensive or extensive practices, this paper is the first study to address this question using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data of crop remains. We report δ15N and δ13C values from 41 samples of spelt, emmer and barley from Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman Stanwick (Northants., UK), in order to assess the intensiveness of arable farming and investigate shifts in cultivation practices in prehistoric and Roman Britain. The results demonstrate a decline in δ15N in the Roman period, suggesting that farming practices moved to lower levels of manuring and, by implication, became more extensive. δ13C values are comparable in all periods, supporting the suggestion that changes observed in human stable isotope data between the Iron Age and Roman period are best explained by dietary change rather than a shift towards higher δ13C values in plants at the base of the food chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private vehicle travel entails costs to society. However, in a world designed around the automobile, adults who lack access to a vehicle for economic reasons may experience a significant handicap due to constrained mobility and accessibility. This paper examines whether private vehicle access is associated with the quantity and quality of out-of-home activities in which low-income individuals participate. We use pooled data from multiple time use surveys drawn from the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and employ Cragg two-part hurdle modeling to determine whether there is an association between household vehicle access and participation in twelve out-of-home activity types. As a robustness check, we also estimate multiple discrete continuous extreme value (MDCEV) models. Further, we examine travel time by mode for those with and without vehicles. Finally, we use American Time Use Survey data and fixed-effects panel models to determine the subjective well-being that is associated with our out-of-home activity types. A lack of private vehicle access is associated with significantly less frequent out-of-home activity participation, both in the aggregate and for seven of the twelve individual activities. Moreover, the activities most likely to be foregone are generally associated with high subjective well-being, suggesting that constrained mobility comes with significant emotional costs. We find a greater "activity penalty" for rural residents and for Canadian residents without vehicle access; urbanites without vehicles in the U.K. are the only geographic group which do not exhibit an activity penalty. Finally, respondents with vehicle access spend more total time traveling, although those without private vehicles partially offset spending less time in them with higher use of alternative modes. Overall, the findings suggest that the lack of a private vehicle is deleterious for quality of life, raising troubling questions about inequity possibly arising when people are denied access to vehicles for economic reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban centres in the US, Britain and Canada have responded to identified visible 'social problems' such addiction, mental health and homelessness by providing some supportive housing for the urban poor and marginalized. While some critics have questioned what supportive housing specifically entails in terms of the built environment, what remains under explored, though a growing area of concern, is the relationship between surveillance and supportive housing for urban residents identified as having addiction and mental health problems - a gap addressed in this paper. Drawing upon qualitative ethnographic observational data we examine some of the measures of control and coercion that are encroaching into social housing primarily established for poor and marginalized people with addiction and mental health problems in the urban centre of Vancouver, Canada. We witnessed three modes of regulation and control, that vary widely, among the residencies observed: physical surveillance technologies; site-specific modes of coercion; police presence and staff surveillance, which all together impact the everyday lives of residents living in low-income and supportive housing. We argue that supportive housing has the potential to provide its intended commitment - safe and secure affordable housing. However, owing to an (over)emphasis on 'security', the supportive housing we observed were also sites of social control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to use a series of business interviews in the UK and Denmark as a means of interrogating the categorisation of rural businesses presented in an earlier publication which sought to understand the rural character of different businesses. Rather than defining a rural business purely on its geographical location, the engagement of a business within a rural economy and its relations with both rural and urban environments are more complex issues. A wider conceptualisation how rural social relations, cultural influences and landscape values forms the basis for analysing how these assets can create value for rural businesses. Understanding these issues can better inform organisations that are seeking to support the rural economy and rural communities. It can also guide business owners themselves as to how they might benefit from being a part of, or associated with, the rural economy in capturing the possibilities linked to a growing urban population. The findings reveal how landscape assets are intertwined in the business concepts as positive drivers despite many voices within rural and economic research pointing at disadvantages relating to distance, sparseness of infrastructure or service provision. The research analysis draws on actor-network theory and this tool reveals promising prospects for future place-based studies in how landscape assets can be enacted in the development of the rural economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the potential for reworking run-down UK city neighbourhoods in the light of the significant progress already made in mainland Europe and explained so clearly in the foregoing contributions. Very different kinds of neighbourhoods can be created in our own cities. We can open up new housing options and lifestyles for a range of household types while reducing resource use and associated pollution. Using the example of the area of Leeds South Bank, it is argued that there is a chance to design an exemplary neighbourhood where future urban dwellers will be able and willing to live, work and meet a wide range of requirements within a relatively small area, thus reducing their environmental impact while ensuring a reasonable level of prosperity and wellbeing. But this will only be achieved if there is a willingness to use imaginative foresight, learn from elsewhere, and break down some of the barriers that stand in the way of innovation and the adoption of practical and far-sighted solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Nature contact supports young people's health and wellbeing. • Children from socially disadvantaged areas have limited access to nature. • A community intervention connected socially disadvantaged children to urban nature. • The importance of a youth led approach based on hands on activities is discussed. • Good practice is highlighted and recommendations for practitioners. This paper uses ethnography to explore young people's engagement with a UK based intervention designed to promote a meaningful connection to locally accessible urban nature. During the intervention seven young people (aged between 11 and 12 years old) from a socially disadvantaged area, took part in three two-hour sessions held in a patch of urban nature close to their school. During the sessions, facilitators and teachers worked collaboratively with the young people as they explored the space and took part in den building activities. All sessions were recorded using audio and video equipment and a case study approach was utilised to explore the experiences of two young people involved in the project as they worked with practitioners and each other to develop a meaningful connection to the space. Analysis highlights the importance of youth centred interventions which use practical activities to develop a sense of belonging and wellbeing. These issues are discussed in relation to traditional nature engagement interventions and recommendations for practitioners are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Lacking of methods for valuing transport noise impact in public urban spaces. • Gaps in evidence for impact pathway, revealed and stated preference approaches. • Opportunities from urban sound environment research and UK transport policy. • A non-exhaustive list of challenges in developing and implementing the valuation. Transport noise is the dominant noise source in urban areas. Its impacts on people at their residential locations are included in economic appraisal in the UK and many other countries, and guidance and analysis tools were developed for the valuation of the impacts. However, for transport noise impacts on people in public urban spaces, e.g., urban streets, squares and parks, there is still a lack of national methodologies. This paper will discuss the gaps, opportunities and challenges in developing a national methodology for these places in the UK. Currently, evidence is lacking on pathways of transport noise impact on people and dose–response relationships at non-residential locations, and the values people place on sound environment quality at these locations. However, opportunities are emerging, with increasing attention to the urban realm in UK transport policy, and recent progress and transitions in urban sound environment research, including association between public health and urban soundscape, standardisation in soundscape research and practice, and crowdsourcing sound environment evaluations. The associated challenges, as compared to methodology for residential locations, may include calculating noise from non-free-flow traffic, defining and adding diverse receptor types, estimating dynamic affected population, accounting for diversity in level and source of background sound, and obtaining large and consistent data for dose–response or willingness-to-pay analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewed research reveals a lack of young people's voices articulating if and how urban nature supports their mental health and wellbeing. This paper presents qualitative research with young multi-ethnic urban residents living in a northern UK city and offers an important counter-narrative to the pervasive notion of childhood nature-deficit disorder. Using interviews and creative arts workshops, we explored the value of urban nature for the mental health and wellbeing of 24 young people aged 17-27 years, 9 of whom had lived experience of mental health difficulties. Trees, water, open spaces and views were frequently experienced nature typologies offering benefits. Deteriorating landscapes, young people's shifting identities and perceived time pressures disrupted support. Young people expressed how urban nature encounters were experienced as accepting and relational, offering a: stronger sense of self; feelings of escape; connection and care with the human and non-human world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]