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The built environment is a significant determinant of human health. Globally, the growing prevalence of preventable cancers suggests a need to understand how features of the built environment shape exposure to cancer development and distribution within a population. This scoping review examines how researchers across disparate fields understand and discuss the built environment in primary and secondary cancer prevention. It is focused exclusively on peer-reviewed sources published from research conducted in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States from 1990 to 2017. The review captured 9958 potential results in the academic literature, and this body of results was scoped to 268 relevant peer-reviewed journal articles indexed across 13 subject databases. Spatial proximity, transportation, land use, and housing are well-understood features of the built environment that shape cancer risk. Built-environment features predominantly influence air quality, substance use, diet, physical activity, and screening adherence, with impacts on breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and overall cancer risk. The majority of the evidence fails to provide direct recommendations for advancing cancer prevention policy and program objectives for municipalities. The expansion of interdisciplinary work in this area would serve to create a significant population health impact., (© 2019 American Cancer Society.)

Several industry-led initiatives in various countries demonstrate a new interest in wellbeing and buildings. This paper adopts a scoping review method aiming to establish the most prevalent and insightful definitions and dimensions of wellbeing in buildings applied in the recent published literature. The paper adopts a two-step method for identifying and categorizing the conceptual approaches to wellbeing encountered in the current literature. First, an overview is presented of the term 'wellbeing' and its development over time. Second, the broad wellbeing categories identified are further refined and complemented via a deductive approach, drawing the final set of conceptual themes informed by the papers reviewed in this study. Nine themes were identified, two of which deductively emerged from the papers included in this study: environmental satisfaction/comfort and cognitive performance/productivity. The findings emphasize the heterogeneity of conceptual approaches to research concerning 'wellbeing in buildings', an ambiguity between wellbeing outcomes or determinants, and the need for greater clarity on the relative contributions of different wellbeing dimensions to overall individual or population wellbeing. Based on these findings, future work could be carried out to provide guidance on how to evaluate claims of evidence-based building design which foster individual or population wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historic Sanborn fire insurance maps of cities in the United States are utilized extensively for comprehending past built environments and evaluating potential environmental risks. While previous research in the spatial humanities has explored diverse contemporary applications for these maps, there has been limited attention devoted to the evolution of Sanborn fire insurance maps over their nearly century-long production history. This study delves into the components of fire insurance maps produced by the Sanborn Map Company, shedding light on their varying formats, scales, and annotations, discussing how they have changed over time. The paper also examines the map correction process and identifies potential alternative sources for accessing fire insurance maps. Additionally, the diverse nature of these maps as source materials is contemplated, emphasizing the valuable insights that can be gained by critically analyzing the construction of Sanborn fire insurance maps. Given the significant reliance of numerous spatial humanities projects on these historic maps, particularly those focused on urban areas, this paper provides important contextualization of this source of geospatial information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the focus on embodied carbon within the built environment has grown in the U.S., local jurisdictional codes have increasingly proposed and implemented code language that requires the use of concrete mixtures that have reduced environmental impacts. This paper provides details about the various ways that localized sustainable concrete provisions have been proposed and implemented in the U.S., including limits on cement content and Global Warming Potential (GWP). These laws and code revisions vary in their measurement of low-carbon concrete and their exemptions and incentives. While the current version of the ACI Building Code, ACI 318-19, does allow for the consideration of sustainability in concrete design, specifics about how the relative sustainability of concrete mixtures and systems are to be measured and compared are not included. This paper addresses how the changing landscape of local jurisdictional codes is driving the development of future ACI 318 provisions to play a part in providing more consistency in the application of sustainable design practices in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longstanding line of research in urban studies explores how cities can be understood through their appearance. However, what remains unclear is to what extent urban dwellers' everyday life can be explained by the visual clues of the urban environment. In this paper, we address this question by applying a computer vision model to 27 million street view images across 80 counties in the United States. Then, we use the spatial distribution of notable urban features identified through the street view images, such as street furniture, sidewalks, building façades, and vegetation, to predict the socioeconomic profiles of their immediate neighborhood. Our results show that these urban features alone can account for up to 83% of the variance in people's travel behavior, 62% in poverty status, 64% in crime, and 68% in health behaviors. The results outperform models based on points of interest (POI), population, and other demographic data alone. Moreover, incorporating urban features captured from street view images can improve the explanatory power of these other methods by 5% to 25%. We propose "urban visual intelligence" as a process to uncover hidden city profiles, infer, and synthesize urban information with computer vision and street view images. This study serves as a foundation for future urban research interested in this process and understanding the role of visual aspects of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having grown up in an "always-on" technological environment, Generation Z differ significantly in attitudes and lifestyles compared to previous generations. However, their travel behaviors have not been widely discussed and adequately understood. Using data from the latest three National Household Travel Surveys in the United States, we in this paper identify the uniqueness of Gen Z in travel behaviors and preferences, and use the zero-inflated Poisson model to test the impacts of key factors on the mode choices. Results from the longitudinal analysis indicated that Gen Z are not always more environmentally friendly than same-age people in the past decades, while Gen Z have a stronger tendency to travel in a green way in response to changes in built environment than their counterparts decades ago. These findings demonstrate that Gen Z, who have been greatly affected by technological advances and social media, may show unprecedented potential to support sustainable transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1949 and 1966, the Stephen Smith Home, one of the oldest African American "homes for the aged" in the United States, went from partially condemned to new construction. Through his leadership at this historic Philadelphia institution, administrator Hobart C. Jackson learned firsthand the "double jeopardy" of Black aging, culminating in the 1970s with his national advocacy efforts on behalf of minority elders. The intersectionality of age and race was intimately tied to the built environment of homes for the aged, the precursor of today's nursing home. This paper considers how structural racism and ageism were materially manifested in the strug gle of African American eldercare institutions to respond to protean building and safety regulations for se nior care. I introduce a necessary architectural analy sis into histories of aging in the United States by examining how building maintenance, upkeep, and volunteerism offer a way of understanding social history. This research reveals Philadelphia's Stephen Smith Home to be both representative and singular: like other African American facilities, the home strug gled with building obsolescence and funding shortfalls, but unlike many of its counter parts, it nonetheless survived and developed into a hybrid campus of historic and newly built structures within a growing Black neighborhood. Ultimately this article does foundational work in exploring the shifting building and social cultures of the charitable old age home in the mid-twentieth century by examining a mode of community- based care that, when rendered within the built environment, contrasts greatly with con temporary perceptions of institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree to which U.S. cities, metro regions, and general urbanized areas have distinct centres of economic activity has been a matter of debate for many decades. In the jobs-housing literature, there is related debate about whether having many distinct mixed-use centres in cities leads to longer or shorter commutes. The excess commuting framework has been increasingly refined and applied to assess urban areas' jobs-housing balance. The framework has expanded over the years but an issue in the present research is whether its various theoretical measurements and efficiency calculations might be used to assess the degree of poly- or mono-centricity of a region, thereby contributing to debates about what kind of urban form facilitates shorter commutes. In this paper, a suite of excess commuting (EC) measures are calculated for fifty-three of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MS As) in the U.S. From there a hierarchical clustering approach is developed and applied to demonstrate which of these metrics are most useful in describing urban form. We examine how these metrics perform for particular built environments, which gives further insights into commuting and land use trends. Results of the research show how various urban forms have specific commuting outcomes: specifically, that polycentric urban forms have shorter average commute distances than sprawling ones. This should inform policy questions about the most effective land-use planning strategies to pursue in efforts to manage travel demand via built environment interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To prevent obesity among Latino youth in the United States and Latin America, it is necessary to understand the specific context and interplay of physical activity (PA) and the built environment (BE). This paper aims to advance the research agenda of BE and PA for obesity prevention in Latin America and among Latino youth in the United States by (1) identifying environmental indicators to inform the design of interventions and policy, (2) identifying interdisciplinary methodological approaches for the study of the complex association between BE and PA, and (3) presenting case studies of PA-promoting BE programs. A group of U.S. and Latin American scientists collaboratively worked to propose innovative indicators of the BE, methodological approaches for the study of the complex association between BE and PA, and review case studies of PA-promoting BE programs in both regions. The results identified gaps in knowledge, proposed environmental indicators (e.g., landscape, street design, mobility patterns, and crime and safety), reviewed methodological approaches (social network analysis, citizen science methods), and case studies illustrating PA-promoting BE programs (i.e., play streets, active school transport, and school setting interventions). The obesity prevention among Latino and Latin American youth requires advanced research on BE and PA addressing context-specific priorities and exchanging lessons learned., (© 2021 The Authors. Obesity Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of World Obesity Federation.)

This paper discusses the development of a Place-Based Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Index (PFIVI), which incorporates six indicators and 30 variables. It also presents an application of this Index within the context of Philadelphia, a postindustrial U.S. city. The paper argues that in order to thoroughly measure a multidimensional socioeconomic problem that is tied to the built environment (e.g., food insecurity and vulnerability), the use of participatory and mixed-methods approaches in GIS (e.g., participatory GIS or PGIS) may produce more comprehensive results compared to other commonly used methods. This paper makes an intervention in the food environment literature, which tends to analyze food access in a narrow way, by applying a methodology conceptually grounded in community food security and operationalized through a PGIS project. It also contributes to still-evolving PGIS methodologies by directly engaging stakeholders in a complicated GIS-based analytical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good bridge designers strive to balance their desire to build structures that serve their community, blend with the surrounding environment and are attractive to users, with financial and other project constraints. For long span bridges, commonly adopted types achieve good aesthetics just through the expression of a suitable, effective structural form. More than a century of achievements and advancements in the design of suspension, cable-stayed bridges, tied arches, trusses and other types of long span bridges do offer an array of possible solutions that, if developed with the right sensitivity and good attention to details, can bring lasting aesthetic value to the built environment. Although a "Form follows Function" approach does not always translate into good bridge aesthetics, that approach can be more challenging for short and medium span bridges, for which utilitarian structural schemes are more commonly adopted. The development of conceptual studies, good structural design and attention to detailing can achieve aesthetic results for these bridge types while meeting project financial constraints through a strong partnership with owners and the right attention to the needs of the community and the surrounding environment. The Vitruvius concept from "De Architectura" of 2050 years ago—a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas, venustas—still provides a good framework to develop simple criteria and aesthetics guidelines for bridge designers. This paper presents a range of examples, from concept studies to built projects, to highlight current challenges and possible accomplishments in the aesthetic design of highway and pedestrian bridges of short and medium span. The projects presented in this paper aim to highlight the challenges faced by designers when looking for possible solutions rather than to provide guidelines or describe accomplishments. The projects are all located in the United States and directly involved the author as part of the design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety performance function (SPF) has been a vital tool in traffic safety evaluation including finding contributing factors to crashes, identifying hotspots, and assessing safety effects of countermeasures. In the United States (U.S.), the Highway Safety Manual provides a number of SPFs for a variety of road facilities. Due to the limited availability of traffic data in many regions, the transferability of SPFs has been an important topic in traffic safety analysis and has been evaluated by several studies. Nevertheless, the international transferability of freeway SPFs and the applicability of transferred SPFs on hotspot identification has been rarely investigated. Based on data from two Chinese cities, Shanghai and Suzhou, and three U.S. states, Texas, New York and Florida, this study analyzes the transferability of freeway SPFs between Chinese and U.S. regions. These SPFs are then transferred to the other country and their performance on hotspot identification is investigated. SPFs were developed in the frameworks of Poisson, Poisson-lognormal and negative binomial regressions for the five localities separately, and were calibrated using the calibration functions before being transferred. Without calibration, the poor model transferability was found between the two countries, while after calibration, the transferred SPFs between Shanghai/Suzhou and Texas/New York showed satisfactory performance on both model fitting and hotspot identification. However, the transferability of SPFs between Florida and the Chinese cities turned out to be unsatisfactory regardless of whether being calibrated or not, which was attributable to the considerable difference in traffic flow. The findings of this study are expected to be a good reference for researchers and practitioners who want to understand the transferability and applicability of SPFs in the international context., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Health is increasingly subject to the complex interplay between the built environment, population composition, and the structured inequity in access to health-related resources across communities. The primary objective of this paper was to examine cardiometabolic disease (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, stroke) markers and their prevalence across relatively small geographic units in the 500 largest cities in the United States. Using data from the American Community Survey and the 500 Cities Project, the current study examined cardiometabolic diseases across 27,000+ census tracts in the 500 largest cities in the United States. Earlier works clearly show cardiometabolic diseases are not randomly distributed across the geography of the U.S., but rather concentrated primarily in Southern and Eastern regions of the U.S. Our results confirm that chronic disease is correlated with social and built environment factors. Specifically, racial concentration (%, Black), age concentration (% 65+), housing stock age, median home value, structural inequality (Gini index), and weight status (% overweight/obese) were consistent correlates ( p < 0.01) of cardiometabolic diseases in the sample of census tracts. The paper examines policy-related features of the built and social environment and how they might play a role in shaping the health and well-being of America's metropolises.

Adaptive interactions between building occupants and their surrounding environments affect both energy use and environmental quality, as demonstrated by a large body of modeling research that quantifies the impacts of occupant behavior on building operations. Yet, available occupant field data are insufficient to explore the mechanisms that drive this interaction. This paper introduces data from a one year study of 24 U.S. office occupants that recorded a comprehensive set of possible exogenous and endogenous drivers of personal comfort and behavior over time. The longitudinal data collection protocol merges individual thermal comfort, preference, and behavior information from online daily surveys with datalogger readings of occupants' local thermal environments and control states, yielding 2503 survey responses alongside tens of thousands of concurrent behavior and environment measurements. These data have been used to uncover links between the built environment, personal variables, and adaptive actions, and the data contribute to international research collaborations focused on understanding the human-building interaction.

In this paper, we describe the assessment and planning phase of the Thrive community‐based initiative to reduce violence and address other determinants of health in a community in the Southwestern United States. Using community‐based participatory research (CBPR) and an implementation science framework, we engaged residents and other key stakeholders as equal partners in the assessment and planning process. The Thrive assessment and planning phase involved collaboration among researchers, residents, law enforcement, nonprofit agencies, public health, local government, and other cross‐sector partners. We used implementation science in order to examine the barriers and facilitators to addressing community health and safety, to assess the nature and scope of health and safety issues, to review existing solutions, to assess the acceptability and necessary adaptations of selected interventions, and to assess feasibility and sustainability of the initiative. Through interviews, focus groups, analysis of crime incident data, geomapping, and direct observations, our findings highlighted the presence of an open‐air drug market, the high‐stress nature of the community, concern for the lack of opportunities for youth, the lack of trust between residents and law enforcement, and a need to address the built environment to promote safety and well‐being. Highlights: This study highlights the utility of CBPR and implementation science for crime/violence prevention.Through cross‐sector partnerships, the nature and scope of community crime/violence were assessed.Findings highlighted an active drug market, high‐stress, concern for youth, and lack of trust in police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a framework for understanding the diversity of New Urbanism (NU) in practice in the United States. The framework is based on a nationally representative survey of NU developers that inventories characteristics of NU projects’ built environments across categories of urban design, land use, street configuration, and size. Using cluster analysis, the paper resolves the diversity of NU in practice into three types: Mainstream Urbanism, Dense Urbanism, and Hybrid Urbanism. The paper elaborates on each type, including geographic and temporal aspects of constituent projects. It also considers the ways in which the framework contributes to scholarly understanding of NU and advances the discussion of NU in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To describe the quality of food and physical activity (PA) environments by World Bank Income level in jurisdictions from the Children's Healthy Living Program. Baseline cross-sectional community data were analyzed from 11 jurisdictions categorized by World Bank Income levels to describe exposure to different food and PA outlets. The Children's Healthy Living Program was a multilevel, multijurisdictional prevalence study and community intervention trial that reduced child obesity in the US-Affiliated Pacific region. US-Affiliated Pacific region. Food (n = 426) and PA (n = 552) Outlets. Physical activity and food scores that reflect the quality of the outlets that support being physically active and healthy eating options, respectively. Descriptive statistics are presented as means ± SD or percentages. High-income-income level jurisdictions had higher food and PA scores than middle-income level jurisdictions. The US-Affiliated Pacific region has limited quality food and PA outlets in underserved communities at risk for obesity. The findings in this paper can be used to develop tools and design interventions to improve the food and PA environment to increase a healthier, active lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the accident risk factors associated with highway traffic and roadway design, for each of three highway classes in the United States using a bivariate modeling framework involving two levels of accident severity. With regard to the highest class (Interstates), the results suggest that, compared to no-casualty accidents, casualty accidents are more sensitive to traffic volume and average vertical grade, but less sensitive to the inside shoulder width and the median width. For US Roads, it was determined that, compared to no-casualty accidents, casualty accidents are more sensitive to traffic volume, outside shoulder width, pavement condition, and median width but less sensitive to the average vertical grade. For the relatively lowest-class roads (State Roads), it was determined that, compared to no-casualty accidents, casualty accidents are more sensitive to the traffic volume, lane width, outside shoulder width, and pavement condition. Compared to the relatively lower-class highways, accidents at higher-class highways are more sensitive to: changes in traffic volume, average vertical grade, median width, inside shoulder width, and the pavement condition (no-casualty accidents only); but less sensitive to changes in lane width, pavement condition (casualty accidents only), and the outside shoulder width. This variation in sensitivity across the different road classes could be attributed to the differences in road geometry standards across the road classes, as the results seem to support the hypothesis that these standards strongly influence accident occurrence. It is hoped that the developed bivariate negative binomial models can help highway engineers to evaluate their current design standards and policy, and to assess the safety consequences of changes in these standards in each road class., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Safety performance functions (SPFs) are crash count prediction models that are used for identifying high crash risk locations, evaluating road safety before and after countermeasure deployment and comparing the safety of alternative site designs. The traditional method of modeling crash counts is negative binomial (NB) regression. Furthermore, the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) provides analytical tools, including NB SPFs, to assess and improve road safety. Even though the HSM's SPFs are restricted to NB models, the road safety literature is rich with a variety of different modeling techniques. Researchers have calibrated the HSM's SPFs to local conditions using a calibration method prescribed by the HSM. However, studies in which SPFs are developed and transferred to other localities are uncommon. In this paper, we develop and transfer rural divided multilane highway segment SPFs of Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, California, Washington and North Carolina to each state. For every state, NB, zero-inflated NB, Poisson lognormal (PLN), regression tree, random forest (RF), boosting and Tobit models are developed. A hybrid model that coalesces the predictions of both the Tobit and the NB model is proposed and developed as well. All SPFs are transferred to each state and their predictive performances are evaluated to discern which model type is the most transferable. According to the transferability results, there is no single superior model type. However, the Tobit, RF, tree, NB and hybrid models demonstrate better predictive performances than those of the other methods in a considerably large proportion of transferred SPFs., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Personal automobility is critical for accessing economic and social opportunities in the auto-oriented built environment of the United States. Despite declines over the past 40 years, household carpooling remains the most popular alternative mode to solo-driving regardless of demographic group. While carpooling provides a degree of automobility, carpool-dependent passengers often suffer from practical and other disadvantages. This paper explores gender gaps and ethnicity in personal automobility levels, particularly among Hispanics. The analysis explicitly considers drivers' access to household vehicles and non-drivers' access to household carpooling. The research finds that Hispanic females, especially immigrants, are low in automobility, both in the probability of being a driver and in access to household vehicles. The large gender gap is specific to Hispanics, and differs from gaps found for non-Hispanic Whites or Blacks. The gender gap decreases, but persists, as immigrant Hispanics stay longer in the U.S., gain or maintain employment, or become college-educated. Surprisingly, the gender gap in personal automobility level exists even among U.S. native Hispanics. Gender gaps in personal automobility among different ethnicity groups, particularly Hispanics, merit more study, especially as commercial car-sharing and ridesharing services become more common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the current issues and challenges involved with the management of operational risk where the risk is introduced through changes within the operating environment. The focus is on defining changes that require management attention and a discussion of organisational issues and considerations that need to be taken into account when designing an effective approach. While the approach to managing operational risk will vary between organisations, this paper relies on regulatory guidance provided primarily from the USA, but which is broadly applicable regardless of regulatory jurisdiction. The paper attempts to present a balanced, common-sense approach that is applicable to a broad audience, taking the reader through the basic building blocks, from defining what changes are taken into consideration, focusing on risk level, through ensuring that an appropriate review and mechanism is in place, to having clearly defined roles and responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are structural factors that yield health inequities. Within the context of cancer, these inequities include screening rates and survival rates, as well as higher symptom burden during and after treatment. While pain is one of the most frequently reported symptoms, the relationship between SDOHs and cancer pain is not well understood. The purpose of this study is to describe and synthesize the published research that has evaluated the relationships between SDOH and cancer pain. A systematic search of PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase was conducted to identify studies in which cancer pain and SDOH were described. In all, 20 studies met the inclusion criteria. In total, 14 studies reported a primary aim related to SDOH and cancer pain. Demographic variables including education or income were used most frequently. Six specific measurements were utilized to measure SDOH, such as the acculturation scale, the composite measure of zip codes for poverty level and blight prevalence, or the segregation index. Among the five domains of SDOH based on Healthy People 2030, social and community was the most studied, followed by economic stability, and education access and quality. The neighborhood and built environment domain was the least studied. Despite increasing attention to SDOH, the majority of published studies use single-dimension variables derived from demographic data to evaluate the relationships between SDOH and cancer pain. Future research is needed to explore the intersectionality of SDOH domains and their impact on cancer pain. Additionally, intervention studies should be conducted to address existing disparities and to reduce the incidence and impact of cancer pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several individual social determinants of health have been identified as significant factors contributing to achieving glycemic targets (glycated hemoglobin < 7). However, it remains unclear how these social variables individually or collectively contribute to glycemic targets among adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in the United States (U.S.) The purpose of the current integrative review (IR) was to describe and synthesize findings from studies on social determinants of glycemic target achievement in adults with T2D in the U.S. and integrate them into the United States Department of Health and Human Services Conceptual Framework. The databases searched included PubMed, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Medline with Full Text [EBSCO], Google Scholar, bibliography, and hand searching. A total of 948 records were identified. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant studies based on inclusion and exclusion criteria through title, abstract, and full-text screening, 13 studies were finally included in this IR. The results revealed that race/ethnicity, economic access and stability, educational access and quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context contribute to glycemic target achievement among adult patients with T2D in the U.S. Integrating findings from key studies on social determinants of glycemic health may contribute to developing interventions aimed at reducing and eventually eradicating health disparities for individuals with and at risk for T2D in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite massive investment in flood control infrastructure (FCI), neither cities nor rivers have been well served-flooding continues to challenge cities around the world, while riverine ecosystems are degraded by FCI. Although new flood hazard management concepts have shifted the focus away from FCI, many cities continue to count on FCI to prevent flood damage. It is assumed that existing built-up areas can only count on FCI, as large-scale retreat is often impossible. However, flood adaptation-retrofitting the built environment to prevent damage during flooding-as an option is often ignored. This paper argues against the continual use of FCI to prevent flood damage by reviewing FCI's established problems. The paper examines human-river interactions associated with FCI, focusing on the feedback mechanisms in the interactions, with a case study on the Lower Green River (LGR) valley in King County, Washington, USA. An urban ecology research model is employed to organize the case study, where interactions between floodplain urbanization, FCI, flow and sediment changes, flood risk, and riverine ecosystem are explored and two feedback mechanisms-river adjustment and flood risk perception-are explicitly addressed. The resulting complex dynamics, in terms of cross-scale interactions, emergence, nonlinearity, and surprises, are synthesized and limitations of FCI outlined. Flood adaptation is explored as a plausible alternative to flood control to nurture flood resilience. A management scenario of flood adaptation for the City of Kent-the largest municipality in the LGR valley-is developed to discuss the implications of flood adaptation on flood risk and river restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze how the associations of built environment and usage of urban space changed due to the social restrictions during COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A total of 57,185 census block groups (CBGs) in 459 cities were analyzed. Built environment elements including road network, green space, and land use associated with usage of urban space (measured by over two billion mobile phone data) before/during COVID-19 were evaluated at both CBG and city level. Our results showed drastic decreases of urban space usage, ranging from 0.25 % to 76.35 %, among cities during COVID-19 social restriction. Specifically, CBG-level road length-node ratio, road intersection index and land use densities contributed less to usage of urban space during COVID-19. Meanwhile, the heterogeneity of city-level road network, commercial, public places, as well as hospitals and health cares exhibited stronger relationship with usage of urban space. The heterogeneity of green space at both CBG and city level showed less associations with usage of urban space during COVID-19. The discrepancies of the built environment effects on usage of urban space between CBG and city level suggest the importance of varying-scale analysis. Future interventions should consider space usages and health inequality from a space-varying perspective for post-pandemic period. • The changing associations of built environment with usage of urban space during COVID-19 were investigated • The changing associations were evaluated based on the census-block-group (CBG) level and city level in 459 U.S. cities • CBG-level road complexity and urban facility density contributed less on the usage of urban space during social restriction • City-level built environment exhibited stronger relationship with usage of urban space during social restriction [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Black Lives Matter movement has become one of the most visible, controversial, and impactful campaigns to address racialized violence and discrimination in the 21st century. Activists within the movement join traditional forms of social protest and policy development with rituals and spiritual practices, drawing upon spiritual resources as a source of transformation and empowerment. The transformative aims of Black Lives Matter and other contemporary African American justice movements address critical areas for reform, like criminal justice, education, and public health, but their vision for reform is broad and extensive, envisioning the creation of a more just world. As such, the physical context for African American life-the buildings and public spaces known as the built environment-is a crucial aspect of social transformation. This essay examines the spirituality of Black Lives Matter and other contemporary African American justice movements and considers how it inspires the ongoing transformation of buildings and public spaces. By analyzing the spiritual practices and themes in the Black Lives Matter movement as described by its founders, this paper identifies three principles and relates them to similar concepts in African American religious thought, womanist ethics, and ecowomanism. Applying these three spiritual principles-liberation, inspiration, and healing-to the design of architecture and public spaces can enrich and affirm African American life. Appealing to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture as an example, this paper articulates the possibilities of architectural projects to symbolically and practically support liberative goals in African American religious systems and political movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over decades, many cities have been expanded and functionally diversified by population activities, socio-demographics and attributes of the built environment. Urban expansion and development have led to the emergence of spatial structures of cities. Uncovering cities' spatial structures is critical to understanding various urban phenomena such as segregation, equity of access, and sustainability. In this study, we propose using a neural embedding model—graph neural network (GNN)—that leverages the heterogeneous features of urban areas and their interactions captured by human mobility networks to obtain vector representations of these areas. Using large-scale high-resolution mobility data sets from millions of aggregated and anonymized mobile phone users in 16 metropolitan counties in the United States, we demonstrate that our embeddings encode complex relationships among features related to urban components (such as distribution of facilities) and population attributes and activities. The clustered representations of urban areas show the shared characteristics among urban areas in the same cluster. We show that embeddings generated by a model trained on a different county can capture 50% to 60% of the spatial structure in another county, allowing us to make cross-county comparisons and inferences. The findings reveal complex relationships among urban components in cities. Since the identified multifaceted spatial structures capture the combined effects of various mechanisms, such as segregation, disparate facility distribution, and human mobility, the findings could help identify the limitations of the current city structure to inform planning decisions and policies. Also, the model and findings set the stage for a variety of research in urban planning, engineering and social science through an integrated understanding of how the complex interactions between urban components and population activities and attributes shape the spatial structures in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting physical activity (PA) at the community level is a complex, multisector approach requiring researchers and practitioners to impact the individual, interpersonal, environment, and policy levels. One such strategy aiming to impact systems, policies, and environments is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Activity Friendly Routes to Everyday Destinations (Routes to Destinations). This strategy specifically aims to connect pedestrian, bicycle, and public transportation systems with built environment and land use destinations. This article examines Black/African American transportation and land use experts' perspectives and concerns—across multiple mediums—around inequities that have discouraged PA among Black/African American persons specifically Routes to Destinations strategies. In March 2021, a multifaceted scoping review was conducted of peer-reviewed literature, gray literature, and social media authored by Black/African American transportation and land use experts focusing on policy, system, and environmental changes which promote or discourage equitable and inclusive access to physical activity. Themes from peer-reviewed and gray literature resources included: (1) Assessing Racism, Discrimination, and Segregation; (2) Addressing Equity and Inclusion Through Policy; (3) Community Engagement and Place-Based Interventions; (4) Infrastructure Changes; (5) Safety; and (6) Reporting Health Disparities. Twitter topic models suggested the main topics included elements of race/racism, equity, safety, infrastructure, and advancing social justice. Experts called for systemic and systematic change through new policies and implementation of existing policies as well as enhanced community inclusion in decision-making through ownership of policy and built environment change. Safety was discussed differently between peer-reviewed and gray literature and Twitter discussions indicating a publication bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the deteriorating condition of US infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers has rated the condition of the country's infrastructure, by major category, since 1988. The results of the most recent 2005 rating are compared with the 1988 rating. In the nearly two decades between the two ratings, the condition of US infrastructure has declined from a 'C-' to a 'D' grade. This paper considers the fiscal crisis, how the condition of US infrastructure impacts on economic development, and the need for national leadership to address these major issues. The responsibility of state and local officials is also examined. The paper also provides a list of further reading and online resources. It is hoped that public officials in other nations can learn from the US experience and avoid some of the issues examined here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct demand modeling is a useful tool to estimate the demand of urban rail transit stations and to determine factors that significantly influence such demand. The construction of a direct demand model involves determination of the catchment area. Although there have been many methods to determine the catchment area, the choice of those methods is very arbitrary. Different methods will lead to different results and their effects on the results are still not clear. This paper intends to investigate this issue by focusing on three aspects related to the catchment area: size of the catchment area, processing methods of the overlapping areas, and whether to apply the distance decay function on the catchment area. Five catchment areas are defined by drawing buffers around each station with radius distance ranging from 300 to 1500 meters with the interval of 300 meters. Three methods to process the overlapping areas are tested, which are the naïve method, Thiessen polygon, and equal division. The effect of distance decay is considered by applying lower weight to the outer catchment area. Data from five cities in the United States are analyzed. Built environment characteristics within the catchment area are extracted as explanatory variables. Annual average weekday ridership of each station is used as the response variable. To further analyze the effect of regression models on the results, three commonly used models, including the linear regression, log-linear regression, and negative binomial regression models, are applied to examine which type of catchment area yields the highest goodness-of-fit. We find that the ideal buffer sizes vary among cities, and different buffer sizes do not have a great impact on the model's goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy. When the catchment areas are heavily overlapping, dividing the overlapping area by the number of times of overlapping can improve model results. The application of distance decay function could barely improve the model results. The goodness-of-fit of the three models is comparable, though the log-linear regression model has the highest prediction accuracy. This study could provide useful references for researchers and planners on how to select catchment areas when constructing direct demand models for urban rail transit stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Tactical infrastructure transforms the geography of unauthorized migration routes. • The location of tactical infrastructure correlates to the distribution of human remains over time. • The United States' ultimate objective on the border is not to cause death but to deter behavior. • The logic of deterrence shares a genealogy with U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine and practice. • Deterrence logic materializes state violence through the fabric of the built environment. In public statements and archival documents U.S. officials have repeatedly made explicit their intention that the deployment of tactical infrastructure along the Mexico/United States border will contribute to the "funneling" of unauthorized migration toward increasingly remote and difficult routes of travel. By amplifying the suffering, risk and uncertainty to which migrants are exposed, it is intended that others in the future will be deterred from considering a similar journey. In this paper, we use the phrase "corral apparatus" to name how heterogeneous elements like walls, checkpoints and surveillance towers combine to form a common architecture of deterrence. We then undertake geospatial modeling of the relationship between this apparatus and the spatiotemporal distribution of human mortality across two major unauthorized migration corridors in southern Arizona. Our analysis identifies a meaningful relationship between the location of these infrastructures and patterns of mortality observed over time. Yet it bears emphasis that the United States government's ultimate objective is not to kill people, but to manipulate their behavior. To reflect on this point, we explore the relationship between deterrence theory and counterinsurgency as a particular framework of governance, one that emphasizes the targeting of coercive action against a population in order to immobilize an adversary. We discuss how an elaboration on this framework provides clear analytic purchase for understanding connections between those infrastructures of deterrence deployed in remote desert areas and a number of more recent carceral practices and enforcement initiatives undertaken by the United States along its border with Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the current research by adding a longitudinal analysis of factors related to vehicle ownership dynamics among older adults. Given an increasing number of older people in the low-density areas, the declined vehicle ownership over the life course might add additional travel difficulties to their lives. This study uses the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (2001–2017), a large-scale panel survey of American households which began in 1968, to examine the role of life-cycle events, household socioeconomic attributes, and built environment factors on vehicle ownership reductions among older Americans. This study finds that becoming alone due to loss of partner or divorce and reduced income are related to decreased vehicle ownership and transitioning into zero-vehicle households. Age and being headed by Hispanics are also positively related to the probability of lowering vehicle ownership from one to zero. The results further demonstrate that female older adults living alone are more likely to live in zero-vehicle households than the male counterparts. This study suggests that policymakers should consider providing additional support, e.g., offering alternative transportation modes, for older adults when owning and using vehicles is temporarily or permanently impossible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities play an important role in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) to promote economic growth and meet social needs. Especially satellite imagery is a potential data source for studying sustainable urban development. However, a comprehensive dataset in the United States (U.S.) covering multiple cities, multiple years, multiple scales, and multiple indicators for SDG monitoring is lacking. To support the research on SDGs in U.S. cities, we develop a satellite imagery dataset using deep learning models for five SDGs containing 25 sustainable development indicators. The proposed dataset covers the 100 most populated U.S. cities and corresponding Census Block Groups from 2014 to 2023. Specifically, we collect satellite imagery and identify objects with state-of-the-art object detection and semantic segmentation models to observe cities' bird's-eye view. We further gather population, nighttime light, survey, and built environment data to depict SDGs regarding poverty, health, education, inequality, and living environment. We anticipate the dataset to help urban policymakers and researchers to advance SDGs-related studies, especially applying satellite imagery to monitor long-term and multi-scale SDGs in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communities across the globe are focusing on the needs of young people and their families in an effort to create child- and youth-friendly cities. In an attempt to become more child and youth friendly, over 40 communities in the United States have developed youth master plans (YMPs), as of 2009; however, our understanding of these plans is limited. To broaden this understanding, this research employed a multiple-methods approach, including an online questionnaire, plan analysis and semi-structured interviews with key community informants. Findings show that YMPs often focus on collaboration among community entities and youth participation, yet include only general normative statements regarding the physical environment. Furthermore, urban planners do not typically take the lead in development of YMPs, and, in some cases, are not involved at all. To inform and improve future YMPs, this paper recommends greater focus on the physical environment, particularly in relation to safety, access to nature and sustainable transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The residential construction market remains vulnerable to the environment. The architecture, engineering, and construction industry now recognizes natural hazards as an increasing threat to the vitality of the built environment. Resilience has become a central concept for assessing environment adaptations; however, how to assess resilience remains elusive. In an effort to solve this problem, the present work proposes a conceptual framework of resilient built environment (RBE), which focuses on one piece of the resilience puzzle: residential construction in the built environment. This paper also provides a case study to demonstrate how to use the RBE framework to assess the state-level minimum resilience performance for the U.S. residential construction market. Findings from the study indicate that 53% of states have adopted building codes with a satisfactory capability for resilience, which raises a need for new policies on resilience management. The case study validates the RBE framework as a valuable tool for describing and assessing resilience performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Previous studies on contamination spread by flooding undercount sites. • 3.3 million people are at risk of contamination from flooding in US urban areas. • Due to changes in urbanization and climate change these figures are likely to increase. • These risks pose complex challenges for environmental managers and urban planners. Climate change is imposing substantial consequences across physical and social infrastructures. The extent of social disruption and risk to human health are, however, potentially much broader than these general consequences, taken individually, would suggest. To address this gap, we assess the distribution of contaminated sites in the United States (US) and then estimate the impact that flood hazards in urban areas will have on these contaminated sites. Using these measures, we draw inferences about the risk of contamination from climate-impacted extreme weather events, climate adaptation at the local level, social risk and how it is distributed, and a broader understanding of the potential global consequences of climate change. In this paper we address three critical points: 1) the role classification of contaminated sites on our understanding of risk due to climate change; 2) the relationship between contaminated sites and flood risk; and 3) the potential for climate adaption strategies to mediate this risk. We estimate that of the roughly one-third of the US population living in urban areas, up to 3,338,518 people, are living in high-risk flood zones near contaminated sites. Our results suggest severe potential implications for estimates of the negative consequences from climate change and contamination and provide critical insights into the relationship between climate change and the built environment for urban planners and environmental policy makers and managers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transit-friendly development has recently become a popular strategy to increase transit mode share in the United States. Many policies and programs have been proposed and implemented across the country to increase residential and job densities, walkability, and mixed-use development around major transit stations in order to encourage transit ridership. Using data from all rail transit stations across the United States, this paper presents an analysis of commute mode share for people who live within walking distance to rail transit with regard to the urban form at both neighborhood and regional levels. This study provides additional evidence to better understand how transit accessibility and urban design jointly aim to encourage transit use and reduce driving in rail stations areas across the U.S. and thus cope with ever-growing traffic congestion in urban areas. It is one of the first analyses to examine the relationships between urban form measured at both local/neighborhood and metropolitan levels and the commuting mode share across major transit station areas nationwide. It utilizes a Seemingly Unrelated Regression modeling method (SUR) -which is based on generalized least squares (GLS)- and estimates three primary modes of auto, transit, and walk/bike. Findings suggest that urban form at both station area (local effect) and at the whole metropolitan area (regional effect) influences commuting patterns. Factors such as population and employment densities, walkability, and transit accessibility at both local and regional levels are significantly associated with commute mode share. Job accessibility via transit in the entire region (measured by the number of jobs located within 45 min from a transit stop) is another important factor encouraging transit ridership for every-day commuting trips. • The relationships between urban form at various scales on commuting mode share is analyzed. • Seemingly Unrelated Regression Modeling method (SURE) is utilized to estimate three primary modes of auto, transit, and walk/bike. • It examine how urban form measured at both local/neighborhood and metropolitan levels impacts the commuting mode share across major transit station areas nationwide. • Provides additional evidence on how transit-friendly design could help reduce automobile use and promote the more sustainable travel modes such as transit and walking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Obesity and diabetes are increasingly attributed to environmental factors, however, little attention has been paid to the influence of the ‘local’ food economy. This paper examines the association of measures relating to the built environment and ‘local’ agriculture with U.S. county-level prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Key indicators of the ‘local’ food economy include the density of farmers’ markets and the presence of farms with direct sales. This paper employs a robust regression estimator to account for non-normality of the data and to accommodate outliers. Overall, the built environment is associated with the prevalence of obesity and diabetes and a strong local’ food economy may play an important role in prevention. Results imply considerable scope for community-level interventions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In 2010, more than 60% (2/3) of the US population was overweight (1/3) or obese (1/3). It is estimated that if the current trend continues, 50% of the population will be obese by 2030. What does it mean to live in a nation where one of every three people is obese? In countless ways, obesity is changing the way we work, live, eat and travel (O'Neill, 2011). The Built Environment is everything engineers have designed and built to aid in meeting human needs. In its current form, it is an unsustainable environment that promotes unhealthy lifestyle, while polluting our air, land and water resources. We must implement significant sustainable changes to reshape the Built Environment for the future. As a solution to this unsustainable Built Environment and its impact on human health; there is a movement where the study of the eco-systems can be used to model the Built Environment. My intention is to integrate Systems Engineering into this new thinking. This allows one to model a Built Environment that mimics and complements the eco-system, rather than destroy or disrupt the earth?s natural order. Beneath the technical effort to reshape the Built Environment lays the concept of sustainable development and sustainability. The increased awareness of human propensity for destroying people?s health and the eco-system of today and for future generations has lead to the emergence of a field of ecological economics which redefines and provides new meaning to cost and value. The value and impact on people's health should play a vital role when designing and reshaping the Built Environment (Kibert, 1999). Different studies on reshaping the Built Environment prove that environmental interventions can be based on the recognition that people's health is integrally connected to their physical and social environment. The approach of this paper is interdisciplinary, encompassing, economics, social needs, environmental, governmental policy issues, architecture, health science, behavioral science and engineering. The overall outcome will depend on the extent to which we change our behavior, lifestyles and our technologies in order to gain better health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have found that suburban residents drive more and walk less than residents in traditional neighbourhoods. What is less well understood is the extent to which the observed patterns of travel behaviour can be attributed to the residential built environment (BE) itself, as opposed to attitude-induced residential self-selection. To date, most studies addressing this self-selection issue fall into nine methodological categories: direct questioning, statistical control, instrumental variables, sample selection, propensity score, joint discrete choice models, structural equations models, mutually dependent discrete choice models and longitudinal designs. This paper reviews 38 empirical studies using these approaches. Virtually all of the studies reviewed found a statistically significant influence of the BE remaining after self-selection was accounted for. However, the practical importance of that influence was seldom assessed. Although time and resource limitations are recognized, we recommend usage of longitudinal structural equations modelling with control groups, a design which is strong with respect to all causality requisites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's gardens have become popular additions to botanical and other public gardens, especially in the United States over the last 15 years, and are an important source of nature interactions for children inhabiting built spaces. However despite subscribing to egalitarian aims of providing child-centred environments and lofty purposes such as inspiring a love of natural environments in children, this paper purposes that, while well-intentioned, they lag behind current best practice in their general lack of opportunities for children to participate, beyond consultation, in their design. The paper suggests reasons for this and presents and critiques examples of processes followed in some children's gardens. By relating these to current participative research and the new social studies of childhood, this paper adds to the growing discourse on participation of children in the design of their outdoor environments. Some concluding recommendations contribute to a pathway towards co-construction with children for practitioners of outdoor spaces in the built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mid- to late-nineteenth-century American history, there was a fairly uniform evolution of 'occupations' that developed into specialised 'professions'; the process of which has long been an area of study for sociologists. Acknowledged professions such as law and medicine were beneficiaries of this transition -- being cited today as consummate authorities in their respective knowledge bases. Yet, landscape architecture, to date, has not achieved the same level of public understanding and approbation even in comparison to sister professions of planning and architecture. This paper uses the theoretical framework of the sociology of professions to understand the comparatively latent development of the profession of landscape architecture in achieving public recognition. Based on these theoretical standards, the findings of this study include possible reasons for landscape architecture's slower evolution in public recognition and acceptance, as well as a projection of its future through a review of recent accomplishments and events that indicate how public approbation and understanding of landscape architecture might be expanded. The paper concludes with reasons for optimism towards the future of the profession and discipline. The research goal of this undertaking was to trace landscape architecture's trajectory from occupation to profession, beginning in the late nineteenth century, and to compare that path with other disciplines, such as planning and architecture, in order to determine the reasons for landscape architecture's slower journey toward public recognition and understanding. This article frames the professional evolution of landscape architecture in the United States through a sociological lens of professional development. The study begins with a survey of the development of professions as a sociological phenomenon, and is placed in context by a literature review of scholarly journals, professional trade magazines and various studies of the profession. The authors summarise a positive future through interviews and electronic communication with contemporary educators and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments, businesses, and institutions are committing to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a goal and process known as deep decarbonization. Achieving this goal in the United States requires a national, economy-wide transformation in energy production and use in five sectors: electricity, transportation, industry, land-based carbon sinks, and buildings. All of these sectors interact with planning for the built environment and land use, so planning scholars and practitioners have many opportunities to engage policymakers working on national-level decarbonization strategies. This article analyzes the consequences of deep decarbonization for the future speed, scale, scope, role, and relevance of planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives There is growing interest in better understanding the sectoral reach of age-friendly community practice. Action across a wide range of actors is central to achieving age-friendly societal change, according to the World Health Organization and required for governmental participation in its Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities. However, there is limited knowledge regarding the scope of sectoral reach by age-friendly communities. Research Design and Methods We used qualitative inquiry to assess sectoral efforts reported by American age-friendly communities that completed a 5-year cycle of participation (n = 40). We employed directed content analysis using a priori indicators by sectoral actors: public (i.e. government), private (i.e. business), and civil society, including nonprofit organizations and volunteers. We classify sectoral actions by type (i.e. intersectoral and multisectoral) and by clustered domain community foci (i.e. built, social, and service). Results Our study identifies the extent and types of sectoral actors and actions reported by age-friendly communities with the greatest efforts reported in the public sector, and while similarly distributed across all the domains, slightly more efforts were noted in the built environment. We also found greater intersectoral efforts (i.e. explicitly working toward shared goals) than multisectoral (i.e. not necessarily in collaboration on shared goals), particularly across government. Discussion and Implications While our study substantiates the breadth of actions toward age-friendly change, additional research is needed to examine the ways in which the public and other sectoral actions are further linked to outcomes in communities in the United States and in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite similarities to the US in terms of transportation, land use, and culture, Australia kills 5.3 people per 100,000 population on the roads each year, as compared to the US rate of 12.4. Similar trends hold when accounting for distance driven and the number of registered cars. This paper seeks to understand what is behind the road safety disparities between these two countries. The results suggest that a number of inter-related factors seem to play a role in the better road safety outcomes of Australia as compared to the US. This includes Australia’s strategies related to seat belt usage and impaired driving as well as their efforts to help curb vehicle speeds and reduce exposure. Design-related differences include a much greater reliance on roundabouts and narrower street cross-sections as well as guidelines that encourage self-enforcing roads. Policy-related differences include stronger and more extensive enforcement programs, restrictive licensing programs, and higher driving costs. Combined with a more urban population and multimodal infrastructure, Australia tends to discourage driving mileage and exposure while encouraging safer modes of transportation such as transit, at least more so than in most of the US. Australia also enacted their version of Vision Zero – called the Safe System Approach – more than a decade before similar policies began cropping up in US cities. While it is difficult to attribute recent road safety successes to any specific policy, Australia continues to expand their lead on the US in terms of safety outcomes and is a road safety example worthy of consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicator systems help organizations worldwide to understand their progress toward sustainability. But few systems include measures of the built environment, the primary area of agency for local planners seeking to contribute to sustainability. This paper uses the U.S. as a case study to explore the challenges of, and prospects for, filling that gap. Its main questions are: 1) Can a scan of existing built environment indicators yield a catalog of high-quality indicators that measure sustainability comprehensively? and 2) What gaps and challenges arise and how can they be overcome? The study triangulates answers through a review of sustainability literature, a scan of existing indicators, and consultation with panels of indicator experts. Results suggest that U.S. built-environment indicators do not robustly track local progress toward sustainability, confirm deficiencies in the equity dimension, and provide recommendations that allow communities in the U.S. and internationally to more successfully track their local progress toward sustainability goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Childhood obesity is disproportionately prevalent in communities of color, partially because of structural inequities in the social and built environment (e.g., poverty, food insecurity, pollution) that restrict healthy eating and active living. Community organizing is an underexamined, grassroots health promotion approach that empowers and mobilizes community residents to advocate for, and achieve, environmental and policy changes to rectify these structural inequities. This paper presents outcomes of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Communities Creating Healthy Environments initiative: the first national program to apply community organizing to combat childhood obesity-causing structural inequities in communities of color.Methods: Twenty-one community-based organizations and tribal nations (grantees) conducted 3-year community organizing-based interventions primarily designed to increase children's healthy food and safe recreational access. Grantees' policy wins (environmental and policy changes resulting from grantee interventions) were measured from 2009 to 2014 using semi-structured interviews conducted quarterly and 6 months post-grant, and independently coded and reviewed in 2015 by researchers and expert community organizers.Results: The 21 grantees achieved 72 policy wins (mean=3.43, SD=1.78) across six domains: two directly addressed childhood obesity by enhancing children's healthy food (37.50%) and recreational access (33.33%), whereas four indirectly addressed obesity by promoting access to quality health care (8.33%); clean environments (9.73%); affordable housing (8.33%); and discrimination- and crime-free neighborhoods (2.78%).Conclusions: These findings provide compelling evidence that community organizing-based interventions designed and led by community stakeholders can achieve diverse environmental and policy solutions to the structural inequities that foment childhood obesity in communities of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Physical activity is important for children's health and well-being. Supportiveness for physical activity of home and neighborhood environments may affect children's PA, but most studies are cross-sectional. We examined environmental predictors of change in children's physical activity over two years. Methods: Data were from the longitudinal, observational cohort study, 'Neighborhood Impact on Kids'. Participants were children (initially aged 6–12 years) and their parent/caregiver (n = 727 dyads) living in neighborhoods throughout San Diego County, California and King County (Seattle area), Washington, USA. Children's moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was measured using accelerometers at T1 (Time 1 or baseline, 2007–2009) and T2, the two-year follow-up. At T1, parents survey-reported on physical activity (PA) equipment at home and demographics. Neighborhood environment was measured using spatial data in Geographic Information Systems (intersection density; park availability) and in-person audits (informal play space near home; park-based PA facilities; land use; support for walking/cycling). Generalized additive mixed models estimated total effects, then direct effects, of environmental attributes on MVPA at T1. Two-way moderating effects of child's sex and age were examined at T1. To examine associations of environmental exposures with changes in MVPA, we estimated interaction effects of environmental attributes on the association between time and MVPA. Results: On average, children accumulated 146 min/day (standard deviation or SD = 53) of MVPA at T1, and 113 (SD = 58) min/day at T2. There were no significant total or direct effects of environmental attributes on MVPA at T1, and no significant two-way interaction effects of child's age and sex for T1 MVPA. Having informal play spaces proximal to home with more amenities was associated with less MVPA decline from T1 to T2. Higher residential density, higher land use mix, and higher number of PA facilities in nearby parks were unexpectedly associated with greater MVPA decline. Conclusion: Higher quality informal play spaces close to home may help offset declines in MVPA during middle childhood, as they may promote unstructured active play with opportunities for parental or neighbor surveillance. Unexpectedly, environmental factors consistent with higher walkability were associated with greater declines in children's MVPA. As physical activity differs across the lifespan, so may environmental factors that facilitate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]