Community and Quality of Life
Community and Quality of Life

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2002-08-09

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0309082609

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"Quality of life"..."livability"..."sense of place." Communities across America are striving to define these terms and to bring them to life, as they make decisions about transportation systems and other aspects of planning and development. Community and Quality of Life discusses important concepts that undergird community life and offers recommendations for collaborative planning across space and time. The book explores: Livability as an ensemble concept, embracing notions such as quality of place and sustainability. It discusses how to measure the "three legs" of livability (social, economic, ecological) while accounting for politics and personal values. And the book examines how to translate broad ideas about livability into guidelines for policymaking Place as more than location, including the natural, human-built, and social environments. The book discusses the impact of population changes over time, the links between regional and local identity, and other issues Tools for decision making in transportation and community planning. It reviews a variety of decision models and tools such as geographic information systems (GIS)â€"as well as public and private sources of relevant data. Including several case examples, this book will be important to planners, planning decision makers, planning educators and students, social scientists, community activists, and interested individuals.

Residential Crowding and Design
Residential Crowding and Design

Author: John R. Aiello

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1461329671

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The intent of this book is threefold: (1) to summarize recent research concerned with residential crowding, (2) to present some new perspec tives on this important subject, and (3) to consider design implications and recommendations that can be derived from the existing body of research. We have sought to bring together the work of many of the researchers most involved in these areas, and have asked them to go beyond their data-to present new insights into response to residential crowding and to speculate about the meaning of their work for the present and future design of residential environments. We feel that this endeavor has been successful, and that the present volume will help to advance our understanding of these issues. The study of residential density is not new. Studies in this area were conducted by sociologists as early as the 1920s, yielding moderate corre lational relationships between census tract density and various social and physical pathologies. This work, however, has been heavily criticized because it did not adequately consider confounding social structural factors, such as social class and ethnicity. The research that will be presented in the present volume represents a new generation of crowding investigation. All of the work has been conducted during the 1970s, and a range of methodological strategies have been employed in these studies.

Measuring Urban Design
Measuring Urban Design

Author: Reid Ewing

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2013-07-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781610911931

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What makes strolling down a particular street enjoyable? The authors of Measuring Urban Design argue it's not an idle question. Inviting streets are the centerpiece of thriving, sustainable communities, but it can be difficult to pinpoint the precise design elements that make an area appealing. This accessible guide removes the mystery, providing clear methods to measure urban design. In recent years, many "walking audit instruments" have been developed to measure qualities like building height, block length, and sidewalk width. But while easily quantifiable, these physical features do not fully capture the experience of walking down a street. In contrast, this book addresses broad perceptions of street environments. It provides operational definitions and measurement protocols of five intangible qualities of urban design, specifically imageability, visual enclosure, human scale, transparency, and complexity. The result is a reliable field survey instrument grounded in constructs from architecture, urban design, and planning. Readers will also find a case study applying the instrument to 588 streets in New York City, which shows that it can be used effectively to measure the built environment's impact on social, psychological, and physical well-being. Finally, readers will find illustrated, step-by-step instructions to use the instrument and a scoring sheet for easy calculation of urban design quality scores. For the first time, researchers, designers, planners, and lay people have an empirically tested tool to measure those elusive qualities that make us want to take a stroll. Urban policymakers and planners as well as students in urban policy, design, and environmental health will find the tools and methods in Measuring Urban Design especially useful.