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Results for “CITY PLANNING”

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At least 487 records · Page 27Linked to original sources

PubMed1997

Modelling the evolution of human trail systems.

Many human social phenomena, such as cooperation, the growth of settlements, traffic dynamics and pedestrian movement, appear to be accessible to mathematical descriptions that invoke self-organization. Here we develop a model of pedestrian motion to explore the evolution of trails in urban green spaces such as parks. Our aim is to address such questions as what the topological structures of these trail systems are, and whether optimal path systems can be predicted for urban planning. We use an 'active walker' model that takes into account pedestrian motion and orientation and the concomitant feedbacks with the surrounding environment. Such models have previously been applied to the study of complex structure formation in physical, chemical and biological systems. We find that our model is able to reproduce many of the observed large-scale spatial features of trail systems.

Behavior↗

PubMed2001

A sustainable approach to planning housing and social care: if not now, when?

The publication of Supporting People (Department of Social Security 1998) has given urgency to discussions around needs analysis, planning, user voice and the development of 'normal' housing for people with support needs. This paper explores a project, which aimed to design a collaborative model for identifying supported housing needs. We provide an overview of the research background, local imperatives and findings, and point to the probability of increasing conflict between the policy of developing 'sustainable communities' and the development of housing for people with support needs.

City Planning↗

PubMed2000

Study of total quantity control of air pollutants in planning industrial district.

The total quantity control of pollutant emissions for an industrial district is determined by coefficient (A) method (Qian, 1990). It is suggested that average daily concentrations of air pollutants should be estimated in relation with metrological parameters, such as wind directions, wind speed and atmospheric stability in the period of monitoring by Gaussian model (SEPB, 1991), and that the sources of pollution should be redistributed on the basis of the result of monitoring with a view improving local atmosphere environment.

Air Pollutants↗

PubMed2005

[Watercourses protection and urban planning].

The work analyses the complex relationships that link urban planning and environmental protection referring, in particular, to watercourses defence. The close interactions existing between development of human activities on territory and the hydrological cycle point out the necessity of a watershed-scale planning. This regional planning, in fact, allows both problems of protection and optimal use of hydrological resources in terms not only of punctual actions, but also of land use. In this context, the fundamental roles played by geographical and environmental information systems are shown and analysed with special regard to their importance in fostering citizens participation in decisional processes by means of an easier access to environmental data and information available to public authorities.

Access to Information↗

PubMed1975

Land use and transportation issues in environmental control.

Analyses have been made of the effects of environmental controls and planning at regional, subarea, and project levels. The results obtained at the regional level are reviewed for a proposed highway development around Baltimore, Md. The findings for both short-term and long-term effects of alternative transport policies are summarized in respect of population and employment, economic indicators, traffic and travel, air quality, water and solid waste, noise, and environmentally sensitive areas. Problems at subarea and project levels are briefly considered.

Air Pollution↗

PubMed2003

The impact of community design and land-use choices on public health: a scientific research agenda.

The design of a community's built environment influences the physical and mental health of its residents. Because few studies have investigated this relationship, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hosted a workshop in May 2002 to help develop a scientific research agenda on these issues. Workshop participants' areas of expertise included physical activity, injury prevention, air pollution, water quality, urban planning, transportation, architecture, epidemiology, land use, mental health, social capital, housing, and social marketing. This report describes the 37 questions in the resulting research agenda. The next steps are to define priorities and obtain resources. The proposed research will help identify the best practices for designing new communities and revitalizing old ones in ways that promote physical and mental health.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.↗

PubMed2006

A decision support framework for sustainable urban water planning and management in new urban areas.

The paper discusses issues of decision support within the context of sustainable development and more specifically sustainable water cycle management to provide a context and a rationale for the decision support approach adopted within an on-going U.K. EPSRC-funded project, WaND. The paper proposes a set-up for a flexible, upgradeable, efficient and modular decision support framework and associated tools. Furthermore, the paper presents early prototypes of three decision support tools developed within the proposed framework including initial results for one of them.

Cities↗

PubMed2006

Enhancing urban infrastructure investment planning practices for a changing climate.

Climate change raises many concerns for urban water management because of the effects on all aspects of the hydrological cycle. Urban water infrastructure has traditionally been designed using historical observations and assuming stationary climatic conditions. The capability of this infrastructure, whether for storm-water drainage, or water supply, may be over- or under-designed for future climatic conditions. In particular, changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events will have the most acute effect on storm-water drainage systems. Therefore, it is necessary to take future climatic conditions into consideration in engineering designs in order to enhance water infrastructure investment planning practices in a long time horizon. This paper provides the initial results of a study that is examining ways to enhance urban infrastructure investment planning practices against changes in hydrologic regimes for a changing climate. Design storms and intensity-duration-frequency curves that are used in the engineering design of storm-water drainage systems are developed under future climatic conditions by empirically adjusting the general circulation model output, and using the Gumbel distribution and the Chicago method. Simulations are then performed on an existing storm-water drainage system from NE Calgary to investigate the resiliency of the system under climate change.

Alberta↗

PubMed1975

[Leonardo's "Città ideale" (the "satellite town of the Renaissance (author's transl)].

After the severe plague epidemic of 1484/85 in Milan, Leonardo designed plans for an ideal town with straight, wide streets with drains. These streets were intended for pedestrians only with a corresponding mirror image of subterranean roads for the entire goods traffic and transport of waste. Leonardo's design, thought out in great detail, shows a fascinating boldness in the removal of waste and traffic regulation (already anticipating the one way traffic principle, e.g. in the separate entrances and exits of the communicating stairways) and his ideas on the relieving of the overcrowded towns by creating satellite settlements on the periphery.

City Planning↗

PubMed2003

[Ecological benefit assessment of urban vegetations by remote sensing and GIS].

As an important part of the urban ecosystem, urban vegetation plays an important role in improving urban environmental quality. The assessment of ecological benefits of urban or regional vegetations can help us more properly plan urban green space pattern, optimize urban vegetation structure, and further strengthen ecological construction. Through the discussion of the relevant researches at home and abroad, it's indicated that remote sensing and GIS could help as better evaluate the ecological effect of urban vegetations. This article introduced the UEA method adopted by AMERICAN FORESTS and CITYgreen software working with ArcView 3.2, as to make the best use of remote sensing and GIS in evaluating urban vegetation ecological effect quantitatively, and to promote sustainable development and ecological construction.

City Planning↗

PubMed2003

Land use planning and the control of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and fast food restaurants.

We desired to understand how legal tools protect public health by regulating the location and density of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and fast food retail outlets. We reviewed the literature to determine how land use regulations can function as control tools for public health advocates. We found that land use regulations are a public health advocacy tool that has been successfully used to lessen the negative effects of alcohol retail outlets in neighborhoods. More research is needed to determine whether such regulations are successful in reducing the negative effects of other retail outlets on community health.

Alcohol Drinking↗

PubMed1975

Community noise criteria.

In the fields of community noise abatement and municipal planning, there are new requirements to define an environment of varying noise level by a single number rating method that correlates well with the subjective response of human beings. Typical criteria, either in use of proposed, are LN numbers (noise levels exceeded N% of the time), Leq (the equivalent sound level in dB(A) ), LNP (the Noise Pollution Level), and Ldn (the day-night average sound level in dB(A) ). Instruments available include an environmental noise classifier, a statistical distribution analyzer/recorder combination, and a digital sampling system for field measurements for subsequent interrogation by a programmable calculator.

City Planning↗

PubMed1994

[Evaluating the noise problem in regional town planning].

While looking for enough living quarters for the town people regional planners are often confronted with high levels of noise due to traffic, highways and railways near the planning area. This may change or even stop the procedure of town planning. Generally, health authorities--who are more or less involved in the process of planning--should take the chance to demand compatibility of special planning with health care regarding noise. However, most guidelines on health-compatible noise levels are not legally binding. This paper describes the variety of health problems accompanied by moderate to high levels of noise. In regions with traffic noise problems efforts should be directed at maximum health compatibility coupled to highly imaginative planning. It is suggested that levels of noise of 55 dB(A) (daytime) and of 45 dB(A) (nighttime) should be tolerated near to the building. This would ensure tolerable levels of noise of 35 dB(A) (daytime) and of 30 dB(A) (nighttime) in the dwellings. Examples of different arrangements of buildings are shown. They demonstrate that these tolerable noise levels could even be observed in areas with traffic problems. It mostly depends on the planner's imagination whether the need for dwelling houses in problem areas could be met in keeping with health demands.

Automobiles↗

PubMed2003

The intersection of urban planning, art, and public health: the Sunnyside Piazza.

Deteriorating physical features of urban environments can negatively influence public health. Dilapidated environments and urban blight tend to promote alienation and can be associated with social disorder, vandalism, crime, drug abuse, traffic violations, and littering, which in turn affects health and well-being. In the late 1990s, the Sunnyside neighborhood in Portland, Ore, was plagued by many of these problems. In an attempt to invigorate neighborhood stewardship, the community organized and created a public gathering place; together, they painted a gigantic sunflower in the middle of an intersection and installed several interactive art features. As a result of these collective actions of "place-making," social capital has increased, thus revitalizing the community, and expanded social networks among residents have stimulated a sense of well-being.

Art↗

PubMed2005

The use of virtual environments for percentage view analysis.

It is recognised that Visual Impact Assessment (VIA), unlike many other aspects of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), relies less upon measurement than upon experience and judgement. Hence, it is necessary for a more structured and consistent approach towards VIA, reducing the amount of bias and subjectivity. For proposed developments, there are very few quantitative techniques for the evaluation of visibility, and these existing methods can be highly inaccurate and time consuming. Percentage view changes are one of the few quantitative techniques, and the use of computer technology can reduce the inaccuracy and the time spent evaluating the visibility of either existing or proposed developments. For over 10 years, research work undertaken by the authors at the University of Nottingham has employed Computer Graphics (CG) and Virtual Reality (VR) in civilian and industrial contexts for environmental planning, design visualisation, accident reconstruction, risk analysis, data visualisation and training simulators. This paper describes a method to quantitatively assess the visual impact of proposed developments on the landscape using CG techniques. This method allows the determination of accurate percentage view changes with the use of a computer-generated model of the environment and the application of specialist software that has been developed at the University of Nottingham. The principles are easy to understand and therefore planners, authorisation agencies and members of the public can use and understand the results. A case study is shown to demonstrate the application and the capabilities of the technology.

City Planning↗

PubMed2001

A system dynamics approach for regional environmental planning and management: a study for the Lake Erhai Basin.

In recent years, water-quality deterioration associated with rapid socio-economic development in the Lake Erhai Basin, China, has acquired more and more attention from the public and the government. An effective planning for the basin's environmental management system is desired for sustainable regional development. In this study, an environmental system dynamics model, named ErhaiSD, is developed for supporting this planning task. The ErhaiSD consists of dynamic simulation models that explicitly consider information feedback that governs interactions in the system. Such models are capable of synthesizing component-level knowledge into system behaviour simulation at an integrated level. This capability is very useful in analyzing and recommending policy decisions. For the study case, interactions among a umber of system components within a time frame of 15 years are examined dynamically. Four planning alternatives are considered. The base run is based on an assumption that the existing pattern of human activities will prevail in the entire planning horizon, and the other alternatives are based on previous planning studies. The contributions of various nonpoint pollution sources to the lake's eutrophication problems, and the effects of industrial activities and wastewater treatment processes on pollution problems in the Xier River are analyzed through the developed modeling system. The exercise draws attention to the implications of different alternatives to the system's environmental and socio-economic objectives. The modeling results are directly useful for simulating and evaluating a variety of decision actions and their dynamic consequences, and answering questions such as 'What should I do?', 'What if I do?' and 'What are the expected consequences?'.

Agriculture↗

PubMed2005

Developing a reliable Senior Walking Environmental Assessment Tool.

BACKGROUND: Research of the effects of the built environment on physical activity often excludes certain segments of the population. The senior population, one segment perhaps most influenced by the physical features of an environment, has been understudied. Developing reliable measures of the environment is important to increase our understanding of the environmental effects on physical activity among seniors. METHODS: A review of urban planning and health literature helped identify important concepts and theories that were used to inform the development of the Senior Walking Environmental Assessment Tool (SWEAT). Urban planning and health research professionals were consulted and provided feedback on the tool. A total of 355 neighborhood segments were assessed using SWEAT. Thirty-six neighborhood segments were assessed for inter-rater reliability. RESULTS: Overall, raters exhibited good-to-excellent agreement on most items included in SWEAT. Items assessing buildings and destinations were less reliable than other categories. CONCLUSIONS: The development of a reliable senior-specific environmental measurement of detailed street level environmental features that may influence walking among seniors is important to advance this research and engage communities to consider simple environmental changes that encourage walking among seniors.

Aged↗

PubMed2006

Evaluating health effects of transport interventions methodologic case study.

BACKGROUND: There is little evidence about the effects of environmental interventions on population levels of physical activity. Major transport projects may promote or discourage physical activity in the form of walking and cycling, but researching the health effects of such "natural experiments" in transport policy or infrastructure is challenging. METHODS: Case study of attempts in 2004-2005 to evaluate the effects of two major transport projects in Scotland: an urban congestion charging scheme in Edinburgh, and a new urban motorway (freeway) in Glasgow. RESULTS: These interventions are typical of many major transport projects. They are unique to their context. They cannot easily be separated from the other components of the wider policies within which they occur. When, where, and how they are implemented are political decisions over which researchers have no control. Baseline data collection required for longitudinal studies may need to be planned before the intervention is certain to take place. There is no simple way of defining a population or area exposed to the intervention or of defining control groups. Changes in quantitative measures of health-related behavior may be difficult to detect. CONCLUSIONS: Major transport projects have clear potential to influence population health, but it is difficult to define the interventions, categorize exposure, or measure outcomes in ways that are likely to be seen as credible in the field of public health intervention research. A final study design is proposed in which multiple methods and spatial levels of analysis are combined in a longitudinal quasi-experimental study.

City Planning↗