Entangled footprints: Understanding urban neighbourhoods by measuring distance, diversity, and direction of flows in Singapore

Environmental health is referring to the health of people in relation to environmental quality. Due to rapid urbanisation, more people are living in urban neighbourhoods. Urban planning and design aspects including the neighbourhood environment are potentially affecting the human healthy lifestyle and health condition. Thus, the relationship between Malaysian neighbourhood environmental aspects and human health has become the concern of this research. One of the neighbourhood units in Shah Alam city had been chosen as the study area for this purpose. Questionnaire survey had been carried out to examine the health condition and physical activeness of residents. Besides, the perception of residents on the quality of neighbourhood environmental aspects also had been collected in the questionnaire survey. The health condition of residents was measured by non-communicable diseases (NCD) and the physical activeness was measured in duration as well as the frequency of physical exercise activities. The study found that the quality of neighbourhood environmental aspects significantly increased the physical activeness of respondents. The physical activeness was positively associated with human health as measured in NCD (heart diseases and high blood pressure, HBP). It shows that neighbourhood environmental (physical and social) aspects are potentially affecting the healthy life of people living in the neighbourhood.Keywords: Healthy life, Neighbourhood environment, Non-communicable diseases (NCD), Physical activeness, Quality.

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Verdichten mit «Greening», oder was wir von Singapur lernen können (Essay)

Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen ◽

10.3188/szf.2015.0219 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 166 (4) ◽

pp. 219-222

Author(s):

Urs Gantner

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Land ◽

Renewable Resource ◽

Popular Participation ◽

Botanical Gardens ◽

Living Space ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods ◽

Mixed Use ◽

City State ◽

Vertical Greening ◽

The City

Densification by greening, or what we can learn from Singapore (essay) Singapore, a city-state with a high population density, wants to give its population, its tourists and its economy a living and livable city and has developed the concept of the Garden City. Parks, nature reserves, forest, green corridors, trees, botanical gardens, horizontal and vertical greening of buildings, as well as popular participation, are all important for this vision of the city. Singapore is counting on dense construction alongside “greening” and biodiversity. Let us be prepared to learn from Singapore's example! Our land is also a non-renewable resource. To protect our ever more limited agricultural land, we should renounce any extension of building land, and free ourselves from the expanding carpets of suburban development. Let us build multiple urban neighbourhoods with mixed use and more biodiversity. Let us develop new types of communal gardens. Urban gardens in the widest sense – from private gardens to garden cooperatives, to parks and botanical gardens – are a part of our living space. The city should be our garden.

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Urban green infrastructure size, quality and proximity and health outcomes in older populations

European Journal of Public Health ◽

10.1093/eurpub/ckaa165.232 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽

Author(s):

P A Cook ◽

M Dennis ◽

C P Wheater ◽

P James ◽

S Lindley

Keyword(s):

Land Cover ◽

Population Health ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Older Age ◽

World Health ◽

Lower Income ◽

City Region ◽

Cover Type ◽

Green Cover ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods

Abstract Background A city's multi-functional network of green and blue spaces has an important role underpinning the health and wellbeing of its residents. Although evidence of positive links between nature and health is plentiful, little is known about which particular aspects of green and blue spaces are most influential, and how benefits might vary between social groups and age. Methods We used a green infrastructure (GI) approach combining a high-resolution spatial dataset of land-cover and function with area-level demographic and socio-economic data. A comprehensive characterisation of the Greater Manchester UK city region was generated. The GI attributes were used in step-wise multi-level regression analyses to test for associations between population chronic morbidity and the functional, physical and spatial components of GI across an urban socio-demographic gradient. Results Individual GI attributes were significantly associated with health in all socio-demographic contexts; even when associations between health and overall green cover were non-significant. For areas with having higher proportions of older people ('older neighbourhoods'), associations were found between health and land-cover diversity, informal greenery and patch size in high income areas. In lower income areas, health was predicted by proximity to public parks and recreation land. Conclusions A nuanced description of greenspace in terms of quality, cover type, diversity explains more variation in population health than a single metric such as percentage green cover. People in urban neighbourhoods that have older age populations and lower income are disproportionately healthy if their neighbourhoods contain accessible, good quality public greenspace. This has implications for strategies to decrease health inequalities and inform international initiatives, such as the World Health Organisation's Age-Friendly Cities programme. Key messages A nuanced description of green and blue space in terms of quality, cover type, diversity explains more variation in population health than a single metric such as percentage green cover. People in urban neighbourhoods that have older age populations and lower income are disproportionately healthy if their neighbourhoods contain accessible, good quality public greenspace.

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"Booster" interventions to sustain increases in physical activity in middle-aged adults in deprived urban neighbourhoods: internal pilot and feasibility study

BMC Public Health ◽

10.1186/1471-2458-11-129 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Emma J Scott ◽

Munyaradzi Dimairo ◽

Daniel Hind ◽

Elizabeth Goyder ◽

Robert J Copeland ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Feasibility Study ◽

Middle Aged ◽

Internal Pilot ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods ◽

Middle Aged Adults

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208Ageing in Diverse Urban Neighbourhoods: Social Exclusion and Life-Course Relationships with Place

Age and Ageing ◽

10.1093/ageing/afx145.35 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 46 (Suppl_3) ◽

pp. iii1-iii12

Author(s):

Kieran A. Walsh

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Social Exclusion ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods

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Quality of the Built Environment in Urban Neighbourhoods

Planning Practice and Research ◽

10.1080/02697450802327198 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 249-264 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Nicola Dempsey

Keyword(s):

Built Environment ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods

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Exploring the Effect of Family Life and Neighbourhood on the Willingness of Household Waste Sorting

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132413653 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 13653

Author(s):

Liyuan Zhao ◽

Hongsheng Chen

Keyword(s):

Rural Families ◽

Family Meals ◽

Household Waste ◽

Urban Residents ◽

Property Management ◽

Household Food ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods ◽

Food Expenditure ◽

Implementation Effect ◽

Household Crowding

For developing countries, garbage classification has become an important measure to handle the environmental pollution crisis. This empirical study examined urban and rural families’ willingness to sort and deposit garbage at fixed recycling points. We found that urban residents demonstrated a significantly higher willingness to sort and deposit garbage at designated points compared to rural residents. The average number of family meals per month, average monthly household food expenditure, household cleanliness, and household crowding (spaciousness) are significantly related to a family’s willingness to sort garbage. In terms of neighbourhood factors, families living in neighbourhoods with property management are more likely to have a higher willingness to sort garbage. The degree of air pollution in the neighbourhood also has an impact on the family’s willingness to sort garbage. This study proposes that neighbourhood factors have a non-negligible influence on a household’s willingness to sort and put garbage in designated locations. Especially in urban neighbourhoods, the willingness of residents living in commodity housing neighbourhoods to sort and place garbage at designated locations is significantly higher than that of residents living in other neighbourhoods. To improve the implementation effect of the waste sorting policy, we suggest that the configuration of neighbourhood garbage recycling services and facilities should be improved so that people can sort garbage more conveniently.

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Online or Offline Services for Urban Neighbourhoods?

International Journal of E-Planning Research ◽

10.4018/ijepr.2019010104 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 50-67

Author(s):

Lukasz Damurski ◽

Jacek Pluta ◽

Jerzy Ładysz ◽

Magdalena Mayer-Wydra

Keyword(s):

Virtual Environments ◽

Local Scale ◽

Research Model ◽

Central Places ◽

Main Research ◽

Services Sector ◽

Urban Neighbourhoods ◽

Research Problems ◽

Research Questions ◽

Strong Competition

Services originally developed as natural concentrations of human activity, reflecting the Christallerian hierarchy of central places. Today, those natural mechanisms are challenged by strong competition from online facilities. More and more services are offered by the internet and this affects the traditional ‘bricks-and-mortar' urban development. In this article, the main research problems of the inter-relatedness of real and virtual environments are defined in the context of urban neighbourhood service centres. The process of conversion from offline services into online ones is treated as a canvas for building a comprehensive research model for studying the development of the contemporary urban services sector in the local scale. Particular research questions and hypotheses are formulated and followed by a set of methods for further empirical research.

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