From Census Tract to Neighborhood Planning

1979 ◽  
Vol 1 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Wesley Nakajima
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Elements ◽  
Planning Policies

In recent years, applied anthropologists in urban research have begun to focus attention upon the process of urban planning. Traditionally, urban planners in the United States were drawn from architecture, engineering, and geography. These planners were primarily concerned with the physical environment, land use, and architectural design. A problem with their planning policies was that they reflected planners' strong physical interests and seemingly neglected to consider the human society for which planning was being done. In recognition of this problem, the applied anthropologists can make a significant contribution to the evaluation and development of more comprehensive, humanistic planning policies. The socio-cultural perspective of the anthropologists complements that of the "physical" planners. Furthermore, applied anthropology concepts and methodology, which facilitate direct observation of a population within its environment, function to articulate the social with the physical elements of a plan. In doing so, human behavior patterns and felt needs can be related to the physical environment, land use, and architectural design and can thus improve the overall quality of urban planning.

scholarly journals The development of concepts of landscape functions in view of optimizing the environment conservation

2015 ◽  
pp. 16-25
Author(s):  
V. I. Kiriushin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Ecological Risks ◽  
Ecological Functions ◽  
Land Owners ◽  
The Social

The objectives relating to the optimization of the environment conservation involve the determination of biotope sensibility, valuation and forecasting of the landscape sustainable development and excessive anthropogenic loads, assessment of ecological risks and possible adverse consequences, analysis of conflicts, choice of methods for protection and development of the territory, determination of proportions between the agricultural lands and priority trends in land use, compromise decision-making and elaboration of methods to bring in correspondence the interests of land owners. These tasks are solved on the basis of landscape functional analysis. The major ecological functions are the following: bioecological (biotopic and biocenotic, bioproduced, bioenergetic, biogeochemical, concentrated, oxidation-reduced, destructed, activated-inhibited, sanitary); atmospheric (gaseous, heat exchanged, hydroatmospheric); lithospheric (relief-forming, lithological); hydrological and hydrogeological ones. Based upon the identification and assessment of ecological functions of landscapes the social-economic functions are determined to meet the requirements of the human society.

scholarly journals Characterizing the Rural Opioid Use Environment in Kentucky Using Google Earth: Virtual Audit

10.2196/14923 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. e14923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Danielle Crawford ◽  
Regine Haardöerfer ◽  
Hannah Cooper ◽  
Izraelle McKinnon ◽  
Carla Jones-Harrell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Opioid Epidemic ◽  
Care Facilities

Background The opioid epidemic has ravaged rural communities in the United States. Despite extensive literature relating the physical environment to substance use in urban areas, little is known about the role of physical environment on the opioid epidemic in rural areas. Objective This study aimed to examine the reliability of Google Earth to collect data on the physical environment related to substance use in rural areas. Methods Systematic virtual audits were performed in 5 rural Kentucky counties using Google Earth between 2017 and 2018 to capture land use, health care facilities, entertainment venues, and businesses. In-person audits were performed for a subset of the census blocks. Results We captured 533 features, most of which were images taken before 2015 (71.8%, 383/533). Reliability between the virtual audits and the gold standard was high for health care facilities (>83%), entertainment venues (>95%), and businesses (>61%) but was poor for land use features (>18%). Reliability between the virtual audit and in-person audit was high for health care facilities (83%) and entertainment venues (62%) but was poor for land use (0%) and businesses (12.5%). Conclusions Poor reliability for land use features may reflect difficulty characterizing features that require judgment or natural changes in the environment that are not reflective of the Google Earth imagery because it was captured several years before the audit was performed. Virtual Google Earth audits were an efficient way to collect rich neighborhood data that are generally not available from other sources. However, these audits should use caution when the images in the observation area are dated.

Brains in bodies in the—social, built, and natural—environment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-72
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Schema Theory ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Action Perception ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social And Physical Environment ◽  
Physical Construction

Each brain enlivens a body in interaction with the social and physical environment. Peter Zumthor’s Therme at Vals exemplifies the interplay of interior with surroundings, and ways the actions of users fuse with their multimodal experience. The action–perception cycle includes both practical and contemplative actions. The author analyzes what Louis Sullivan meant by “form ever follows function,” but more often talks of aesthetics and utility. Not only are action, perception, and emotion intertwined, but so are remembering and imagination. Architectural design leads to the physical construction of buildings—but much of what our brains achieve can be seen as a form of mental construction. A first look at neuroscience offers schema theory as a bridge from cognitive processes to neural circuitry. Some architects fear that neuroscience will strip the architect of any creativity. In counterpoint, two-way reduction explores how neuroscience can “dissect” phenomenology by showing how first-person experiences arise from melding diverse subconscious processes. This raises the possibility that neuroscience can extend the effectiveness of architectural design by showing how different aspects of a building may affect human experience in ways that are not apparent to self-reflection.

First Policy, Then Action: A Co-Production Approach to Understand the Application of Urban Climate Knowledge in Land Use Planning

2019 ◽  
Vol 06 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 2050005
Author(s):  
Mariana Barreto Alfonso Fragomeni ◽  
Jennifer L. Rice ◽  
Rosanna G. Rivero ◽  
J. Marshall Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Climate Knowledge ◽  
Heat Response ◽  
The City

Barriers to the application of climate science in land use planning are often understood as a problem related to perceived disciplinary knowledge gaps. This paper argues that, instead, limitations to the application of knowledge are not strictly linked to transference, but are also attributed to the thought processes that planners use to understand and use information. This study uses an interactional co-production framework from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to explore these processes in the context of heat response planning in Chatham County, Georgia, in the United States: a coastal county exposed to hot and humid conditions that render its population, particularly its growing elderly and low-income, vulnerable to heat health risks. We specifically focus on the processes used by planners during a heat response planning workshop, exploring the discussions and actions taken to develop a plan. We attempt to answer the following questions: What are the processes used by planners to respond to climatic issues such as heat vulnerability? How do these processes determine the application of the scientific knowledge produced? How does this process enable or limit the use of climate knowledge in decision making at the city scale? This paper argues that planners engage in three steps to determine the applicability of climate knowledge to urban planning: (1) using their own experiences to contextualize and visualize the information in their community, (2) being extremely cautious about the use of information because of a fear of failure, and (3) asking for specific policies to be in place to justify and legitimate actions and promote projects throughout the city. Using these insights, this paper concludes with some thoughts on how climate knowledge might be better integrated into urban planning.

scholarly journals A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Privacy Calculus

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511668803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Trepte ◽  
Leonard Reinecke ◽  
Nicole B. Ellison ◽  
Oliver Quiring ◽  
Mike Z. Yao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Uncertainty Avoidance ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Privacy Calculus ◽  
Social Encounters ◽  
Privacy Risks

The “privacy calculus” approach to studying online privacy implies that willingness to engage in disclosures on social network sites (SNSs) depends on evaluation of the resulting risks and benefits. In this article, we propose that cultural factors influence the perception of privacy risks and social gratifications. Based on survey data collected from participants from five countries (Germany [ n = 740], the Netherlands [ n = 89], the United Kingdom [ n = 67], the United States [ n = 489], and China [ n = 165]), we successfully replicated the privacy calculus. Furthermore, we found that culture plays an important role: As expected, people from cultures ranking high in individualism found it less important to generate social gratifications on SNSs as compared to people from collectivist-oriented countries. However, the latter placed greater emphasis on privacy risks—presumably to safeguard the collective. Furthermore, we identified uncertainty avoidance to be a cultural dimension crucially influencing the perception of SNS risks and benefits. As expected, people from cultures ranking high in uncertainty avoidance found privacy risks to be more important when making privacy-related disclosure decisions. At the same time, these participants ascribed lower importance to social gratifications—possibly because social encounters are perceived to be less controllable in the social media environment.

scholarly journals Conceptual Urban Planning a Prerequisite for Physical Urban Planning

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Varesi ◽  
Mahmoud Mahmoudzade
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Physical Aspect ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Elements ◽  
Constituent Elements ◽  
The City

<span lang="EN-US">In the contemporary urban order the rational connection between the physique of the city and its non-physical elements is a major concern. Whatever happens in the existence of a city like the social, cultural, economic and political interactions are the inevitable realities through which the qualification and quantification nature of the city are determined. All occurrences in these realities, the constituent elements, are subject to the structural process which can be regulated as one of the social organization (non-physical) in urban settings, namely the social organization of the city, economic organization of the city and the political organization of the city. These organizations have the ranking in importance according to the city scale. The objective here is to identify these organizations and their contributions in conceptual urban planning. The adopted method here is descriptive-analytic. In a comparative comparison between the physical and non-physical needs of human regarding an urban setting reveals that the non-physical aspect has priority with high importance since its effect on the citizens’ satisfaction is specific and direct.</span>

scholarly journals Negotiating Proximity in Sustainable Urban Planning: A Swedish Case

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Gil Solá ◽  
Bertil Vilhelmson
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Scale Level ◽  
Collaborative Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy And Planning

In striving for sustainability, urban policy and planning increasingly emphasize proximity ideals in order to go beyond established mobility- and speed-oriented accessibility strategies. Yet proximity is a fluid concept with many contextualized meanings, cutting across most sectors of urban planning. When proximity is realized in actual planning, clarity and communicability are therefore required. Here we explored how urban planners in different fields of expertise understand and apply the proximity concept. Furthermore, we tested a collaborative tool enabling transparent discussion and fostering a joint basis for further application. Qualitative data were collected via six semi-structured, focus-group workshops with 35 planners of various competencies working in three western Swedish municipalities. The results indicated that planning goals of proximity were negotiated according to three understandings: One derived from the established understanding of transportation and land-use integration, relying on planners’ expert views; a second emphasizing the local community understanding, highlighting the social context of neighborhoods; and a third comprising the personal environment understanding of the individual’s closest physical space at a detailed scale level. Collaborative exercises resulted in the development of a communicative tool for negotiating perceived understandings of proximity, as well as planning goals.

scholarly journals Characterizing the Rural Opioid Use Environment in Kentucky Using Google Earth: Virtual Audit (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Danielle Crawford ◽  
Regine Haardöerfer ◽  
Hannah Cooper ◽  
Izraelle McKinnon ◽  
Carla Jones-Harrell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Opioid Epidemic ◽  
Care Facilities

BACKGROUND The opioid epidemic has ravaged rural communities in the United States. Despite extensive literature relating the physical environment to substance use in urban areas, little is known about the role of physical environment on the opioid epidemic in rural areas. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to examine the reliability of Google Earth to collect data on the physical environment related to substance use in rural areas. METHODS Systematic virtual audits were performed in 5 rural Kentucky counties using Google Earth between 2017 and 2018 to capture land use, health care facilities, entertainment venues, and businesses. In-person audits were performed for a subset of the census blocks. RESULTS We captured 533 features, most of which were images taken before 2015 (71.8%, 383/533). Reliability between the virtual audits and the gold standard was high for health care facilities (&gt;83%), entertainment venues (&gt;95%), and businesses (&gt;61%) but was poor for land use features (&gt;18%). Reliability between the virtual audit and in-person audit was high for health care facilities (83%) and entertainment venues (62%) but was poor for land use (0%) and businesses (12.5%). CONCLUSIONS Poor reliability for land use features may reflect difficulty characterizing features that require judgment or natural changes in the environment that are not reflective of the Google Earth imagery because it was captured several years before the audit was performed. Virtual Google Earth audits were an efficient way to collect rich neighborhood data that are generally not available from other sources. However, these audits should use caution when the images in the observation area are dated.

scholarly journals Quantifying the Effects of Social Distancing on the Spread of COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talal Daghriri ◽  
Ozlem Ozmen
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
World Population ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Infection Rates ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Modeling Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

AbstractThis paper studies the interplay between the social distancing and the spread of COVID-19 disease—a widely spread pandemic that has affected nearly most of the world population. Starting in China, the virus has reached the United States of America with devastating consequences. Other countries severely affected by the pandemic are Brazil, Russia, United Kingdom, Spain, India, Italy, and France. Even though it is not possible to eliminate the spread of the virus from the world or any other country, it might be possible to reduce its effect by decreasing the number of infected people. Implementing such policies needs a good understanding of the system’s dynamics, generally not possible with mathematical linear equations or Monte Carlo methods because human society is a complex adaptive system with complex and continuous feedback loops. As a result, we use agent-based methods to conduct our study. Moreover, recent agent-based modeling studies for the COVID-19 pandemic show significant promise assisting decision-makers in managing the crisis through applying some policies such as social distancing, disease testing, contact tracing, home isolation, providing good emergency and hospitalization strategies, and preventing traveling would lead to reducing the infection rates. Based on imperial college modeling studies that prove increasing levels of interventions could slow down the spread of disease and infection cases as much as possible, and taking into account that social distancing policy is considered to be the most important factor that was recommended to follow. Our proposed model is designed to test if increasing the social distancing policies strictness can slow down the spread of disease significantly or not, and find out what is the required safe level of social distancing. So, the model was run six times, with six different percentages of social distancing with keeping the other parameters levels fixed for all experiments. The results of our study show that social distancing affects the spread of COVID19 significantly, where the spread of disease and infection rates decrease once social distancing procedures are implemented at higher levels. Also, the behavior space tool was used to run ten experiments with different levels of social distancing, which supported the previous results. We concluded that applying and increasing social distancing policy levels led to significantly reduced infection rates, which result in decreasing deaths. Both types of experiments prove that infection rates are reduced dramatically when the level of social distancing intervention is implemented between 80% to 100%.

Hospitals, Collaboration, and Community Health Improvement

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (S1) ◽  
pp. 56-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha H. Somerville ◽  
Laura Seeff ◽  
Daniel Hale ◽  
Daniel J. O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Improvement ◽  
Health Indices ◽  
Experience Of Care ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Health Care ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Community Health Improvement ◽  
Care Costs

Medical care in the United States traditionally has focused on the treatment of disease rather than on its prevention. Heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic diseases are the primary drivers of American health care costs; compared to other high-income countries, U.S. health indices are lowest and costs are highest.A “triple aim” — “improving the individual experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita costs of care for populations” — has gained traction, as the social determinants of health (non-genetic, non-clinical factors including health behaviors, social and economic factors, and the physical environment) are recognized as having significant effects on health outcomes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document