A research study by Marianne Clark of the Faculty of Physical Education and Research at the University of Alberta decided to look at what influences people's decisions to walk more and examines the question if people know walking is healthy, if building good neighborhoods for walking will get them to walk more.
In order to establish her research, Clark interviewed 17 critical people involved in neighbourhood development. These included public health and municipal employees, city councilors, and private sector stakeholders including land developers and food retailers.
"We asked about their definition of a healthy neighbourhood. What they thought their role was; what facilitated their efforts to build healthy neighbourhoods and what barriers they experienced," says Clark. "We also wanted to know about 'food security' – in essence the importance of the proximity of grocery stores with affordable healthy food choices."
"There were varying views among stakeholders as to whether walkable neighbourhoods are really going to make that much of a difference in making people active," says Clark. "While municipal employees and public health officials believed deeply in the value of these neighbourhoods, developers generally thought the extent of their responsibility was limited to market and consumer demands. They were also sceptical of the notion of 'if you built it, they will walk.'
According to developers, it's up to the individual whether they choose to walk or not, regardless of the design of the neighbourhood, but they also acknowledged that our social norms and customs are very entrenched in car culture."
Success is defined by many people as having a single-family home. "To create affordable housing," notes Clark, "you have to build in the suburbs. There's a social hierarchy thing going on that may not change or disappear just because neighbourhoods are built more walkable or dense. There's also the car culture and the consumer culture (to contend with.")
Car dependency was a significant characteristic, specifically the need to drive easily from home, of those interviewed in the study about Edmonton Canada. Budget was also cited as important.
What Clark also found that building neighborhoods to impact a healthy, active lifestyle requires the involvement of all those who have a stake in the outcome, the businesses and those who support the community.
Notes Clark," There are lingering tensions about what the end results of these neighbourhoods might actually be; where the responsibilities lie in terms of public and private sectors. That question is more complicated than what we've thought it was before.
"When we look at this issue, though, we need to look at the broader societal issues. We may be naïve to think that if we build these great neighbourhoods that everything's going to change and everyone's going to starting walking more and be more healthy," says Clark.
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