Whole of Government Commitmentīut Professor Giles-Corti warns that the compact city, and improved walking and cycling infrastructure, will only be delivered if there is a coordinated and whole of government approach to planning. And crime, real and perceived, can be lessened if more people are on the streets walking to shops and services.
Road traffic noise, for example, has been shown to contribute to hypertension and cardiovascular disease. But there are less obvious factors like social isolation, diet, and noise, as well as crime and fear of crime. The researchers identified several risk factors in cities that are driving poor health outcomes, some of which are obvious such as traffic exposure, air pollution and physical inactivity. Today there is a real opportunity for city planning to reduce non-communicable diseases and road trauma and promote health and wellbeing more broadly,” Professor Giles-Corti says. “City planning was key to cutting infectious disease outbreaks in the 19th century through improved sanitation, housing and separating residential and industrial areas. Planning cities around cars is damaging our health and is unsustainable. “We have been planning for the car for so long that it is clearly having a significantly detrimental impact on our health in the 21st century,” says co-author Professor Billie Giles-Corti, Lead of the Centre for Excellence in Healthy Liveable Communities at the Melbourne School of Global Population Health. Homes should have bus and train stops nearby, within no more than 400 metres and 800 metres respectively.
For example, jobs and services should be accessible within 30 minutes of home by public transport. The compact city model is based on increasing land use density, and the mix of uses on that land, by 30 per cent, while decreasing the average distance of housing to public transport by 30 per cent and increasing the use of non-motorised transport by 10 per cent. “It shows that by adopting a compact cities model that places an emphasis on active transport, we can achieve a huge reduction in the burden of chronic disease.” “For the first time this research quantifies the relationship between land use, urban design, population density and transport systems, and the impact they have on our health,” says lead author Professor Mark Stevenson, epidemiologist and Professor of Urban Transport and Public Health at the University of Melbourne. There is no set size for a compact city – what matters is the planning and design of safe walkable local neighbourhoods. The gain for Boston in the US would be 826 healthy years, in Delhi the gain is 620 healthy years, and in Sao Paulo 420 healthy years. Overall the equivalent of 679 years of extra healthy life would be gained in Melbourne per 100,000 people. If the compact city blueprint was implemented they calculate that a car-dependent city such as Melbourne would cut the burden of cardiovascular disease by 19 per cent and cut the burden of type-2 diabetes by 14 per cent. Published as three papers in The Lance t medical journal, the research was launched by the United Nations in New York on September 23, 2016, where the authors addressed a meeting of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network.Ĭentral to the research is the promotion of “compact cities” in which people live in higher density neighbourhoods closer to local shops, public transport, services and jobs, and complemented by increased infrastructure for walking and cycling instead of relying on cars. Watch the video University of Melbourne’s Professor Mark Stevenson talks about the health benefits of “compact cities.” Multimedia: University of Melbourne.