Eight Bountiful Benefits of the Human Scale

An Evidenced-Based Rationale for the Human Scale

Good Human Habitat advocates for the creation and preservation of human-scale environments. Embracing well-designed projects that promote the simple act of walking is a political decision. Good political decisions, in turn, have a strong rationale at their core. This article presents 8 benefits of the human scale. There are solid reasons for municipalities to break with the rule of perpetual urban sprawl and realize the four specific achievements necessary to build at the human scale.

The benefits of the human scale and the costs of auto-dependent development have been extensively studied and documented. I’d like to share with you the highlights of these studies. Having raised our children in an eminently walkable neighborhood, I can attest to the benefits that the human scale has provided to our family.

Note: The studies I’m referring to here use the term “walkable neighborhoods” or “walkable communities.” Although these studies imply they’re examining “human scale” environments, the term is not used. Some benefits described here would also apply to living amidst high rises like those found in China or sections of Manhattan, but high rises come with heavy environmental and social costs, some of which I’ve described in a separate article titled Climate Rhetoric and Reality.

Back in 2006, the U.S. Green Building Council published a 137-page report written by Reid Ewing and Richard Kreutzer titled Understanding the Relationship Between Public Health and the Built Environment. Even today, it’s still the most comprehensive report I’m aware of that examines the benefits of living at the human scale. It summarizes research examining the impact of the built environment on outcomes such as cardiovascular and respiratory health, mental health, traffic safety, and social capital.

Below, I highlight what Ewing, Kreutzer, and others such as researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute and Environmental Protection Agency have to say.

Benefit #1. The human scale provides alternatives to wasting hours of your life in traffic.

Like many Americans, I’ve spent lots of time in scenes similar to what’s shown below. Shifting to human-scale development won’t magically eliminate the auto-dependent world that America has built since the late 1930s. However, Gaithersburg, MD, and other municipalities have shown that regulatory reform can provide new options for living that move the needle in a different direction.

Points to consider:

• If you find that traffic congestion is getting worse with time, it’s not your imagination. Over the past three decades, the number of miles people drive has, on average, increased three times the rate of population growth.¹ More people driving every year, combined with people putting more miles on their cars than in years past, translates to more cars on the road for longer periods.²
• In 1982, people spent an average of 16 extra hours each year on the roads because of traffic congestion. By 2000, that number had risen to 37 hours. More recent figures suggest that the problem is only going to get worse given that people now spend, on average, an extra 42 hours each year sitting in their SUV, or car. Importantly, these numbers are just averages for the entire country. If you’re in a high-growth area (i.e. where most of the jobs are), you’re spending upwards of an extra 80 hours (or more) stuck in traffic; more time than most Americans spend on vacation each year.³
• In 1982, only 30% of metro areas in the country experienced congested traffic conditions. Today, over 70% experience moderate-to-severe congestion because of the auto-dependent nature of the vast majority of what gets built.⁴

Benefit #2. Human-scale communities emit fewer transportation-related greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

Reasonable people can agree there’s no vast conspiracy among the world’s scientists who state that CO2 emissions are responsible for a rapidly warming planet. If most scientists were corrupt, they’d follow the money and align themselves with a $4 trillion global oil industry that delivered record profits in 2023.

In the United States, the transportation sector accounts for 29% of greenhouse gases. Roughly 60 percent of these emissions come from personal travel.⁵  What comes out of our tailpipes contributes significantly to increasing global temperatures.

Over the past 400,000 years, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have fluctuated but have always been under 300 parts per million. That figure started to uptick in the mid-nineteenth century and then increased rapidly in the age of suburban sprawl. Today CO2 levels exceed 400 parts per million. And the rate of increase shows no signs of slowing as global temperatures rise along with the presence of greenhouse gases. The last time Earth had CO2 levels this high was in the Pliocene epic 3.6 million years ago.⁶  Our species has been around for 300,000 years so we are in unfamiliar territory.

Points to consider:

• When looking at only transportation, walkable urban neighborhoods have a carbon footprint that is 50% lower than the national average. If you live in a distant suburb, your footprint is almost double the national average.⁷
• Several studies show that as residential densities increase, the number of miles people drive each year drops and vehicle ownership is reduced.⁸ One of these studies looked at neighborhoods in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Researchers mathematically weighted neighborhoods by median home age, reflecting the fact that they became incrementally less walkable after 1939. This study found that as population densities in the three metro regions doubled, vehicle miles traveled dropped by 32 percent, 35 percent, and 43 percent, respectively. What all these studies suggest is that neighborhood design has a “universal relationship” to car ownership and driving.⁹
• In 1989, researchers Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy surveyed 32 big cities worldwide to see if per capita gas consumption differed. They found that people living in American metro regions used almost double the amount of gasoline per person compared to Australians, and four times as much as Europeans in more compact cities.¹⁰ Although this study is now a bit dated, the fact that Americans drive far more today than they did in the 1980s (see above), means this situation has not improved.
• A study in the Seattle metro area found that as street connectivity decreased, vehicle pollutants increased. The pollutants we’re talking about here include volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzyne and toluene. These chemicals, when breathed in, can cause cancer. Two other particularly problematic chemicals produced during vehicle combustion are nitrogen oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Breathing in these gases affects our respiratory system. Communities with higher levels of interconnected street networks provide multiple routes to multiple destinations, lowering trip distances and emissions.¹¹ American municipalities built interconnected streets up until the point when the federal government essentially banned their creation in the mid-1930s. Since then, municipalities have been building hierarchical street systems which are the mainstay of suburbia, and the antithesis of the human scale. Hierarchical systems feature cul-de-sacs and collector roads, which increase travel distances and traffic congestion. This, in turn, increases not only VOC and NOx production but also CO2 emissions.

Benefit #3. Human-scale buildings are more environmentally friendly to build and operate relative to high-rise buildings.

There is a widespread belief that high-rise development is climate-friendly relative to other forms of development. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Research conducted over the last twenty years consistently shows that high-rise buildings exact a far greater environmental cost both to build and to operate relative to human-scale development.

Points to consider:

• Researchers at Scotland’s Edinburgh Napier University completed a study which found that high-rise development elevates greenhouse gas emissions in a way that building at the human scale does not. During high rise construction, far more CO2 is released into the atmosphere in relation to concrete and steel production, and high rises require significantly more energy to operate.¹²
• A study by a team from the firm that designed the world’s tallest building (i.e., the Jeddah Tower) also determined that high-rise buildings consume appreciably more energy during operation than their human-scale counterparts. The reasons are many but include higher air infiltration rates in upper stories that are typically wrapped in glass. These upper stories experience unwanted heat gains in the summer, and heat loss in the winter.¹³
• A study completed by researchers at University College London determined that human-scale commercial buildings having 6 or fewer stories consumed half the electricity per square meter than commercial buildings having 20 or more stories.¹⁴
• BC Hydro is a public utility that supplies electricity to Vancouver residents. In 2019, they did a study that further dispells the myth that cities grow greener as they grow taller. The utility examined energy use across Vancouver. It found that the amount of electricity used per square foot nearly doubled in new buildings relative to those built in the 1980s. Their study notes, “Despite many new, high-end condo buildings being marketed as being energy-efficient, British Columbians living in them have a much larger energy footprint than those living in older condos and apartments–regardless of what they may think.”
• Human-scale development is well-positioned to take advantage of recent advancements in reinforced timber. Although there has been hype surrounding the use of reinforced timber for high rises, it does not stand up to scrutiny. Those involved with high-rise projects using reinforced timber have concluded that building towers with timber “does not make sense”, but point out that the technology is a very suitable replacement for concrete and steel in larger “low-rise” projects.¹⁵
• Building at the human scale with timber (reinforced when appropriate) sequesters carbon. Using timber also dramatically reduces the use of concrete which is one of the most environmentally destructive materials on the planet.¹⁶ In addition to producing enormous amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, global concrete production requires 50 billion tons of sand annually. And if you think this sand is coming out of deserts, think again. It all must come from aquatic areas teeming with life for reasons to do with riparian sand’s binding properties.¹⁷

You can find more information about the studies referenced above in a companion article titled, Climate Rhetoric and Reality: The Case of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Benefit #4. Human-scale development accommodates population densities comparable to high-rises.

Despite sounding counterintuitive, human-scale development of up to 6 stories can often handle population densities comparable to high-rise development. Yet, this is what the research has consistently shown when you take into account real-world regulations relating to providing adequate air and light to buildings and streets.

Below, I refer to studies that factor in European regulations governing building access to light and air. No comparable research has been done in China, where cultural differences normalize cramped living conditions that most Americans would find intolerable. All this is to say is that research coming out of Europe is relevant to the objective of accommodating higher residential densities while maintaining an American standard of living.

Points to consider:

• The fact that high-rise densities can typically be accommodated at a reduced number of stories was clarified publicly in 1975. That year, British architects Lionel March and Leslie Martin published these findings in a well-regarded book titled Urban Space and Structures. This ability to reduce building height and maintain an equivalent density depends upon the use of a building type referred to as a court.  Courts can be built at  lower heights than podiums (a.k.a., high rises), occupy a greater percentage of a parcel, and still provide the necessary light and air required by municipal regulations. Below, on the left, are podiums. On the right, we have courts. The two sets of figures represent equivalent densities.¹⁸

• More recently, researchers, Meta Berghauser Pont and Per Haupt, drew from March and Martin’s research and developed an innovative graphical tool (Spacemate) that enabled them to analyze the relationship between urban form and density. With this tool, they analyzed housing across Holland and found that “lower-rise buildings” (i.e., court-style buildings with 6 or fewer stories) could have been used in place of most high rises and provided comparable densities. Sometimes, heights exceeding 6 stories were required, but buildings were still significantly lower.¹⁹
• Researchers at University College London replicated the Dutch findings when analyzing buildings in London. As before, they found that taller buildings needed to be separated more widely than human-scale buildings to gain access to the same amount of light and air, hence they use more land. Here again, sometimes, heights exceeding 6 stories were found necessary. Yet these heights were still much lower as illustrated in the example below where an 8-story courtyard building provides an equivalent density to 36 and 41-story towers to be built along with separate 7-story buildings.²⁰

• Edinburgh Napier University’s research on tall buildings and emissions also investigated ways to optimize urban design for increased residential densities. To do this, the team developed a computer model that could produce over 5000 simulated urban environments. The model used real-world zoning regulations governing light and air. The team found that human scale design could accommodate densities comparable to high-rise development. The authors state, “The results of this study suggest that there is no merit to the claim that building denser and taller is more sustainable. By building dense, low-rise urban environments, the same populations can be accommodated for drastically lower carbon costs and without having to significantly increase land use.”²¹

Benefit #5. People who live at the human scale are less likely to die in their cars.

When visiting the United States, one of the first impressions many have is the degree to which people across the country are entirely reliant on cars. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there were over 370,000 car-related deaths between 2010 and 2020.²² The scene below is a familiar sight for many in the United States.

Points to consider:

• Per the National Safety Council, in 2022 alone, there were 5.2 million “medically consulted injuries”, and 46,027 deaths related to traffic accidents.²³
• Studies show that the single most important determinant in traffic accidents is the amount of driving a person does. Reduce the amount of driving, and the number of accidents drops proportionally. The data shows that each percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled reduces the frequency of accidents by 1 to 1.4%.²⁴  What this means is that urban sprawl produces higher fatality rates compared to walkable communities.²⁵

• A key attribute of a walkable community is narrower road widths. Researchers looking at 20,000 police accident reports in Colorado determined that there was a 400 percent increase in accident rates when moving from 24-foot wide streets to the typical 36-foot suburban residential street. Interestingly, the most intense accident frequency occurred on wide streets that have the lowest daily volumes. The data shows that conventional suburban residential street design directly contributes to higher accident rates.²⁶
• As shown in the figure below, data from 1999 through 2006 revealed that accidents were the leading cause of death for teenagers, and motor vehicle accidents account for most accidents.²⁷ Raising our children in a human-scale environment meant that they did a lot less driving in high school than me and my friends did at the same age. From a parent’s perspective, it was nice to keep their driving to a minimum at a time when accident rates are at their highest (as reflected by insurance rates).

Benefit #6. People who live in human-scale communities are statistically less likely to be overweight or obese.

Suburban sprawl is not the sole cause of the obesity epidemic, but eliminating walking from the average American’s lifestyle didn’t help. For most of human history, people got a reasonable amount of ambient exercise simply by walking places as part of a daily routine. For most Americans today, there are few places to walk and there’s little ambient exercise to be had.

Points to consider:

• In 1980, 15% of Americans were obese.²⁸ By 2014, that figure had risen to 35% and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects it to rise to 42% by 2030.²⁹  There is no one reason two-thirds of the country is obese or overweight, but—as the CDC points out—the problem boils down to people consuming too many calorie-rich foods and moving their bodies too little. Many studies have established a link between obesity and urban sprawl, which is why, when discussing strategies to reduce obesity in the United States, the CDC states that “where people live, work, and play affects their health.”³⁰
• Previously, I spoke of the increasing time people are sitting in their cars stuck in traffic not going anywhere. It turns out that living in an auto-dependent versus a walkable environment has health implications. Sedentary lifestyles are linked to cardiovascular disease and various forms of cancer and these days, if you live in suburbia, there’s a lot of sitting going on.³¹  In larger metro areas, commutes of 45-60 minutes are not abnormal. That translates into between 16 to 21 days a year sitting in your car going to and from work.³² Want to take yourself, or perhaps your children, somewhere unrelated to work? That’s yet more time spent in the car. On average, people spend over 7 weeks each year in physically inactive, frequently stressful situations.³³
• If you live in a walkable neighborhood, you’re 2.4 times more likely to get over 30 minutes of physical activity per day than if you live in suburbia.³⁴ The medical community has found that people who get over 2 hours and 30 minutes of activity every week are less likely to suffer from heart disease and cancer.³⁵
• A majority of studies that examine the relationship between the built environment and health find a statistically significant correlation between sprawl and obesity. Reports summarizing this research confirm that environment shapes behavior, and behavior shapes health in terms of rising rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer.³⁶

Benefit #7. The human scale promotes greater levels of social capital and mental health.

When we refer to social capital, we’re talking about the social networks and interactions that inspire trust and reciprocity among residents of a community. People with high levels of social capital are engaged in community activities, interacting with neighbors, and participating in politics. Social capital is considered key to maintaining a properly functioning democratic society.

In 1943, Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” At the time, he was making the case to rebuild a bombed-out House of Commons, but his larger point holds. What physically surrounds us, in part, shapes behavior.

The connection between the human scale and social capital isn’t difficult to understand. Sidewalks are pathways through our neighborhood to destinations such as shops, athletic fields, cafes, parks, theaters, restaurants, and even our dentist. We’re more likely to bump into people we know when using our feet. This, in turn, reinforces relationships. I don’t mean to oversell this. I’m not suggesting every day our soul gets nourished by meaningful human interaction. But there’s more spontaneous socializing taking place in a human-scale community relative to car-dependent environments.

Points to consider:

• Over the past two decades, researchers have measured a decline in social capital and attributed this, in part, to the disbursed nature of suburbia. Robert Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, was the first prominent name to look at this relationship and drew two notable conclusions. First, suburbs spatially separate people by income. Putnam found that this social segregation reduces community cohesion. Second, people spending a significant amount of time commuting have fewer hours available for civic activities.³⁷
• Other studies have shown walkable communities to foster higher levels of social capital relative to their auto-dependent counterparts. When controlling for variables such as income, mixed-use communities facilitate interaction with others—both intentionally and randomly—in ways suburban environments do not. This breeds familiarity with a broader swath of your community, which, in turn, provides a sense of predictability.³⁸
• One study completed by Lance Freeman is titled “The Effect of Sprawl on Neighborhood Ties.” It found that social ties within a neighborhood decreased significantly as the percentage of people driving to work within a neighborhood increased.³⁹
• An important point the research makes is that it’s not enough to say that an environment will automatically facilitate greater levels of social capital because of street connectivity, block lengths, and proximity to businesses. The research shows that an environment must be perceived not only to be walkable but also safe in order to foster social capital. Lower-income communities often lag in this area for a variety of reasons having to do with crime, levels of education, and poverty.⁴⁰
• Social capital, in turn, depends upon the mental well-being of individuals. More than a dozen comprehensive studies have concluded that people who are engaged in their community live longer and are healthier both physically and mentally.⁴¹
• As people without cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease grow older, those living in walkable communities tend to experience less cognitive decline relative to healthy individuals who are aging in auto-dependent environments.⁴²

Benefit #8. People find the human scale more attractive and less alienating than suburbia.

Consider these points:

• Since the 1980s, an urban design firm called Nelessen Associates has been using “visual preference surveys” to determine how people respond to side-by-side images of conventional sprawl and walkable, human-scale communities. What these surveys reveal is a consistent preference for walkable communities over auto-dependent development. For example, people typically prefer images of duplexes and single-family houses with porches on a street lined with sidewalks and trees over an image of a street without sidewalks whose most prominent feature is homes with front facades dominated by two-car garages.⁴³
• For the relatively small percentage of people who can find and afford a home in a safe, viable, walkable community, they can rest easy at night knowing their home outperforms suburban counterparts and retains greater value in down markets.⁴⁴

A Municipal Agenda Focused on Quality of Life

Moving to human scale development represents an investment in a community. It’s a shift in thinking. Some municipal councils possess a growth-at-all-costs mindset. They tend to ignore the well-being of a community and work on behalf of powerful, often remote, real estate interests with little concern for local culture, or social cohesion.

Municipalities that have embraced the human scale operate differently. They focus far more on quality of life. Places like Arlington, VA, Tigard, OR, Dublin, OH, and Gaithersburg, MD demonstrate greater levels of respect for communities and their councils generally garner the trust of citizens.

These municipalities invest in processes, regulations, and people to implement a vision that rejects expanding the reach of auto-dependency and climate ravaging high-rises. Investments are made with the expectation that they will provide something of value in return. The eight benefits of the human scale that I’ve described here suggests that the return on investment is significant.

The way forward is not abstract. As mentioned previously, there are four specific achievements a municipality must realize in order to consistently build quality human-scale development. The shift is largely dependent upon having municipal council members, mayors, and county executives in office who possess a clear understanding why embracing the human scale is relevant, and how to work with municipal staff and communities to adopt, tailor, and improve upon best practices that create better places to live and raise a family.

Gaithersburg, MD was the first suburban municipality in the nation to officially reject expanding auto-dependency. When I lived there in 1990, the place was indistinguishable from thousands of other suburbs across the country. Over the next thirty years, they consistently built quality human-scale development while taking care to respect preexisting suburban communities. Today large parts of the municipality are truly walkable and development standards are high. In 2022 Fortune magazine ranked Gaithersburg as the 7^th best place in America for families. This is not by accident. For years, municipal leadership has focused on walkability and quality of life. And the results speak for themselves.

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1. Environmental Protection Agency, “Our Built and Natural Environments: A technical review of the interactions between land use, transportation, and environmental quality,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 231-R-01-002 Pages 19-20, 2013, https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/our-built-and-natural-environments. ↩︎
2. David Schrank, Eisele Bill, and Lomax Tim, “The 2015 Urban Scorecard,” Texas Transportation Institute (Texas DOT), 2015, https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-scorecard-2015.pdf. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions ↩︎
6. NASA, “Satellite data confirm annual carbon dioxide minimum above 400 ppm,” Climate Milestones, 2017, accessed June 20,2024, https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/satellite-data-confirm-annual-carbon-dioxide-minimum-above-400-ppm. ↩︎
7. Christopher Jones and Daniel M. Kammen, “Spatial Distribution of U.S. Household Carbon Footprints Reveals Suburbanization Undermines Greenhouse Gas Benefits of Urban Population Density,” Environmental Science and Technology, October 21, 2013, 6. https://rael.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Jones-Kammen-EST_proof-NationalCarbonMap.pdf ↩︎
8. John Holtzclaw, et al, “Location Efficiency: Neighborhood and Socio Economic Characteristics Determine Auto Ownership and Use – Studies in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco”, Transportation Planning and Technology, Vol. 25, 2002, page 1-27. ↩︎
9. Ibid. ↩︎
10. Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy. Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook, Gower Publishing, 1989. ↩︎
11. Frank, Lawrence D., Brian Stone Jr., William Bachman. “Linking Land Use with Household Vehicle Emissions in the Central Puget Sound: Methodological Framework and Findings”. Transportation Research Part D 5;2000:173-196, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920999000322. ↩︎
12. Francesco Pomponi, Jay Arehart, Ruth Saint, Bernardino D’Amico, Niaz Gharavi, “Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities,” Nature Portfolio Urban Sustainability, 2021, 33, https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00034-w. ↩︎
13. Christopher Drew, Katrina Fernandez, Keara Fanning, “The Environmental Impact of Tall vs Small: A Comparative Study,” International Journal of High Rise Buildings Volume 4 Number 2, 2015, https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:55880913. ↩︎
14. Daniel Godoy-Shimizu, Philip Steadman, Ian Hamilton, Michael Donn, Stephen Evans, Graciela Moreno & Homeira Shayesteh, “Energy use and height in office buildings,” Building Research & Information, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2018.1479927. ↩︎
15. Lizzie Crook, “Building tall with timber “does not make sense” say experts,” Dezeen. March 2023, https://www.dezeen.com/2023/03/29/building-tall-timber-revolution/. ↩︎
16. Jonathan Watts, “Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth,” The Guardian, February 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth. ↩︎
17. “Sand and Sustainability: 10 Strategic Recommendations to Avert a Crisis,” UN Environment Programme, April 2022, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/sand-and-sustainability-10-strategic-recommendations-avert-crisis. ↩︎
18. Lionel March, “Mathematics and Architecture Since 1960,” In: Williams, K., Ostwald, M. (eds) Architecture and Mathematics from Antiquity to the Future. Birkhäuser, Cham. 2015, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00143-2_38 (Full article available at https://iiscn.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/nexus-iv-march_pp9-35.pdf ); Lionel March and Leslie Martin, Urban Space and Structure, Cambridge University Press, 1975. ↩︎
19. Philip Steadman, “UCL-Energy ‘High-Rise Buildings: Energy and Density’ research project results,” Create Streets, 2017, 5-7, https://www.createstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/UCL-Energy-Density-Essay-3-July-2017.pdf ↩︎
20. Philip Steadman, “High Rise Buildings: Energy and Density,” Bristol Civic Society, March 2020, 6-12, https://www.bristolcivicsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Philip-Steadman.pdf; Steadman, Philip, “Density and Built Form: Integrating ‘Spacemate’ with the Work of Martin and March,” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. 41. 341-358, 2014, 10.1068/b39141. ↩︎
21. Francesco Pomponi, et al., “Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities,” 6, (note 2). ↩︎
22. “The Roadway Safety Problem,” U.S. Department of Transportation, 2021, https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS/SafetyProblem. ↩︎
23. “Motor Vehicle Injury Facts – Introduction,” National Safety Council, 2022, https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/introduction. ↩︎
24. Todd Litman Todd and Steven Fitzroy, “Evaluating Mobility Management Traffic Safety Impacts,” Victoria Transportation Policy Institute, March 2024, http://www.vtpi.org/safetrav.pdf. ↩︎
25. Ewing Ried, Hamidi Shima, and Grace James, “Urban sprawl as a risk factor in motor vehicle crashes,” Urban Studies Vol 53 Issue 247-266, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098014562331. ↩︎
26. Peter Swift, Dan Painter, and Matthew Goldstein, “Residential Street Typology and Injury Accident Frequency,” Longmont, CO: Swift and Associates, 1997, https://www.cnu.org/sites/default/files/swift_painter_goldstein_study.pdf ; Theodore Petritsch, “The Influence of Lane Widths on Safety and Capacity: A Summary of the Latest Findings,” National Association of City Transportation Officials (NY), 2009. https://trid.trb.org/View/1327014. ↩︎
27. “Mortality Among Teenagers Aged 12-19 Years: United States, 1999-2006,” CDC National Center for Health Statistics, May 2010, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db37.htm. ↩︎
28. “US obesity rates have tripled over the last 60 years,” USA FACTS, March 2023, https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years. ↩︎
29. OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs. “Obesity Update,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2014,  http://www.oecd.org/health/Obesity-Update-2014.pdf. ↩︎
30. Dana Keener, Kenneth Goodman, Amy Lowry, Susan Zaro, Laura “Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States: Implementation and Measurement Guide,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2009, https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/23398. ↩︎
31. Daniela Schmid and Graham Colditz, “Sedentary behavior increases the risk of certain cancers,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 106, Issue 7, 1 July 2014, https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/jnci/dju206. ↩︎
32. American Automobile Association, “Americans Spend an Average of 17,600 Minutes Driving Each Year,” AAA News Room 2015, http://newsroom.aaa.com/2016/09/americans-spend-average-17600-minutes-driving-year. ↩︎
33. David Schrank, Eisele Bill, and Lomax Tim, “The 2015 Urban Scorecard,” (note 2). ↩︎
34. L.D Frank, et al. “Linking Objectively Measured Physical Activity with Objectively Measured Urban Form: Findings from SMARTRAQ,” American Journal of Preventative Medicine 2005;28(2S2):117–125, 2005, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15694519. ↩︎
35. “Physical activity guidelines: How much exercise do you need?,” Harvard School of Public Health, 2008, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2013/11/20/physical-activity-guidelines-how-much-exercise-do-you-need;  “2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans,” Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2008, https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/summary.aspx. ↩︎
36. Reid Ewing and Richard Kreutzer, “Understanding the Relationship Between Public Health and the Built Environment: A Report Prepared for the LEED-ND Core Committee,” U.S. Green Building Council, 2006, https://www.usgbc.org/resources/understanding-relationship-between-public-health-and-built-environment-report-prepared-lee. ↩︎
37. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). ↩︎
38. Lisa Wood, Tya Shannon, Max Bulsara, Terri Pikora, Gavin McCormack, Billie Giles-Corti, “The anatomy of the safe and social suburb: An exploratory study of the built environment, social capital, and residents’ perceptions of safety,: Health & Place, Volume 14, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 15-31, ISSN 1353-8292, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2007.04.004 ;
    Rogers, S.H., Halstead, J.M., Gardner, K.H., et al, “Examining Walkability and Social Capital as Indicators of Quality of Life at the Municipal and Neighborhood Scales,” Applied Research Quality Life (2011) 6: 201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-010-9132-4 ;
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39. Lance Freeman, “The Effects of Sprawl on Neighborhood Ties,” American Planning Association Journal, Vol. 67 No.1 2001, 69-77, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/b35120. ↩︎
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