Want to create a neighborhood that promotes a healthier lifestyle? Ditch the cul-de-sacs and dead-ends. Research has linked health concerns such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease to closed-off developments that lend themselves to hopping in the minivan over a short walk to the grocery store. But the damage runs even deeper than individual activity levels: When you account for the costs of fuel, gas, and greenhouse gas emissions, the price of urban sprawl is much higher than most developers currently account for in their community planning. These revelations are increasingly important as the world trends toward urban sprawl, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and if builders want to create healthy communities, considering the impact of street layouts and housing positions is essential.
A connected street is a healthier street. Neighborhoods with more short links and intersections—and fewer dead-ends and cul-de-sacs—have lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, researchers have found. In part, that’s because they promote walking and biking.
So what does it mean that the world is growing less connected?
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences charts a worrying global shift towards more-sprawling and less-hooked-up street networks over time.
Adam Millard-Ball, a UC Santa Cruz professor of environmental studies, and Christopher Barrington-Leigh, a McGill University economist, examined 28.6 million miles of streets across every continent, using public data from OpenStreetMap as well as historic satellite imagery. They built an algorithm to identify various characteristics of connectivity, such as the number of cul-de-sacs, the length of unbroken street links, and how long it takes to walk to key destinations.
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