Neighborhood Accessibility Research Articles

Exploring Obesogenic Food Environments in Edmonton, Canada: The Association between Socioeconomic Factors and Fast-Food Outlet Access

To explore the relationship between the placement of fast-food outlets and neighborhood-level socioeconomic variables by determining if indicators of lower socioeconomic status were predictive of exposure to fast food. A descriptive analysis of the fast-food environment in a Canadian urban center, using secondary analysis of census data and Geographic Information Systems technology. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Neighborhoods were classified as High, Medium, or Low Access based on the number of fast-food opportunities available to them. Neighborhood-level socioeconomic data (income, education, employment, immigration status, and housing tenure) from the 2001 Statistics Canada federal census were obtained. A discriminant function analysis was used to determine if any association existed between neighborhood demographic characteristics and accessibility of fast-food outlets. Significant differences were found between the three levels of fast-food accessibility across the socioeconomic variables, with successively greater percentages of unemployment, low income, and renters in neighborhoods with increasingly greater access to fast-food restaurants. A high score on several of these variables was predictive of greater access to fast-food restaurants. Although a causal inference is not possible, these results suggest that the distribution of fast-food outlets relative to neighborhood-level socioeconomic status requires further attention in the process of explaining the increased rates of obesity observed in relatively deprived populations.

The contextual effects of neighbourhood access to supermarkets and convenience stores on individual fruit and vegetable consumption

Background:It is often suggested that neighbourhood access to food retailers affects the dietary patterns of local residents, but this hypothesis has not been adequately researched. We examine the association between...

Differentiating the Influence of Accessibility, Attitudes, and Demographics on Stop Participation and Frequency during the Evening Commute

Understanding the stop-making behavior of commuters is important for planners and policy makers in their efforts to improve travel demand models and to develop transportation demand management strategies. Previous studies have identified various determinants of commuters' stop generation. However, the way in which accessibility affects stop-making decisions is not clear. Further, few studies have considered the impacts of attitudes and predispositions, which extensively influence travel behavior. Using 1256 commuters in Northern California, this study investigates the influences of accessibility and attitudes on evening commute stop-making behavior. Based on a bivariate selection model, we found that the propensity of workers to make stops is dependent on their attitudes, work-related attributes, neighborhood accessibility, and sociodemographic characteristics, whereas the frequency of trip chaining is primarily determined by sociodemographic characteristics. Accordingly, if we offer commuters opportunities to stop through land-use and transportation policies, they may tend to do so, but the intensity of chaining behavior depends on household needs, the individual's role in the household, and personal time constraints.

Hierarchical Location-Allocation with Spatial Choice Interaction Modeling

We combine concepts and methods from hierarchical spatial systems, spatial interaction modeling, and location-allocation modeling to derive optimal hierarchical facility systems. We consider models of increasing realism in how spatial interaction is dealt with—the first two are from past literature, the third is new. The p-median model assumes that patrons always travel to the closest facility and that distance minimization best serves them. Several researchers have observed, however, that patients in the developing world frequently bypass lower level facilities to attend more distant higher level ones. Previous location-allocation models have incorporated spatial interaction models attributing attendance and benefits to facility size and distance. In this article, we present a new model that incorporates a spatial choice interaction model attributing attendance and benefits to facility size, distance, and neighborhood accessibility. We demonstrate our approach with 150-node, three-level Oppong's problem of locating healthcare facilities in Suhum District, Ghana. This approach reacts intuitively to changes in accessibility patterns and deals realistically with the bypassing problem.

Spatial accessibility and equity of playgrounds in Edmonton, Canada

Assessing spatial equity with respect to urban public amenity provision involves examining the association between amenity distribution and population need for amenities. Geographic Information Systems in coordination with local spatial autocorrelation, were used to investigate the association between neighbourhood accessibility to playgrounds and demographic and social need for playgrounds in Edmonton, while considering differences in playground quality throughout the city. The primary objectives of this study were to assess whether playground provision, for location and quality, in Edmonton is equitable and, more generally, to investigate the role that amenity quality plays in assessing spatial equity. The results indicate that playgrounds are equitably distributed within Edmonton, with the highest‐social‐need neighbourhoods having the greatest accessibility to playgrounds. However, once differences in playground quality are considered, there is less of an association between high‐social‐need and high‐accessibility areas. The findings suggest that greater attention be paid to differences in playground quality within Edmonton and that spatial equity researchers give greater consideration to amenity quality when evaluating spatial equity within cities.

F.U.E.L (fluids used effectively for living): a nutrition education program to change knowledge, attitudes and behavior of grade nine students toward healthy beverage consumption

TEXT: Intakes of soft drinks have increased dramatically over the past decade and intake of milk has declined. Excessive consumption of soft drinks rather than milk may compromise the attainment of peak bone mass during adolescence. Overweight and obesity are also implicated as being the result of inappropriate beverage consumption. This study sought to design, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of a nutrition education program aimed at promoting healthy beverage consumption among high school students. A pair of high schools in Saskatoon matched in regards to neighborhood and beverage accessibility were selected for the study, and assigned to either a peer-led or teacher-assisted teaching program. Same-age high school peers, cross-age university nutrition students and recent nutrition graduates participated in the delivery of the peer-led curriculum. Complete packages of curriculum materials were provided to both groups of students. The pre-test/post-test evaluation shows that students in the peer-led school had significant improvements in knowledge and attitude of healthy beverages; further, this group showed a significant decline in non-carbonated (sugary) beverage intake and a small decline in carbonated beverage intake. All students expressed satisfaction with the duration, dose intensity and quality of curriculum delivery. A multifactorial and interactive curriculum design is an effective approach to help teens learn about healthy beverage consumption.

Residential Relocation and Changes in Urban Travel: Does Neighborhood-Scale Urban Form Matter?

This article presents an empirical study of the relationship between neighborhood-scale urban form and travel behavior. It focuses on households who relocate within the Central Puget Sound region to determine if they change their travel behavior when they move from one neighborhood type to another. Regression models are used to predict change in travel behavior as a function of change in neighborhood accessibility, controlling for changes in life cycle, regional accessibility, and workplace accessibility. The study is unique in that it analyzes the travel behavior of the same households in a longitudinal manner in concert with detailed urban form measures. The findings suggest that households change travel behavior when exposed to differing urban forms. In particular, locating to areas with higher neighborhood accessibility decreases vehicle miles traveled.

Operationalizing Neighborhood Accessibility for Land Use-Travel Behavior Research and Regional Modeling

Many land use-transportation planning proposals aim to create neighborhoods with higher levels of neighborhood accessibility (NA). This article focuses on how such features are operationalized for purposes of research and/or regional modeling. The first section reviews specific variables classified by three basic tenets of NA: density, land use framework, and streets/design. The second section describes challenges in measuring NA to provide a better understanding of how such challenges shape research efforts and applications. The final section creates an NA index that is applied to the Central Puget Sound metropolitan area. The index uses detailed measures of density, land use mix, and street patterns and makes at least five contributions for urban form research.

Modelling interactions of location with specific value of housing attributes

This paper presents a procedure for considering interactions of neighbourhood quality and property specifics within hedonic models of housing price. It handles interactions between geographical factors and the marginal contribution of each property attribute for enhancing values assessment. Making use of simulation procedures, it is combining GIS technology and spatial statistics to define principal components of accessibility and socio‐economic census related to transaction prices of single‐family homes. An application to the housing market of the Quebec Urban Community (more than 3,600 bungalows transacted in 1990 and 1991) illustrates its usefulness for building spatial hedonic models, while controlling for multicollinearity, spatial autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity. Distance‐weighted averages of each property attribute in the neighbourhood and interactions of property attributes with each principal component are used to detect any spatial effect on sale price variations. This first‐stage spatial hedonic model approximates market prices, which are then used in order to compare “expected” and actual property tax amounts, which are added to obtain a second‐stage model incorporating fiscal effects on house values. Interactions between geographical factors and property specifics are computed using formulae avoiding multicollinearity problems, while considering several processes responsible for spatial variability. For each property attribute, they define sub‐models which can be used to map variations, across the city, of its marginal value, assessing the cross‐effect of geographical location (in terms of neighbourhood profiles and accessibility to services) and its own valuation parameters. Moreover, this procedure distinguishes property attributes, exerting a stable contribution to value (constant over the entire region) from those whose implicit price significantly varies over space.

NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES, TRIP PURPOSE, AND TOUR-BASED TRAVEL

Communities are increasingly looking to land use planning strategies to reduce drive-alone travel. Many planning efforts aim to develop neighborhoods with higher levels of accessibility that will allow residents to shop closer to home and drive fewer miles. To better understand how accessible land use patterns relate to household travel behavior, this paper is divided into three sections. The first section describes the typical range of services available in areas with high neighborhood accessibility. It explains how trip-based travel analysis is limited because it does not consider the linked (chained) nature of most travel. The second section describes a framework that provides a more behavioral understanding of household travel. This framework highlights travel tours, the sequence of trips that begin and end at home, as the basic unit of analysis. The paper offers a typology of travel tours to account for different travel purposes; by doing so, this typology helps understand tours relative to the range of services typically offered in accessible neighborhoods. The final section empirically analyzes relationships between tour type and neighborhood access using detailed travel data from the Central Puget Sound region (Seattle, Washington). Households living in areas with higher levels of neighborhood access are found to complete more tours and make fewer stops per tour. They make more simple tours (out and back) for work and maintenance (personal, appointment, and shopping) trip purposes but there is no difference in the frequency of other types of tours. While they travel shorter distances for maintenance-type errands, a large portion of their maintenance travel is still pursued outside the neighborhood. These findings suggest that while higher levels of neighborhood access influences travel tours, it does not spur households to complete the bulk of their errands close to home.

Analyzing Neighborhood Accessibility via Transit in a GIS Environment

Most existing research on accessibility and spatial mismatch deal with commutes via private automobile. Low-income inner city residents, who tend to have lower rates of car ownership, rely more heavily on public transport for commuting. This paper analyzes the role that public transport plays in providing accessibility to the opportunities provided by various industries in Milwaukee. Based on an integration of place and location accessibility and network analysis technology, the paper develops a new accessibility measurement technique that is better suited for commuting by transit. The analysis indicates that neighborhoods of Milwaukee's inner city north, where there is a high concentration of African-American population, has poor accessibility by transit to urban opportunities in most industries. The results support the spatial mismatch hypothesis that central city residents suffer from poor accessibility to jobs because current public transport facilities were designed to carry workers from suburbs to CBD.

Incorporating Nonmotorized Mode and Neighborhood Accessibility in an Integrated Land Use and Transportation Model System

A model of residential location estimated as part of a larger integrated land use and transportation model development effort in the Wasatch Front area of Utah is presented. Main contributions are testing of the effects of neighborhood and regional accessibility on residential location, controlling for housing and neighborhood characteristics, and using a spatially disaggregate model. Results are relevant to the assessment of policies related to land use and transportation interaction, and the methods significantly advance our ability to examine neighborhood-scale effects on location choice.

Using GIS for Evaluation of Neighborhood Pedestrian Accessibility

The neighborhood-level destination offers the potential for diversion from automobile travel to walking, and design that minimizes neighborhood walking distances should be encouraged. This paper illustrates the use of a geographic information systems (GIS) -based approach to compare the average walking accessibility between alternative neighborhood designs. Three neighborhood plans for an actual 23.3-ha site are considered: the development’s original layout, the original layout without pedestrian walkways, and a more “sustainable” redesign. Schools, open space, and transit stops are considered as neighborhood destinations and a difference in pedestrian accessibility for the alternative plans is documented. Results suggest that empirical evaluation of neighborhood accessibility for subdivision layouts should be undertaken; that pedestrian walkways are an excellent means to improve walking accessibility within neighborhoods; and that with only minor changes to a site plan, many residents unfortunately remain beyond currently accepted walking distances for neighborhood-level destinations.

Spatial autocorrelation and neighborhood quality

Although it is intuitively obvious that neighborhood quality and accessibility should affect housing prices, the empirical evidence is weak: Most hedonic estimations show few significant coefficients on the neighborhood and accessibility variables. The lack of empirical support for the capitalization of neighborhood and accessibility effects may stem from the multicentric nature of the city as well as measurement problems with regard to neighborhood quality. In this paper, an alternative approach is taken: Omit all neighborhood and accessibility measures from the set of explanatory variables and instead model the resulting autocorrelation in the error term. Data from Baltimore are used in an empirical example; the results show that this approach provides a very plausible pattern of housing price variation.

Influences on the City-Suburban Choice A Study of Cincinnati Homebuyers

Abstract In this study, stepwise discriminant analysis was applied to a mailed questionnaire sample of 1,738 Hamilton County (Cincinnati, Ohio) homebuyers to identify characteristics that are most important in predicting city and suburban choices. The results confirmed the continued importance of family life cycle and life style, be it familial or cosmopolitan. Families with children that were seeking larger homes and trying to escape troubled city public schools bought in the suburbs. College-educated householders without children and those seeking neighborhood diversity and accessibility to employment chose the city. Other factors, such as race, income, and the desire to preserve neighborhood social relations also played an important role. In the short run, the most promising strategy for cities like Cincinnati is to try to identify “market niches” (e.g., highly educated cosmopolites without children) where the city already has a market advantage, and to develop programs to attract and hold a larger sha...

Empirical Study on Determining Factors of Accessibility Evaluation -Case Study at Utsunomiya City, Japan-

Accessibility has been treated in two kinds of expression. The one is as an intermediate variable in location analysis expressed by potential concept. The other is such travel friction as time distance or air distance. The latter type has been often utilized in evaluation of accessibility. To clarify the determining factors of accessibility evaluation is inevitable for urban environmental planning as urban enviromental quality depends on how the people evaluate their environment.A case study was conducted in Utsunomiya city. Utsunomiya is an independent city located in the northern part of Kanto Plain with population of 420, 000. A citizens' opinions survey on the evaluation of their residential environments was conducted. The evaluation system is composed of two major areas of neighborhood environmental quality and accessibility. Each area has three stages hierarchy structure. The evaluation items at the bottom level are the base of the analysis. About 7, 000 samples were collected by the collaboration with the Utsunomiya city government.This great number of samples made it possible to scrutinize the determining factors of accessibility evaluation. Evaluation functions of 22 different travel purposes were determined by using the survey data. The independent variables of the functions are the evaluation of accessibility of traveling purposes and explanation variables are traveling time. The following four points were concluded from the analysis.Firstly, it was clarified that many kinds of accessibility evaluation by residents are explained very well by traveling time. These are travels for daily activities and cultural activities.But, secondly, the accessibilities of such activities as taking a walk are not explained well by traveling time. The meanings of accessibilities of this kind of activities are different from others.Thirdly, the difference of activity frequency influence the evalution of accessibility. The activities with comparatively high selectivity showed that the people who frequently do such activities as visiting parks, water fronts or museums evaluate the accessibility higher than those with less frequency in such activities.Finally, major personal attributes influencing the accessibility evaluation were found through the analysis stratified by personal attributes. These are age, occupation, duration of living in the place, environmental experience in youger age, will of settling in present place, etc.

Managerial Behavior of Young Families in Pursuit of Single‐Family Home Ownership

The managerial behavior of young families in the pursuit of home ownership was explored with a sample of 1267 households from northwestern lowa. Young owners had higher incomes and higher monthly housing expenses than young nonowners, but the percentage of income devoted to housing did not differ between young owners and young nonowners. Young owners did not have a higher number of full‐time workers per household than young nonowners. Young owners had higher persons‐per‐room ratios and had compromised neighborhood accessibility standards, but not housing quality standards. The findings indicate that a high level of monetary resources was a key factor in enabling young families to own a single‐family detached dwelling, for there were few important compromises in housing space and quality.

Urban Playscapes Project

This study evaluates the spatial accessibility of playgrounds within the city of Kingston in relation to neighbourhood socioeconomic status and major city intersections. Using a geographical information system, all playgrounds within Kingston and the surrounding area were plotted. Constructing buffers to measure walking distance, major intersection distance and neighbourhood accessibility, nearest playground distance was found. Through introspective inquiry using the Seven C’s guide to young children’s outdoor play spaces, playgrounds were surveyed and scored based on relevant criteria. Scores were included to calculate buffer size as well as neighbourhood socioeconomic status. Quintiles (Q1-Q5) were also plotted on the map to ensure accurate representation of neighbourhoods based on the Canadian Marginalization Index. It was concluded that residential segregation disproportionately places lower scoring playgrounds in more impoverished neighbourhoods (Q4 & Q5) while high scoring playgrounds were almost always within middle to high income neighbourhoods (Q1-Q3). Using this information, further analysis is being conducted on children’s Right to the City as well as playground accessibility and unstructured play developmental benefits.