Four Land Use Features for Better Health

"Scientists are learning more and more about how where we live affects the amount of exercise we get, and thus how fit and healthy we are likely to be," according to an article by F. Kaid Benfield.

Supplementing Benfield's assessment of the body of research on the subject is a new study by Professor James F. Sallis of the University of California, San Diego and a team of 21 researchers, who examined physical activity data on 6,822 adults, from 14 cities in ten countries.

The study found four land use factors "to be directly and independently significant with respect to exercise," according to Benfield. The four factors: 1) residential density, 2) intersection density, 3) public transport density, and 4) access to parks.

Benfield unpacks some of the nuances of those findings, especially regarding the last of those features. "I believe [parks] are understudied in the urbanist circles that I inhabit," writes Benfield.

Benfield also offers a hat tip to Christopher Bergland, who broke the news regarding the study for Psychology Today.