Pedestrian Pathways in the Healthy City

This year Bristol was awarded the title of European Green Capital City for 2015. To mark this prestigious designation, a 12-month programme of events is being put in place to celebrate Bristol’s progress in becoming a sustainable city and highlighting its plans for the future. The vision is ‘for Bristol to become a global leader in sustainable urban living – a global exemplar for happy healthy cities’.

One of the first events was the Pedestrian Pathways in the Healthy City symposium which occurred earlier this month where Sustainable Places Research Fellow Dr Yi Gong and Research Associate Dr Crispin Cooper were invited to present their research. One of the major themes of the conference was how to inform policy that guides planning for the built environment such that future cities might increase participation in walking and thus provide public health benefits. During the symposium, Crispin talked about network models of pedestrian behaviour in cities and Yi presented her research on the effect of neighbourhood green space on participation in physical activities among the elderly with different levels of physical function.  More information about the symposium can be found here.