Top Ten Characteristics of a Healthy City

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1. Fixed transit, preferably rail, above and below ground. Subways along all major travel corridors; buses or trams on all secondary corridors
Fixed-rail transit helps to guide development and keep the streets busy. When development happens around fixed-transit, it is easy to get around on foot because everything is closer together. On the contrary, when transit isn’t fixed, as with a diesel bus route, or it is designed around the auto, transit becomes impractical because everything is further apart. New York is an example of a walking city that grew up around fixed transit. Dallas is an example of an auto city built up around roadways. It is very convenient to get around without a car in a walking city built around fixed transit. This makes it so there are more people on the sidewalks, and businesses can thrive from walking traffic, without the need for parking. Fixed-transit can be light-rail, a subway, or a bus that operates from overhead wires. A busway built for diesel buses is also fixed transit, but because the bus can leave the busway it doesn’t have the same positive impact on development and density as other forms of fixed transit. If your city doesn’t have fixed-transit, advocate for it. It will take a long time to change the way things are built, but a convenient walking district can spring up in little time when fixed transit and high density are established in an area.

See the full list here: Top Ten Characteristic of a Healthy City.

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Achieving healthy urban transport systems by 2030: the role of walking and cycling

This paper reports on research undertaken as part of a recently completed 3 year UK research council funded project which sought to examine ways in which substantially more people might be encouraged to walk and cycle in the future and the steps needed to support such an increase. Walking and cycling can make a considerable contribution to sustainable transport goals, building healthier and more resilient communities and contributing to traffic and pollution reduction.

Three alternative visions are presented for the role of walking and cycling in urban areas in the UK for the year 2030 and a number of alternative pathways (in the form of storylines) showing how these visions might be achieved. Each vision presents a view of an ‘imaginary’ urban area where walking and cycling are considerably more important than at present. The accompanying pathways are made up of three different types of storyline, operating at different scales.

Macro-storylines concern those developments happening in the world that, whilst ‘exogenous’ to the transport system, have direct impacts on the system. Meso-storylines describe accompanying developments within the transport system covering the ‘aggregate reactions’ (on a national level) of organisations and trip-makers to events and trends described in the macro-storylines.

Micro-storylines concern how individual local authorities might act (‘autonomously’) in response to the contexts provided by macro- and meso-storylines, taking into account factors relevant to their particular cities. The micro-storylines described in the paper have been developed through a number of ‘city-specific’ expert workshops, whose overall aim has been to understand how the generic theoretically-based visions and storylines may be locally contextualised and adjusted to meet the needs and requirements of ‘real’ places. The paper concludes with thoughts on how cities might develop and incorporate large scale change over relatively long periods of time to promote sustainable and healthy living.

Dr Miles Tight, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK

The 5th Healthy Cities: Working Together to Achieve Liveable Cities Conference
6th to 8th of June 2012 Geelong,  Victoria,

E-health record plan must be uniform, says privacy commissioner

Karen Dearne From: The Australian November 08, 2011

PRIVACY Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim  has called for a unified approach to privacy protections in his response to the Gillard government’s draft legislation for its $500 million personally controlled e-health record program.

Read the full story in the Australian

THE number of traditional family households is set to shrink to less than a quarter by 2026, with childless homes to become the new norm.

AustraliaSCAN projections, provided exclusively to the Herald Sun, show the number of households with nuclear families is forecast to plunge from 33 per cent in 2006 to just 22 per cent in the next 15 years.

For the first time, single households and couples with no children at home are expected to eclipse the classic households of mum, dad and children living with them.

Read the full story here

Urban Parks for Healthy Cities

Urban parks have an important role to play in solving the health and fitness crisis, but too many acres of parkland are not helping people become healthier. How can park systems be designed to be better-used and live up to their potential?

The Trust for Public Land has released a report, detailing numerous ways in which the park system can maximize their contributions to the health of individuals. Many urban parks make it too difficult to exercise, whether they are uninviting, confusing, or simply don’t offer enough choices for activity… more Urban Parks for Healthy Cities | Planetizen.

Jason Corburn’s Keynote Address at The International Conference of Urban Health in 2010

Jason is Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He also co-directs UC Berkeley’s joint Masters in City Planning/Masters in Public Health degree program.

He is the author of “Towards the Healthy City”.

Jason Corburn at the ICUH 2010 from The New York Academy of Medicine on Vimeo.

Healthy Cities Conference heads to Geelong in 2012

Healthy Cities Conference 2012 - 6^th to the 8^th of June Mecure Hotel and Conference Centre, Geelong

The 5th Healthy Cities: Working Together to Achieve Liveable Cities Conference will be a platform for Government and Industry sector professionals to discuss causes, effects and solutions that relate to population health, sustainability,  natural resource management, transport, climate change, urban design, bio security and more.

Conference host Geelong, is Victoria’s second largest city and offers a diverse range of food, wine, cultural and recreation attractions and colonial history.  A waterfront city, it is also the major gateway to the Bellarine Peninsula and  Great Ocean Road.  Beautifully preserved historic buildings capture the region’s colourful past at towns such as Queenscliff, Port Fairy and Portland. There are a number of National Trust properties open to the public which offer a  fascinating insight into the early colonial days.  Geelong takes full advantage of its unique north-facing bay with fabulous waterfront eateries, landscaped Geelong beach-gardens and walking paths set against the backdrop of  Corio Bay.

Issues that will addressed at the conference include;

• Healthy urban design
• Food security, buying local, urban agriculture
• Connecting people and places
• Urban renewal – green buildings
• Harnessing social capital
• Education, motivation and incentives for behaviour change
• Government and business leadership
• Regional Cities – interconnectivity – technology – heritage
• Population growth
• Political cycles
• Urban landscapes, public spaces, natural resource management
• Working with climate change, energy consumption, generation and other challenges
• Innovation, process Vs people
• Urban planning and social equity

The Conference will examine public policy and social/community outcomes and consider what actions we can take to positively influence the ongoing debate.

There will be over 80 Keynote Presentations, Concurrent Sessions, Case Studies, Regional Study Tours and Posters.

Mayor Cr Mitchell

“This is a fantastic opportunity for professionals in the public and  private sector,” said Mayor Cr John Mitchell.    

“Everyone from social planners and urban designers to waste  management professionals and environmental groups will benefit  from attending this conference,” he said.

 “The conference will feature a variety of presentations and  workshops that will trigger plenty of new ideas and solutions for the future development of our region.”

“I look forward to listening to some of the speakers and seeing the innovations and strategies that come out of this national conference,” said Mayor Cr Mitchell

Who Should Attend

Policy Makers, Politicians, Senior Public Servants, City Governance Personnel, Public Health Administrators, Academics, Waste Management Professionals, National Resources Administrators, Planning Professionals, Environmental Groups,  Engineers, Urban Designers, Consultants, Social Planners, Disaster Management Groups, Elected Representatives, Mayors, Non-Government Agencies, Community and Industry Groups, Students, Coastal Resource Managers, Place Makers,  Sustainability Practitioners

Committee 2012

• Philip D. Allsopp, RIBA, FRSA Co-founder of Transpolis Global, Arizona USA
• Cr Debbie Blumel, Sunshine Coast Regional Council Qld , Chair of Regional Development Australia Sunshine Coast and represents Queensland local governments on the National Sea Change Taskforce
  Executive.
• Ms Elaine Carbines, Chief Executive Office, Geelong Region Alliance, Vic
• Dr Kate Kerkin, Director K2 Planning, Vic
• Stuart Ord, Director, Healthy Parks Healthy People, Vic
• A/Prof Susan Thompson, City Futures Research Centre, University of NSW
• Peter Sugg, CEO, Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association, Qld

National Library of Australia – Canberra

The conference papers will be included in the PANDORA Archive to provide public ccess to them in perpetuity.  The Library will take the necessary reservation action to keep the papers accessible as hardware and software  changes over time.  The Library will catalogue the papers and add the records to the National ibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records shared by over 5,200 Australian ibraries), as well as their own online catalogue. This will increase wareness of the papers/authors among researchers.

2011 Healthy Cities Conference a Success

This year’s Healthy Cities Conference in Noosa had over 70 presenters, who contributed to a range of session streams including,

- Physical Environments in our Cities and Neighbourhoods
- Green Principles – Green Design. The Future of Viable Healthy Cities
- Healthy People – Healthy Places
- Disaster Management – The Impacts on Population Health

During the closing forum delegates were asked to raise, with a panel of keynotes the major issues affecting healthy cities.  The 2012 Conference in Geelong will follow up some of the excellent contributions by the delegates in the forum.

Robert Prestipino the Directoror Vital Places spoke about “Local Ecommerce and Sustainable Towns – Will our Regional towns and communities be saved by digital highways?

Robert said “The evidence is clear. Regional identity and lifestyle is in decline. This decline has been long term and gradual. The issue is what are we going to do about it? Decades of concern and initiatives have done little to strengthen the future prosperity of regional communities. To turn things around and deliver the community’s aspirations for the future of their children and grandchildren will clearly require a new approach.”

He discussed how we create great regions to live, work and play… places of opportunity & lifestyle?

Matt Coetzee the Development Manager of Community Development with Aurecon discussed Australia’s sequence of extreme weather events. Cyclone Yasi and the floods of December 2010 / January 2011 saw more than 75% of Queensland officially declared a disaster zone. The impact on infrastructure and homes was devastating but the scale of the tragedy became that much more apparent as news of human fatalities was relayed by Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh.

Matt said “Sustainable urban development is a useful concept in considering opportunities to alleviate the impact of extreme weather events, and extreme floods in particular. Sustainable urban development provides a framework focused on creating urban communities where both the current and future needs of residents are met. There are two important principles—resilience and connectivity—that underpin sustainable urban development.

By defining the risks associated with potential extreme events and translating those risks into planning and design solutions urban planners attempt to increase an urban feature’s capacity to absorb change. This capacity, otherwise known as its resilience, allows it to persist in the face of the change and thereby improves its sustainability”.

The positive delegate feedback was overwhelming. Lisa Wood, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Centre for the Built Environment and Health, School of Population Health said “A good mix of speakers, topics and participants overall. Indeed the diversity of participants greatly contributed to the informal sharing and learning that went on outside of sessions and it was good to see the intermingling of varied sectors and fields.”

The 2012 Conference will be in Geelong, Victoria from the 6^th – 8^th June 2012. Call for papers will open on the conference website soon, www.healthcities.com.au

Full Conference Program Available from the Healthy Cities Website

With speakers from the USA, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, and Posters from South Korea, China, Japan and Iran, this year’s conference will feature over 70 presentations and be our most comprehensive yet.

This year we have also included a delegate forum to identify actions and goals we can address over the next twelve months.

The Forum will be filmed and added to the 2012 Conference website. You can also access the full program, along with registration details which this year includes;

* All conference sessions. * Conference materials, including satchel and handbook with abstracts. * Softcopy of the book of proceedings (available four weeks after the conference). * Morning and afternoon teas and lunch for the duration of the conference. * Attendance to the Welcome Reception. * Full delegates will have access to selected steam presentations in our online archive (username and password supplied after the conference).

Who is Attending? Policy Makers, Politicians, Senior Public Servants, City Governance Personnel, Public Health Administrators, Academics, Waste Management Professionals, National Resources Administrators, Planning Professionals, Environmental Groups, Engineers, Urban Designers, Consultants, Social Planners, Disaster Management Groups, Elected Representatives, Mayors, Non-Government Agencies, Community and Industry Groups, Coastal Resource Managers, Place Makers and Sustainability Practitioners.

The conference will be in beautiful Noosa, and will include an optional tour of the Biosphere.

Program Available Here

Insurers reject proposals for mandatory flood cover

THE nation’s largest insurers have unanimously rejected proposals for mandatory flood cover and supported calls for a new government inquiry into disaster mitigation to find better ways to protect against natural catastrophes… more