Can transportation problems be fixed by the right neighborhood design? The tremendous popularity of the "new urbanism" and "livable communities" initiatives suggests that many persons think so. As a systematic assessment of attempts to solve transportation problems through urban design, this book asks and answers three questions: Can such efforts work? Will they be put into practice? Are they a good idea?

The growth of global urbanization places great strains on energy, transportation, housing and public spaces needs. As such, transport and land use are inextricably linked. Urban Form and Accessibility: Social, Economic, and Environment Impacts consolidates key insights from multidisciplinary perspectives on the relationship between urban form and transportation planning. Synthesizing the latest cutting-edge research, the book translates academic evidence into practice. Starting with an overview of the key concepts relevant to each discipline, the book covers critical elements such as governance, travel behavior, and technological disruption, showing how to move towards a more sustainable society for all city inhabitants. - Draws on evidence-based success stories from countries around the globe - Gathers global leading thinkers to provide the state-of-the-art on the topic - Examines social, economic, and environmental impacts within each chapter - Each chapter's content will have the same structure for easier discoverability

The ways in which we travel have a huge impact on sustainability. This book addresses the relationship between travel patterns and the physical form of cities, and considers the role of spatial planning in that relationship. Three sections present empirical research and commentaries from leading academics and practitioners from Europe, the USA, Australia and Japan. The first section considers the impact of urban form in combination with factors such as lifestyles and socio-demographic change on sustainable transport. The second addresses the impact of different elements of urban form, such as density, configuration and mix of uses, on mobility. The final section focuses on issues surrounding the implementation of spatial planning policies to support sustainable travel. The book will be of interest to practitioners, academics and students in the fields of planning, transport and geography.

The interaction between the built environment, travel behavior and public health is now a major concern for both researchers and urban planners. Currently, there is little empirical research that explores and examines the relationship between each of them. This study explores the linkages between an individual’s health, the urban form and his/her everyday travel behavior. The objective of this study is two-fold: (1) to develop a Smartphone Application that would serve as a platform to automatically collect person-level travel behavior data, and (2) to analyze the influence of daily activity patterns of an individual, his/her healthy-living and the urban form of their neighborhood of residence, on each other. In the past, scholars have explored different variables and linked them with the individual’s travel behavior. This study explores the linkages between an individual’s health, urban form and his/her everyday travel behavior. In order to capture accurate and comprehensive travel behavior information, a smartphone application is developed that can track user location for long periods without the need of user intervention. Focus is placed on designing the application to have minimum respondent burden and long-standing battery life of the smart device. Subjects are recruited through a web survey designed to collect information about the individual’s healthy living habits. Data from the application is regressed against the health measure data acquired from the survey. Results show that active modes of travel are positively associated with the person’s general health measures. The feasibility of this platform as a data collection method is highlighted while explaining the limitations due to the sample distribution and size.