So research is showing that where we live has as much to do with our health as how we live. And so in this way, our zip code dictates our health, as well as our DNA code. Our zip code is basically part of becoming a healthy neighborhood, right? So this is a combination of putting people in the center and working towards creating healthy places and also enabling for climate action simultaneously. In this way, we know that urban design makes a huge difference, both in terms of people's physical activity and also the impacts on the environment. So, for example, good urban design, a reasonable residential density, access to parks and transit. These elements can invite people to be more physically active up to 89 minutes a day, and by doing so, they're also improving their health. So, of course, the concept of a healthy neighborhood is very different, depending on where you live. And we're going to look at three examples: informal settlements in Buenos Aires, childhood obesity in south London and new neighborhood development here in Copenhagen. So regardless of where we're working in the world, we have a similar method, one that really puts human activity and life in the center to understand what's working or not in a neighborhood. We call this the 'Gehl Lens', and really, it's a bundle of methods to understand people's lived experience in places. So this is a combination of GIS mapping, but also interviews with residents and stakeholders. It's mapping what's there, but also observing the life that's taking place. The first layer in this method is actually looking at big data. So here we can either scrape social media or we can look from sensors or other smart city technology to begin to turn digital info into real story and narratives about where people are spending time and what they enjoy in the city. The next layer has much more to do with targeted online surveys. Here, we can reach out to specific populations and ask them very specific questions about how their daily patterns are changing, favorite places in the city or what they would like to see more of in their neighborhood. The core of the Gehl lens is actually something called the 'public life app'. And this is a Web based application that we enable community researchers, so folks out on the ground that usually live in these neighborhoods, gives them this tool to allow them to observe what's happening, to know who's there, who's not, what activities are taking place, how are people moving through the area. The last layer here in the lens is more about what's there. Here we can map the existing amenities, building functions and activities, as well as the spatial qualities of a place. Here we can look at a hierarchy, a spatial quality, one that begins with basic protection and safety and moves up through to enjoyment and delight. So in this way, what we're doing is taking a cross-section of many different data sets, many different layers of information, but looking through them again from the perspective of the end user at eye level. A nd in this way, we're making big data into thick data and really getting meaningful insights into how we can make our neighborhoods more healthy. So we can apply this method to address several different health issues. One case has to do with childhood obesity in south London. There are huge data sets indicating that childhood obesity is growing exponentially in the UK and especially in parts of south London, where you might have almost or over half of youth that actually are obese. But when you take these generic statistics and then you can bring them to life through by actually spending time with the youth whose lives were hoping to improve. So from our experience with youth in London, we learned that being social is as important to them as the food itself. And actually how this plays out is with as part of their transit routines. So two thirds of all the youth that we observed in London were actually spending time at bus stops. And those bus stops, were usually located close to fast food places. The fast food locations know that that's where youth are and they pay a premium actually to be located there. So what this combination gives us is a bit of a Bermuda Triangle of health. One where the locations that youth have, where they feel comfortable and invited tend to be more unhealthy for them. And transit is actually playing a very big role in childhood obesity in a way that wasn't visible or known before we began to spend time on the ground using this Gehl lens to actually understand what's happening. So one example of creating a healthy neighborhood is actually in Buenos Aires. Barrio 31 is an informal settlement in the heart of the city. It houses over 50.000 people and is located just outside of the city center, close to the main train station, a nd a highway actually cuts through this settlement. People have been living there for over 60 years. They've actually built their homes directly under the highway and in all of the open space around it. When we started to work with this neighborhood, both the mayor and the president had an ambition to turn one of the largest settlements in Latin America that is actually today illegal into a more formalized settlement. And so in doing that work, we started first by, again, understanding what is already there. Rather than taking everything away, as you would usually do, we tried to build upon both the existing physical infrastructure, streets and spaces, and also the social infrastructure, the daily life of people in the neighborhood and what works and what doesn't. If we start with the social life, that's where we begin. We analyze that understood movement patterns to and from the neighborhood. How do people get there? How do they spend time once they're at home? And we saw a very lively neighborhood, actually, a lot of social opportunities, over 16 football pitches, lots of life in the street. And it's it's important to not overromanticize these conditions, but yet again, build upon them. Because at the same time, while there were these great social connections, you had a place without running water and electricity and a lot of makeshift housing that was essentially unsafe. So that's why we started to work with the physical infrastructure. Here, not only the houses themselves, where it was a question of rebuilding a lot of the homes in the spirit of their original hand built style, but now up to code, right? with running water, with electricity and sanitation, building on those homes, but also with the streets and spaces that are there. So right now, the neighborhood is actually quite long and only has access to it from either, from one end close to the train station. And what we started to do was three major moves to physically connect this neighborhood better to the rest of the city. The first one is actually creating a new bridge on the other side away from the train station, over the tracks that connected the neighborhood to the city and shortened the commuting times for folks there on foot or bike by almost 30 minutes. The second thing we did was to integrate public transit directly into the neighborhood. So bringing bus lines and a main street into the neighborhood in a way that today there was no official public transit there. And the third thing was to encourage more North-South connections that cross through this elongated form, but provide many more opportunities to move across the short end. So these physical elements, together with the social ones, began to fill, to grow the foundation of creating a healthy neighborhood and some place that had essentially been thought of as a slum. So the final example is actually about creating a healthy neighborhood from scratch. Kløverkvarteret is a district in Copenhagen that is actually located quite close to the city center, but it's on a formal industrial site, and so it feels actually quite far away. The vision for this district actually begins with some of the same methods that I've mentioned up to now w ith trying to envision a connected and healthy neighborhood. And actually, by using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we can do this explicitly. The goals give us guidance into how we might work with green and active neighborhood ideas, the ability to both connect folks socially as well as physically, and even the opportunity to create a climate- positive neighborhood. So using the Sustainable Development Goals as a guide, we can apply the themes that I mentioned to specific goals. So when we look at social and connected neighborhood, t his is about good work, about a mix of living and industrial opportunities that are both clean and efficient, but where people can actually earn a living in this neighborhood as well as live there. In terms of green and active concept, here, there's opportunities both to grow food as well as to consume it, to use the natural topography of the land and the flows of water and materials, also as natural elements for the neighborhood. And finally, this idea of climate positive. This is related to the fact that not only should buildings and infrastructure be energy efficient and effective, but we could also design in a way that invites for sustainable behavior so that the healthy choice is the easy choice, as is the one that's good for climate is also good for yourself. So using this perspective of sustainable behavior, we begin to understand how a day in the life might take place out there. How could a young family be connected both to themselves and to friends? How might low cost energy production create interesting opportunities for work or living? And how might mobility infrastructure also allow people ease of access to this district? Putting it all together is quite a difficult task. And so what we begin with is actually some prototypes, some ways to test some of these ideas with people, bringing new businesses, future residents out to the site together to try things out in a new way so that we co- creatively build this future that we want to be able to live in. So these examples from Buenos Aires, London and Copenhagen are vastly different indicators of what a healthy neighborhood should be. They won't look the same and nor will they feel the same. But we can use the same method and the same focus on people to ensure that we actually are creating places that are healthy for the individual and also good for the planet.
