Walkability, Social Inclusion and Social Isolation and Street Redesign

Author(s): CARMEL BOYCE

Source: Built Environment (1978-), Vol. 36, No. 4, The Role of Walking and Cycling in
Advancing Healthy and Sustainable Urban Areas (2010), pp. 461-473
Published by: Alexandrine Press
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 Walkability, Social Inclusion and
Social Isolation and Street Redesign
CARMEL BOYCE

Within the body of literature on walkability there are many papers on improving
a population's health by increasing rates of physical activity, and on how walking
improves health. There is, however, a dearth of evidence on public infrastructure
investment in built environments, which aim to promote healthy activity, and the
relationship between these and evidence of social inclusion, exclusion and public
health improvements. In this paper two projects based in the City of Geelong
- the Corio Norlane Active Transport Network and Cloverdale Walkability + - are
described and used as grounding for discussion of theory and practice relating to
these issues.

Designing for, and the promotion of,
walking have the potential to support better
health outcomes (WHO Europe, 2003). By
promoting socially inclusive streets and social
conviviality, walking can ameliorate one of
the causes of social exclusion. Walking can
thus improve health and wellbeing outcomes
for whole communities.
Designing socially inclusive spaces for
walking is one thing. From a practical per
spective, it is possible to develop and design
inclusive spaces in communities. But for which
people? For any design to meet the require
ments of a specific community, designers
must have a well-grounded understanding of
the community for which they are designing,
their needs and aspirations, as well as the
social landscape within which the community
functions.
Different disciplines promote participatory
and inclusionary approaches. Sections of the
planning fraternity promote deliberative plan
ning, community participation and engage
ment processes. They argue for the mutually
beneficial nature of participatory planning
exercises, in that they encourage communities
to take ownership over the public realm, and
take control over the things that occur within
them. However participation is fraught. For
a decade or more social scientists have been
documenting the impacts of social exclusion.
They argue a person's social circumstances
act to inhibit or exclude a person from joining
in as an active participant.
The 'social model of health' (Ibid.) provides
a framework to understand the beneficial
nature of the relationship between community
members' participation in decision-making
on matters that affect them and the health
benefits they are likely to gain as a result.
It is possible, therefore, that well-targeted
social inclusionary strategies at the planning
and design phase of any public realm project
may well lead to more inclusive space, and
spaces being used more inclusively.
Separately sociologists have been exploring
the nature of localized anomie. Urry (2003,
p. 184) explored mobility as an important
facilitator in building trust through eye
to-eye contact. Giles-Corti and Donovan
(2003, p. 1586) noted the significantly higher
likelihood of a person walking in circum
stances where he or she had someone to walk
with. Flint (2006, p. 52) explored the nature of

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 THE ROLE OF WALKING AND CYCLING IN ADVANCING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN AREAS

exclusion in crime deprived neighbourhoods
and the relative exclusion of groups through
the predominance of another in the social
landscape. All are conceptually interesting
and deserve explicit attention in the context
of this environment, particularly where
the cause of exclusion is both capable of
explanation and can provide the key in
part to appropriate ameliorative strategies.
Axhausen (2008) posits that the nature of
alienation requires particular attention in
do exactly that - the Corio Norlane Active
Transport Project and the Cloverdale Walk
ability + - both in the City of Geelong. These
projects are designed around promoting
active transport in an area where walking
infrastructure is in comparatively good condi
tion, but walking levels are very low. Together
they explore the concept of 'social inclusion'
in relation to providing activated walkable
environments in an urban regeneration
context.

the context of personal mobility, given the

risk of social isolation in particular groups
with lower socio-economic outcomes, and
the cumulative impacts that these have in
combination.
In this context planning for walkability
and designing walkable environments can
be about bringing these threads together.
This paper discusses literature in the context
of two projects which are attempting to
Case Study -
Corio Norlane and Cloverdale
Geelong is the largest regional town in
the State of Victoria, Australia, roughly 50
kilometres from central Melbourne. Corio
Norlane is the most northern suburb of
Geelong's urban area, bounded by former
industrial sites, and built at the height of

WROVE CROSSINGS FOR

PEDESTRIANSICYCUSTS

ROAD TREATMENT TO SLOW TRAFFIC

PARKS AND NATIWE STRIPS

STRATEGIC FOOTPATH NETWORK

STRATEGIC S1KE PATHS

Corio and Norlane Active Transport

6. The Big Picture

DAVID liOCK ASSOCIATES

Figure 1. Corio Norlane Active Transport. (By courtesy of David Lock Associates)

462 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

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 WALKABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND SOCIAL ISOLATION AND STREET REDESIGN
post-war urban sprawl around new industrial
nodes.
The Corio Norlane area covers approx
imately 20 square kilometres, bounded by
the Geelong Ring Road, a railway line and
the bay Despite the relatively short distance,
4.5 kilometres across, it is almost impossible
to access the beach on foot as a result of
industrial development severing community
from the beachfront. Cloverdale, located on
the northwest edge of Corio Norlane, is a
small area within the Corio Norlane urban
regeneration area and covers approximately
a kilometre square. It has a centrally located
community centre, situated on the edge of
highly denuded parkland, containing three
trees as its only obvious amenity. Cloverdale
is the subject of a smaller much more fine
grained project, bringing walking, concept
design for parklands, and a community centre
as a destination together as components of
one integrated project.
Corio Norlane, and particularly Cloverdale,
are classically dispersed urban sprawl,
containing few destinations within a walkable
distance. Both contain a high percentage
of social housing stock, much of it old and
dilapidated.
The walking environment is bisected
by major truck routes on their way to the
ring road, port and central Victoria. From a
structural perspective major through roads
carrying heavy industrial traffic present
significant barriers, the on-street environment
beyond footpaths is unattractive, distances
between destinations are significant, built
environment amenity where offered is
usually unattractive, and pedestrian crossing
amenity is missing. Some subdivisions remain
without footpaths, and very few pedestrian
crossing points are provided. Parklands and
streetscapes are drought affected, without
canopy trees, or shade, and with little if
any seating amenity. Shopping centres are
compromised as destinations with little or no
amenity provided to encourage shoppers to
stop, chat or otherwise pass time. Providing
more frequent and supportive pedestrian
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infrastructure would appear to support walk
ing in this environment.
In 2004 it was shown that Greater
Geelong residents who regularly walk for
both transport and recreation are unevenly
distributed and less likely to come from
Corio Norlane (Tolley, 2004, p. 24). In 2008 the
Greater Geelong municipality was identified
as the local government area with the highest
proportion of residents indentified as obese
within Victoria, with the Corio Norlane
area forming the epicentre of the epidemic.
Thus walking would appear an appropriate
strategy for promoting increasingly equitable
health outcomes in the Corio Norlane
context.
Corio Norlane is a neighbourhood re
newal area because of a range of particular
characteristics, many of which are both
causal and result in less than equal out
comes for residents. Residents of Corio
Norlane experience the fourth highest rate of
domestic violence and the sixth highest rates
of imprisonment and unemployment in the
State of Victoria. Outcomes are influenced
by accident of birth and migration where
one in four are born overseas, one in five
speak another language at home, and 1 per
cent identify as indigenous. This combination
of characteristics results in intergenerational
unemployment, poor health outcomes and an
overall lower life expectancy for the whole
community (Collaborations, David Lock
Associates et al., 2009, p. 29).
Indeed, of 723 Australian suburbs, the
postcode area covering 3214 (Corio Norlane)
performs relatively poorly at most things.
Table 1 illustrates ranked outcomes in 2007
for Corio Norlane against other suburbs in
Victoria.
Concentrating solely on infrastructure
deficiencies would be unlikely to encourage
a sense of ownership or radically change
levels of community participation in walking
without other supportive measures. The
projects, in combination, sought to address
inclusion by inviting community members
to take part in planning and designing the
 THE ROLE OF WALKING AND CYCLING IN ADVANCING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN AREAS
Table 1. Ranking of selected indices for postcode 3214. (Source: Vinson (2007) in Collaborations, David
Lock Associates et ah, 2009, p. 23)
Indicator (low indicator = poor performance )
Prison admissions
Domestic violence
Unemployment
Nil qualifications
Court convictions
Low-income families
Early school leavers
Computer usage
Long-term unemployed
Low birth weights
Psychiatric admissions
Internet access
Disability/sickness
Year 12 incomplete
network and building a sense of inclusion
and invitation to the public realm.
This is a community where the benefits
of physical activity, fitness and social capital
are potentially life changing. Thus it was
considered crucially important to have the
whole Corio Norlane community walk,
build social bonds and otherwise exercise.
In addition to high rates of obesity, rates of
unemployment, imprisonment and domestic
violence are all higher than average, and
educational attainment rates far lower (see
table 1) (Ibid., pp. 23-26). Given its uni
versality, most people in Corio Norlane ought
to be able to afford, and be able, to participate
in projects related to walking.
The City of Greater Geelong with the
Cloverdale Community Centre Committee
of Management undertook a survey of
Cloverdale residents in February and March
2010 as part of development of two projects,
the first the Corio Norlane Active Transport
Network promoting active transport and
walkability across both suburbs and the
second Cloverdale Walkability +, a fine grain
local project in Cloverdale.
Residents of Cloverdale were surveyed
to understand the relationships better. The
survey sought to gather an information base
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Ranking out of a maximum score of 723
4
6
6
17
35
45
45
55
68
72
81
90
101
147
for a community building, parkland and
walkability design exercise, and to contri
bute to an evidence base for a health im
pact assessment in the Cloverdale area. A
majority of survey participants lived within a
kilometre radius of the centre, in which there
was a well-promoted and active walking
group. One hundred and seventy-four resi
dents responded totalling 5.4 per cent of the
total population of 5 years and older, and 7.0
per cent of the population 15 years and older
in the study area.
Responses indicated low levels of people
obviously participating in daily walking
(31.0 per cent of total respondents) in Corio
Norlane, and particularly in Cloverdale. The
absence of delightful environments to walk
in was the single most important barrier
indentified to walking (8.3 per cent), followed
by insufficient time (5.7 per cent), as well as
health and age (5.2 per cent) and distance (4.7
per cent).
Residents' responses were by and large
as expected, particularly identifying a lack
of comfortable walking environments and
destinations (Walker, 2009). Respondents
also gave one quite unexpected result. In a
community where many people were long
term residents, the view appeared to be that
 WALKABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND SOCIAL ISOLATION AND STREET REDESIGN
one of the most valuable characteristics of the
community was its social capital, as Putnam
(2000) described, the multiplier effect of
social connection, trust and reciprocity. Some
residents responded that they did not walk,
as they had no one with whom to walk.
Was this unusual? Although not a statis
tically significant response, having no com
panion to walk with (4.0 per cent) outnumber
ed issues about the state of maintenance and
repair of the existing environment (1.0 per
cent) and traffic speed (0.5 per cent), by a
considerable amount. Female respondents
making this observation outnumbered males
by six to one. They were from a range of ages
all over twenty years. This result seemed
both incredibly sad, but also likely to be a
reflection on local social capital. For all that
had been said about social capital being a
valuable characteristic of this community, it
remained possible to locate people so socially
disconnected that they either could not, or
had no reason to, make their way out of their
houses to the local neighbourhood centre.
As in the findings from the 2010 study by
the Commission for Architecture and the
Built Environment (CABE), Corio Norlane
residents' proclivity to walk, walking pat
terns, physical activity, and health suffer as a
consequence. The impact is experienced both
individually, and at a societal level. Even if
residents wanted to walk they feel there
is no place on the street that welcomes, or
parkland that is inclusive. Health outcomes
have been eroded to the extent that on most
indices of health and wellbeing outcomes,
this community is significantly worse off
than most other places in Australia. Residents
suffer a significant level of deprivation as a
result. Within this environment people are
lonely, housebound and socially isolated. In
this context a deprived physical environment
has psychological costs eroding potential
social capital, and both causing and re
inforcing social exclusion.
For the Corio Norlane projects the pro
cess of engaging people in redesigning the
built environment was important. It was
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deliberately designed to be inclusive. Multi
layered outcomes were designed. At a higher
level, a framework plan was developed to
cater for the significant traffic, connectivity,
pedestrian amenity and safety issues. At
a local street level, a set of components
was designed together with a process by
which the streets could be redesigned, with
residents and for residents one street at a
time, and over time, working out a way of
prioritizing streets with residents and agree
ing to core components in rebuilding them.
In the process of redesigning individual
streets it was envisaged that residents would
be able to participate in the redrawing of
an environment they would see every day
which has the capacity to remind them of
pride and place and belonging. This process
was deliberately designed around increasing
social capital and deliberately engaging even
the most socially excluded into and onto the
footpath.
Throughout project development there was
a deliberate attempt to change the residents'
perceptions of their existing environment,
seeking to build the links between what
people desire and what they see daily The
toolkit was set up as the standard setting
design guide for Greater Geelong streets
in an effort to redress the current unequal
treatment in the built environment.
Having people actively participate in
changing their pieces of a built environment
can change the messages given constantly
to a population about being important and
valued. The process has the potential to
encourage healthier patterns of physical
activity and better behaviours and has the
potential to change community social capital
outcomes, encouraging incidental meetings
and building neighbourliness. The question
remains whether this process and local street
redesign will result in an overall reduction
in social exclusion. Another potential is that
existing factors causing social exclusion could
be exacerbated, leaving changed conditions
open only to those able to take advantage of
them.
 THE ROLE OF WALKING AND CYCLING IN ADVANCING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN AREAS
The Cloverdale Conundrum
In the Cloverdale area the question that
confronted the city was, would delivering
improved walking environments and new
or better destinations of themselves deliver
social capital and social inclusion, as well as
reduce social exclusion? The project sought
to tease out whether design and construction
might encourage those women, who noted a
lack of anyone to walk with as a causal factor
in not walking as important, out into the
public realm, or was there some other more
appropriate strategy?
From a social inclusion/social exclusion
context, the city sought to understand
whether those women might have felt the
way they did had there been more or better
walking environments and destinations pro
moting interaction and sociability. They also
sought to understand the universality of
walking in social environments as a remedy
for social exclusion and to promote social
inclusion for particular groups. Finally, if the
city better understood these relationships on
small-scale projects, was it appropriate to
think about more universal applications?
Leslie et al. (2005) explain the Cloverdale
phenomenon, where in a small area with
street footpaths in good condition few are
observed walking, as a function of the design
and lot layout of the residential subdivision.
However, it is possible that the issue is more
granular and complex, environmentally
influenced and particular to place.
International benchmarking identifies moti
vations for walking, as well as the commonly
comparable and noteworthy barriers to walk
ing in major cities. In 'Making Walking
Count' Walker (2009) notes motivations for
walking include: exercise, pleasure, meeting
people, relaxation, convenience, enjoying the
environment and being outdoors. Common
personal barriers include: journey length,
time available, health and age, carrying shop
ping, perceptions of safety, as well as pre
ferring to ride while environmental barriers
include: poor lighting, poor air quality,
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uneven and cluttered pavements, fear of
crime, dirt, traffic, local amenity and safe
crossing points.
Jackson (1985, p. 272) describes them as
a function of desolation where people must
travel past front curtained windows over
looking bleak, unkempt yards. He predicts,
with the increase in automobiles, the life of the
sidewalk and front yard has largely disappeared,
the social intercourse that used to be the main
characteristic of urban life has vanished ...
there are few places as lonely and desolate as a
suburban street on a hot afternoon.
So in the Cloverdale context, the human
impact of equally desolate streetscapes is
experienced by socially isolated women.
In Jane Jacobs's view
regular contact with the local grocer, the families
on the front stoops, and the priest walking the
blocks of his parish, as well as the presence of
street fairs and conveniently traversed parks,
developed a sense of continuity and responsi
bility in local residents. The sum of such casual,
public contact at a local level - most of it for
tuitous, most of it associated with errands, all
of it metered by the person concerned and not
thrust upon him by anyone - is a feeling for the
public identity of people, a web of public respect
and trust, and a resource in time of personal and
neighborhood need. (Jacobs, 1961)
Again in the Cloverdale context, the break
down, or accidental elimination, of incidental
and fortuitous contact results in real and
personal consequences experienced in social
isolation by some women.
Perhaps the answer is even more complex.
Sociologists have sought to explain the dif
ferences in types of social capital formed in
neighbourhoods, and between neighbour
hoods of different skills and socio-economic
status. Trust is built from bonding social
capital (Larsen et al, 2004, p. 65). Larsen et al.
find that while social capital is not contingent
on social status, education and length of
residency are both significant factors in
neighbourhoods having higher levels of
bonding social capital. In their study they
refer to Massey and Denton's findings that:
in the face of persistent neighbourhood disorder,
 WALKABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND SOCIAL ISOLATION AND STREET REDESIGN
residents come to distrust their neighbours and
look upon them as threats rather than as sources
of support and assistance. (Ibid., p. 138)
This could well be what has occurred in
Corio Norlane.
Incidental contact can also significantly in
fluence community behaviours. Urry (2003)
affords them a range of social network,
mental health and social connection attri
butes. In Putnam's and Jacobs's theses,
'higher levels of social capital, all else being
equal, translate into lower levels of crime'
(Putman, 2000, p. 309). Putnam tracks the
correlation between social capital and the
murder rate, claiming social capital to be
at least as important as poverty, urbanism
and racial composition, and more important
than state education levels, rate of single
parent household and income equality as a
determinant of the homicide prevalence. In
Putnam's thesis, 'the relationship between
social capital and safe streets is real'.
Health and Walking
Health, we now know is socially determined
(WHO Europe, 2003). The more unequal
society, the worse it performs on a range
of indicators including community life and
social relations, mental health and drug
use, physical health and life expectancy,
obesity, educational performance, teenage
births, violence, imprisonment and social
mobility (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). These
phenomena are commonly referred to as the
social determinants of health (Marmot, 2005),
and the social gradient of health (Wilkinson
and Pickett, 2009).
The layering of factors, one upon another,
that results in unequal outcomes, leads to
poverty and deprivation commonly under
stood as 'social exclusion'. For Levitas et al.
(2007) social exclusion is:
a complex and multi-dimensional process. It
involves the lack or denial of resources, rights,
goods and services, and the inability to par
ticipate in the normal relationships and activities
available to the majority of people in a society,
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whether in economic, social, cultural or political
arenas. It affects both the quality of life for indi
viduals and the equity and cohesion of society as
a whole.
In a social determinants of health context,
social exclusion is both absolute and relative
to others (WHO Europe, 2003, pp. 16-17).
Here social exclusion is defined more broadly
than Levitas et al.'s perspective.
Life is short where quality is poor ... health can
also be compromised indirectly by living in
neighbourhoods blighted by concentrations of
deprivation, high unemployment, poor quality
housing, limited access to services and a poor
quality environment. (Ibid.)
Clearly poor quality walking environments, in
neighbourhoods that are poor, where amenity
feels or is unsafe, can contribute to ill health,
deprivation and social exclusion. Axhausen
(2008) cautions about the interrelated and
multi-dimensional nature of social exclusion
and impeded mobility.
Although neither promoting walkability
nor addressing unequal access to, or exclusion
from, the built environment, were explicitly
considered as strategies in alleviating social
exclusion in setting the European Council's
Common Objectives in 2000, they were
perhaps implied (Lisbon and Santa Maria
da Feira European Councils (Employment
and Social Policy), 2000). The importance
of developing strategies to address access to
health and health care, leisure, culture and
mobility were all explicit factors in a multi
dimensional approach. The case for the built
environment being a contributor to social
exclusion is increasingly stridently made.
By 2005 one of the three priority areas of the
World Health Organization's Commission
on the Social Determinants of Health was
to take action on the social determinants of
health with 'the broader aim of improving
the circumstances in which people live and
work' (Marmot, 2005, p. 1099). In the recently
released Strategic Review of England, Mar
mot (2010) argues that peoples' health and
wellbeing is influenced by the quality of
their physical environment. Access to good
 THE ROLE OF WALKING AND CYCLING IN ADVANCING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN AREAS
quality air, water, food, sporting, recreational
and cultural facilities and green spaces all
contribute to reducing inequalities. Mean
while place-based evidence of unequal built
environments resulting in unequal recreation,
social and health outcomes mounts, both in
Australia and elsewhere (CABE, 2010; Giles
Corti and Donovan, 2002; Kavanagh et al.,
2007).
In the Corio Norlane context it is very
possible these environments are not only
causal of, but also contributory to, social
exclusion. Belonging to an environment that
actively discourages healthy patterns of active
transport and physical activity can only result
in limited opportunities to promote fitness
and good health in an existing population.
Where that population already commences
life with reduced life chances, the same
environment can only exacerbate underlying
personal health conditions and contribute
to worse health outcomes than might
otherwise result if the same person was in
a more supportive built environment. But is
construction the answer? Can interventions
in the built environment change the overall
levels of social exclusion experienced by the
community and identify which interventions
might be appropriate?
Walking Evidence
Since 1996 the links between health and
moderate physical activity have been widely
accepted (United States Surgeon General,
1996). Walking has the potential to promote
primary health while protecting against the
impact and severity of health epidemics on a
community (see Minster; Pucher and Buehler,
this issue). For instance sufficient moderate
physical activity will increase a community's
overall physical fitness and health, while
limiting a rise in the rate of obesity (Booth
et al., 2005; Deipeuch et al., 2009; Ewing et
al., 2003; Frank et al., 2003, p. 79; Gebel et al.,
2009). There is evidence that it can also reduce
the rates of breast and ovarian cancers, stroke,
diabetes, social phobias and neurological and
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sensory disorders in the population (Bauman
and Owen, 1996).
Since 1996 it has been known that 'a
regular, preferably daily regime of at least
30-45 minutes of brisk walking, bicycling,
or even working around the house or
yard...' was recommended to 'reduce your
risks of developing coronary heart disease,
hypertension, colon cancer, and diabetes'
(United States Surgeon General, 1996, p. 3).
These diseases are related in part to being
overweight, physically unfit, or stressed.
Walking has the capacity to be almost
universally inclusive as it is open and free
to everyone. Walking usually requires no
additional cost to join in and so is the most
egalitarian physical activity. For Sauter et
al. (2008) 'walking is ... the most socially
inclusive and democratic form of transport'.
Walking can occur as a normal part of the
day thus requiring no special or particular
attention (Frank et al., 2003, p. 65). Walking
most often requires no additional skills other
than those you learn as a child, and those
skills stay with most people for most of their
lives.
Walking, as other physical exercise, pro
motes good mental health outcomes, and
is particularly important for population
sub-groups that might find other forms of
exercise more challenging, including the
elderly (Ibid.., p. 87).
Evidence suggests that better designed
more supportive walking environments pro
vide for safer walking by reducing accidents
caused by slipping, tripping and falling. This
is particularly important for elderly persons
(Alexander and Hausdorff, 2008; Australian
Local Government Association, 2006; Balfour
and Kaplan, 2002; Bath and Morgan, 1999;
Bauman and Owen, 1996; Chang et al.,
2004; Frank et al., 2003, pp. 87-92). In this
community, with a lower life expectancy
and a significant proportion of younger
persons on disability pensions, promoting
moderate physical activity through walking
in increasingly supportive environments
would appear appropriate.
 WALKABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND SOCIAL ISOLATION AND STREET REDESIGN
Better walking environments can also
reduce road deaths which are currently
one of the top ten global causes of death, a
pronounced trend particularly for younger
persons (WHO, 2009).
The promotion of walking can also change
perceptions of a community as being socially
excluded when a previously unsupportive
environment is transformed into one which is
delightful, supportive and engaging. If most
people can walk, are encouraged to walk, the
environments we walk in encourage us to
continue to walk, and encourage conviviality,
then walking has the potential to make people
feel they belong. Walking has the capacity to
promote a sense of being included within
public spaces and places. Welcoming public
spaces can promote access and equality by
including all comers. They can momentarily
mask the social gradient while increasing
potential that the space might encourage
development of bridging social capital
for those within the space (Putman, 2000,
p. 22). Welcoming spaces can also reduce
crime and the fear of crime by promoting
relationships between users and increasing
eyes on the street surveillance thus building
trust, reciprocity and enhancing social capital
(Ibid., p. 19).
By promoting equality and equality of op
portunity walking supports health. Walking
avoids discrimination and social exclusion
which are 'socially and psychologically
damaging, materially costly, and harmful to
health' (WHO Europe, 2003, p. 16).
Social Exclusion Evidence and Walking
Changing the built environment can change
the messages we give daily to a population
about being important and valued as well as
encouraging healthier patterns of physical
activity and better behaviours. It can change
community social capital outcomes by
encouraging incidental meetings and building
neighbourliness. There is a question whether
the provision of high amenity walking and
social public spaces deliver social inclusion in
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its most elemental sense, by reducing social
exclusion. Perhaps the benefits fall to those
able to take advantage of changed conditions,
by not exacerbating the pre-existing factors
which otherwise cause social exclusion in the
first place.
The International Charter for Walking
(Walk21, 2006) identifies the promotion of
walking as contributing to 'social inclusion'.
Implementation of universal design strategies
has demonstrated our capacity to design
socially inclusive spaces successfully, that
enable most people, including those charac
teristically defined as having a variety of
mobility challenges, to access most places,
most often, and enjoy them. Through facili
tating a broad church usage of walking
environments and public spaces, built en
vironments demonstrably provide a good
basis for an active, convivial and engaged
society, and a platform upon which an
increasingly inclusive community might live,
work and play.
The manner in which we measure and
track successful implementation of the
Charter should resolve whether socially
inclusive built environments either deliver
social inclusion by reducing social exclusion,
or just the potential that social inclusion
might occur in the space. Arguably, although
socially inclusive spaces have the possibility
of including everyone, spaces which actively
promote 'social inclusion' are spaces where
rich and poor, black and white, male and
female, old and young, able bodied and less
able bodied are welcome to gather and use,
places which they enjoy equally without
barrier or distinction. Therefore it is possible,
but not necessary, that socially inclusive
spaces promote social inclusion.
To be clear, I am not arguing that socially
inclusive spaces should be all things to all
people, all the time, nor can all activities or
spaces attract or include everyone. Activi
ties in spaces and elements of any built en
vironment will provide social, cultural and
religious unambiguous and subliminal
messages to different groups within any com
 THE ROLE OF WALKING AND CYCLING IN ADVANCING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN AREAS
munity about being welcome and belonging
in particular public spaces, or not. Sometimes
clues are more obvious, like the bouncer in
the shopping mall moving young people
on, or the spikes preventing sitting and
skateboarding on inviting granite surfaces.
But built environment messaging about
belonging can also be oblique, internalized
and hidden from view. Spaces that pre
dominantly provide high-end shopping and
dining opportunities but are without publicly
provided seats or amenity, exclude all those
unable to afford the price of a coffee, or the
clothes required to look and feel good about
using the space. Likewise spaces occupied
by some people will not necessarily be
welcoming for others.
One of the most obvious and durable
messages to indicate to people that they
are welcome in urban spaces at a local level
is the care and attention paid to street and
local parkland environments. CABE (2010)
documented unequal treatment in the pro
vision and maintenance of parklands for
those less well off and more likely to be
socially excluded throughout the United
Kingdom.
The Challenge of Tracking Results
Recently Walk211 adopted a benchmarking
methodology for comparing the performance
of cities. Walker (2009) notes the importance
of measuring social inclusion and interaction
and sociability, and that:
In any evaluation effectiveness is most often
about counting the growing numbers of people
occupying these spaces across the day and night,
but increasingly about measuring and monitoring
a reduction in physical and psychological barriers
to using the public realm for walking.
The challenge of providing space without
physical and psychological barriers is clearly
on the agenda. But is social inclusion what
is measured in the performance of public
spaces?
Sauter et al. (2008) establish a multitude
of health, wellbeing, social and design
dimensions for measurement. Suggested
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measures include the following two groups:
'Competences (disabilities), physical activity
(walking), health and health outcomes, and
the walking environment, accessibility, public
space quality and infrastructure provisions
('walkability')' (Ibid., p. 3). Clearly these
measures address physical barriers posed
by an environment. They enhance health
through promoting walking, and support the
positive social benefits walking environments
can have on a population. However some
disparity remains between the suggested
measures and concluding that delightful
built environments that promote walking
can remedy social exclusion.
They discuss their approach to social
inclusion and grapple with measurement that
might allow identification of the excluded
from any count. They note:
Observations on gender and age categories as
well as information on presence of disadvantaged
persons and escorted children can provide
information about social exclusion or inclusion
in a public space ... women are more selective
in their choice of sojourn spaces than men, and
that an increase in the proportion of females
voluntarily spending time in a space is a reliable
indicator of improved environmental quality and
perceived security. (Ibid., p. 35)
Arguably measuring social exclusion or in
clusion by selecting people by their appear
ance is problematic but using gender appears
an even cruder approximation for indicating
social inclusion. For instance, if more women
of a particular class, race or income cohort
find some spaces more welcoming, we are
still not able to identify within those counted
the use and impact of that space on those
otherwise socially excluded.
Analysis of spaces, and appropriately
interpreting the data of both those parti
cipating, and those not using them has
tantalized Gehl Architects (Richter-Friis van
Deurs, 2009). Key Quality Indicators that
make visible the extent of a socially inclusive
space include the analysis of sitting in public
spaces. As this work indicates, although there
are commonalities between places, places are
 WALKABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND SOCIAL ISOLATION AND STREET REDESIGN
also unique, with their own set of issues as
design challenges, and environments for
different and unique clusters of people who
relate to each other in particular and unique
ways within spaces.
Conclusion
Although some things remain countable
and understood in this context, others
can only be understood by sophisticated
observation, surveying and tracking changes
in attitudes and population health over
time. Acknowledging the limitations of both
theory, and counting is important in thinking
about the built environment. For walking
and walkable environments to be solutions
to social exclusion they need to be able to
deliver change in the context of encouraging
participation in normal activities available to
those otherwise socially excluded people, and
improving their quality of life.
Perhaps the Corio Norlane and Cloverdale
Walkability + projects will go some way
towards this. But these, as many other
projects, have not been designed for rigorous
evaluation. They suffer from a lack of
rigorous baseline that might provide a direct
and causal explanation for exclusion for
those without people with whom to walk. A
rigorous base line and evaluation might also
provide explanation about which measures
were most efficacious as either a single or
cumulative strategy, potentially differently
at different points in time.
In any increasingly sophisticated analysis
of the challenge in promoting walkability,
evaluation of measures of success must also
be about promoting socially inclusive prac
tices, and socially inclusive environments,
ensuring spaces work at unifying all peoples
across the various social stratifications,
beyond just the less physically able, by en
couraging those otherwise socially excluded
into the public realm.
In the Corio Norlane context arguably the
social exclusionary built environment impact
is four fold. The place is the location of many
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disadvantaged persons. Visual prompts
identify a social excluded population in a
place and reinforce that sense within the
population. A function of the social exclusion
experienced in a place is further isolating as
it reduces trust. The place also, in and of
itself, contributes to social exclusion by not
protecting against physical and mental illness
and social isolation amongst its members, and
perhaps being causal of illness as well.
In an urban regeneration context, the
distinction between socially inclusive spaces
and spaces that promote social inclusion is
important particularly when developing
strategies to design and build public spaces,
or when accounting for built environment
cost, benefits, uses and users into the future.
It is important that these spaces are
redesigned with the community, from the
bottom up, in a way that is sensitive both to
inclusion in the planning and development
processes, and in the implementation. The
public realm has to be inclusive at a personal
level, having participants identify with having
contributed to its redesign, having invested in
it and own it in part, suggesting to each and
every resident they are welcome and belong.
It also has to change the messaging about
societal value and become an environment
that people are proud to be in.
NOTE
1. Walk21 exists to champion the development
of healthy, sustainable and efficient communities
where people choose to walk (www.walk21.com).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would thank all those who participated in the
project, those who funded us, and who trusted
us sufficiently to allow us to work with them
through ideas about the built environment and
how to make a difference. Special thanks to
Peta Burgoyne, Vicki Shelton, Paul Jamieson
and Cr. Kylie Fisher, all of the City of Greater
Geelong; Sue Hartigan and the Cloverdale
Community Centre Committee of Management,
Jenny Donovan and Max Walton of David Lock
Associates.