Health and Community Design is a comprehensive examination of how the built environmencourages or discourages physical activity, drawing together insights from a range of research on the relationships between urban form and public health. It provides important information about the factors that influence decisions about physical activity and modes of travel, and about how land use patterns can be changed to help overcome barriers to physical activity. Chapters examine: the historical relationship between health and urban form in the United States why urban and suburban developmshould be designed to promote moderate types of physical activity the divergneeds and requirements of differgroups of people and the role of those needs in setting policy how differsettings make it easier or more difficult to incorporate walking and bicycling into everyday activitiesA concluding chapter reviews the arguments presented and sketches a research agenda for the future.
