What is this?
Information and resources for professionals working on urban form issues. Specific focus on Healthy Spaces and Places, a partnership program between the Planning Institute of Australia, Australian Local Government Association and Heart Foundation.
- What design elements make a place conducive to just sitting and relaxing?
- What changes to your neighbourhood would make it feel friendlier and make you happier and healthier?
- What makes you decide to walk instead of drive?
Healthy Spaces and Places helps answer these questions through effective guidance and design principles.
Healthy Spaces and Places is a national guide for planning, designing and creating sustainable communities that encourage healthy and active living. It is a unique collaboration between the Australian Local Government Association, the Planning Institute of Australia and the National Heart Foundation of Australia.
Foremost, Healthy Spaces and Places is for planners, because they can help tackle some of Australia’s major preventable health issues by planning places that encourage us to be more active as part of our daily lives by walking, cycling and using public transport.
But it’s also for anyone who through good urban design, can make a difference to the overall health and wellbeing of Australians – design professionals, health professionals, the property development industry, governments and the community.
Did you know?
- Obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia, with increasing prevalence in both adults and children (MODI, 2011). Authorities view it as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century.
- Obesity costs Australian taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion every year in direct health costs. In Australia, more than 17 million Australians are overweight or obese (MODI, 2011).
- The 2007-08 National Health Survey found that 72% of Australians aged 15 years and over were classified as sedentary or having low exercise levels. Of these, just under half (49%) recorded no or very little exercise in the previous two weeks (sedentary exercise level) and 51% recorded a low level of exercise.
- Planning healthier environments that encourage us to be more active is one direct way of cutting health expenditure, freeing funds (at least in theory) for increased reinvestment in healthy infrastructure such as green space and retrofitting for cycling and walking, public transport upgrades.
Healthy Spaces and Places supports and complements planning and design initiatives throughout Australia, including:
- The National Urban Policy and the Australian Urban Design Protocol
- National Food Plan
- National Preventative Health Agency
- Green Building Council of Australia Green Star Communities
- State-based healthy active living coalitions
- Healthy by Design or equivalents
Healthy Places and Spaces can be applied to all parts of Australia, from metropolitan areas to regional cities, towns, villages and remote communities.
What can I do?
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Reference
Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute (MODI) (2011). Facts and Figures – Obesity in Australia, accessed 21/7/2011, http://www.modi.monash.edu.au/obesity-facts-figures/obesity-in-australia/.