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WALKABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND SOCIAL ISOLATION AND STREET REDESIGN

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 perspective, it is possible to develop and design inclusive spaces in communities. But for which people? For any design to meet the requirements 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 planning, community participation and engagement 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 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

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 eyeto-eye contact. Giles-Corti and Donovan (2003, p. 1586) noted the significantly higher likelihood of a person walking in circumstances where he or she had someone to walk with. Flint (2006, p. 52) explored the nature of 461

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 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

Figure 1. 462

do exactly that – the Corio Norlane Active Transport Project and the Cloverdale Walkability + – both in the City of Geelong. These projects are designed around promoting active transport in an area where walking infrastructure is in comparatively good condition, 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. 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

Corio Norlane Active Transport. (By courtesy of David Lock Associates) BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4


post-war urban sprawl around new industrial nodes. The Corio Norlane area covers approximately 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 finegrained 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 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

infrastructure would appear to support walking 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 renewal area because of a range of particular characteristics, many of which are both causal and result in less than equal outcomes 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 463


Table 1. Ranking of selected indices for postcode 3214. (Source: Vinson (2007) in Collaborations, David Lock Associates et al., 2009, p. 23) Indicator (low indicator = poor performance )

Ranking out of a maximum score of 723

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

4 6 6 17 35 45 45 55 68 72 81 90 101 147

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 universality, 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 464

for a community building, parkland and walkability design exercise, and to contribute to an evidence base for a health impact 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 residents 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 longterm residents, the view appeared to be that BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4


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 statistically significant response, having no companion to walk with (4.0 per cent) outnumbered 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 patterns, 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 reinforcing social exclusion. For the Corio Norlane projects the process of engaging people in redesigning the built environment was important. It was BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

deliberately designed to be inclusive. Multilayered 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 agreeing 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. 465


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 promoting 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 motivations for walking, as well as the commonly comparable and noteworthy barriers to walking 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 shopping, perceptions of safety, as well as preferring to ride while environmental barriers include: poor lighting, poor air quality, 466

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 overlooking 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 responsibility in local residents. The sum of such casual, public contact at a local level – most of it fortuitous, 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 breakdown, 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 differences in types of social capital formed in neighbourhoods, and between neighbourhoods 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, BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4


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 influence community behaviours. Urry (2003) affords them a range of social network, mental health and social connection attributes. 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 understood 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 participate in the normal relationships and activities available to the majority of people in a society, BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas. It affects both the quality of life for individuals 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 multidimensional 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, Marmot (2010) argues that peoples’ health and wellbeing is influenced by the quality of their physical environment. Access to good 467


quality air, water, food, sporting, recreational and cultural facilities and green spaces all contribute to reducing inequalities. Meanwhile place-based evidence of unequal built environments resulting in unequal recreation, social and health outcomes mounts, both in Australia and elsewhere (CABE, 2010; GilesCorti 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 468

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, promotes 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 provide 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. BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4


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 opportunity 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 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

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 characteristically defined as having a variety of mobility challenges, to access most places, most often, and enjoy them. Through facilitating a broad church usage of walking environments and public spaces, built environments 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. Activities in spaces and elements of any built environment will provide social, cultural and religious unambiguous and subliminal messages to different groups within any com469


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 predominantly 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 provision 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 470

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 inclusion by selecting people by their appearance 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 participating, 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 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4


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 practices, and socially inclusive environments, ensuring spaces work at unifying all peoples across the various social stratifications, beyond just the less physically able, by encouraging 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 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 36 NO 4

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.

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