According to La Trobe University economist, Professor Harry Clarke, there’s a “bone-headed argument making the rounds” that reducing the number of liquor stores in a neighbourhood will reduce domestic violence. The bone-headed argument comes from Michael Livingston, a research fellow at the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre in Melbourne. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Livingston studied [...]
January 27, 2012 – 12:50 am
A common view among politicians, the media, planners and health professionals is that urban sprawl is a key cause of the modern obesity epidemic. Higher population densities and more walkable neighbourhoods, many argue, are an essential strategy for fighting this scourge of the affluent lifestyle, e.g see here and here. The trouble is both propositions are dubious. [...]
September 24, 2011 – 2:35 pm
I know people who have the option of driving but instead take the train so they can improve their physical fitness. It takes longer than driving, but since they’re going to work anyway, walking to the station is an easy way to exercise. It makes good sense; I’ve walked or cycled to work at various [...]
September 21, 2011 – 7:43 pm
The received wisdom is it costs much less to provide infrastructure for an inner suburban dwelling than for one in the outer suburbs. However, as I noted last time, we don’t know how big the difference is or even, for that matter, if it’s positive or negative – we simply lack reliable evidence. There are [...]
It’s often pointed out that residents of the inner city, on average, are less obese than residents of the outer suburbs. Since the inner city is denser, more walkable and has much better public transport access than any other part of the metropolitan area, the conclusion seems obvious to many – a key strategy to [...]
The link between the physical environment and health outcomes like obesity is fraught. The Victorian Legislative Council’s Environment and Planning References Committee should bear this in mind as it goes about its new inquiry into the contribution of environmental design to public health. The Committee might want to start with the first chart in the [...]
Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia. Your commute is in fact killing you, according to this story published in Slate last week. And it’s bad for others too – in his Melbourne address last month, Robert Putnam argued that a ten minute increase in commute time reduces social capital by [...]
This article in The Sunday Age reminds us that, for all its virtues, there’s a dark side to density. In Melbourne’s CBD, it include drunks urinating in doorways, assaults, noise and rubbish dropped heedlessly anywhere. Physical proximity has driven human progress for millennia, driving trade and exchange. But it also brought severe problems, like the [...]
Dr Andrew Leigh reckons the massive drop in support for the ALP in NSW isn’t due to any inherent defect in party organisation but rather to the broader trend of declining social capital. I think he’s pulling a long bow. But the bigger question to my mind is whether social capital really is on the [...]
I’ve said before that there isn’t one ‘Melbourne’ – there are multiple ‘Melbournes’. The home range of Melburnians is pretty restricted – the great bulk of their travel is made within a region defined by their home municipality and contiguous municipalities. Many suburbanites rarely visit the city centre, much less the other side of town. [...]
