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SUMMARY:Predicting health and wealth performance within cities using netwo
 rk models - Professor Chris Webster\, Professor of Urban Planning and Head
  of the School of Planning and Geography at Cardiff University
DTSTART:20121114T160000Z
DTEND:20121114T170000Z
UID:TALK41474@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Joanna Laver
DESCRIPTION:There is a growing interest in network models of cities as too
 ls both for urban analysis and prescriptive design. Cardiff University's I
 nstitute for Sustainable Places is one of four groups around the world to 
 have developed software to analyse accessibility by a mix of geometric and
  topological measures at variable spatial scales. sDNA (spatial Domain Net
 work Analysis) is an advanced tool based on ideas first implemented in Spa
 ce Syntax\, which measures the global and local systemic accessibility of 
 nodes or links in an urban grid. In this talk\, Professor Webster will bri
 efly describe the method and then\, using research data\, demonstrate its 
 utility in explaining and predicting (a) land values and (b) health outcom
 es. It turns out that the complex information contained within a simple ne
 twork model of a city's street grid can be used to predict land values wit
 h a high degree of accuracy. Every urban scholar knows that accessible loc
 ations are generally more valuable\; but it is less easy to say which acce
 ssible parts of the city are likely to yield net positive urban externalit
 ies and which are likely to yield net negative externalities. sDNA\, Space
  Syntax and other such models use urban configuration information alone do
  this as well as offering many other insights and predictions\, such as wh
 ere housing market boundaries are likely to fall. If street connectivity m
 etrics can predict land value\, which is a derived demand (leaving aside s
 peculation\, land is valued ultimately by what use can be made of it)\, th
 en they can also predict the spatial distribution of other phenomenon of i
 nterest. Professor Webster reports on an epidemiological study that seeks 
 to explain in the finest detail ever attempted\, the correlation between b
 uilt environment design/configuration and individual health outcomes. Hold
 ing constant a comprehensive set of personal health\, social\, environment
 al and built environmental variables\, a location's 'urbanity' (a particul
 ar type of accessibility)\, land use mix and topography all have a signifi
 cant correlation with (hypothesised impact on) Body Mass Index (a measure 
 of obesity) and mental health. Urban design\, it appears\, can be scientif
 ically shown to influence both private wealth (land values) and public hea
 lth (the distribution of individual morbidity outcomes)\n\nChris Webster i
 s Professor of Urban Planning and Head of the School of Planning and Geogr
 aphy at Cardiff University where he has been teaching and researching sinc
 e 1984. Before taking up a university post he worked as an urban planner i
 n London and as an economic modeller in a development bank in Bangkok. He 
 is often regarded as an economist because of his style of analysis\, but m
 ost of his economics has\, in fact\, been learnt on the job. He is committ
 ed to interdisciplinary research\, believing that triangulation across par
 adigms and methods leads to greater insight than is often found in mono-di
 sciplinary scholarship.\n
LOCATION:Mill Lane Lecture Room 1
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