BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.3//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:0-7@healthylowcarbontransporthub.ac.uk DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260928T130000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260928T140000 DTSTAMP:20260907T135110Z URL:https://healthylowcarbontransporthub.ac.uk/events/webinar-shaping-heal thy-high-streets-through-walkability-and-sociability/ SUMMARY:Webinar: Shaping healthy high streets through walkability and socia bility DESCRIPTION:Shaping healthy high streets through walkability and sociabilit y \n\nLaura Vaughan and Adriana Ortegon\, UCL Bartlett School of Architec ture and the Healthy Urban Places project\n\nHigh streets are fundamental to everyday life\, providing access to healthcare\, community services\, r etail\, and social and civic institutions. As such\, they have the potenti al to support health by enabling routine movement\, access to essential re sources\, and opportunities for social interaction.\n\nThis presentation e xamines how the health-promoting role of high streets has evolved over tim e and identifies the spatial characteristics that enable or constrain it. Drawing on longitudinal evidence from eight high streets in Bradford and L iverpool (UK)\, we explore how health-supportive spatial conditions have b een assembled\, transformed\, retained\, or lost over the past 120 years.\ n\n[caption id="attachment_769" align="alignnone" width="300"] llustration by Karl Jilg with details added by Per Axbom[/caption]\n\nWe present a m ethodological approach that combines geospatial analysis of street-network centrality of the contemporary state (using space syntax measures of inte gration and choice) with historical urban morphology and land-use analysis . This enables us to quantify long-term changes in building footprint\, fr ontage length\, land-use density and diversity\, and relate these to the e volving role of high streets within local and city-scale movement networks .\n\nOur findings suggest that the long-term sustainability of high street s depends on their capacity to adapt while maintaining the spatial qualiti es that support everyday life. In particular\, we demonstrate how the inte raction between street-network configuration and built form has shaped the evolution of fine-grained\, diverse land-use patterns that promote walkab ility\, sociability\, and access to services.\n\nFinally\, we argue that u nderstanding these urban design processes can inform health and low-carbon transport strategies. High streets naturally attract large numbers of eve ryday trips because of their accessibility and concentration of destinatio ns. However\, whether these trips are undertaken on foot\, by bicycle\, pu blic transport\, or by car depends not only on transport provision but als o on the design of the local environment – and its evolution – through time. Planning high streets as fine-grained\, walkable\, and socially act ive places can therefore contribute simultaneously to healthier population s and more sustainable\, low-carbon mobility. Indeed\, transport planning\ , as Christopher Martin has recently suggested\, needs to be treated as th e “mechanism through which social and economic opportunities are produce d.” Failing to consider accessibility on foot in the first instance\, is likely to reduce people’s quality of life.\n\n \;\n\n \; ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/healthy-lo w-carbon-transport/wp-content/uploads/sites/532/2026/07/Unhealthy-streets- Jilg-Axbom.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260329T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR