BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.0.1//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:20260717T140051Z 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\nWe present a methodological approach that combines geospatial analysis of street-network centrality of the contemporary state (using space syntax measures of integration and choice) with historical urban morphology and land-use analysis. This enables us to quantify long-term changes in buildi ng footprint\, frontage length\, land-use density and diversity\, and rela te these to the evolving role of high streets within local and city-scale movement networks.\n\nOur findings suggest that the long-term sustainabili ty of high streets depends on their capacity to adapt while maintaining th e spatial qualities that support everyday life. In particular\, we demonst rate how the interaction between street-network configuration and built fo rm has shaped the evolution of fine-grained\, diverse land-use patterns th at promote walkability\, sociability\, and access to services.\n\nFinally\ , we argue that understanding these urban design processes can inform heal th and low-carbon transport strategies. High streets naturally attract lar ge numbers of everyday trips because of their accessibility and concentrat ion of destinations. However\, whether these trips are undertaken on foot\ , by bicycle\, public transport\, or by car depends not only on transport provision but also on the design of the local environment – and its evol ution – through time. Planning high streets as fine-grained\, walkable\, and socially active places can therefore contribute simultaneously to hea lthier populations and more sustainable\, low-carbon mobility. Indeed\, tr ansport planning\, as Christopher Martin has recently suggested\, needs to be treated as the “mechanism through which social and economic opportun ities are produced.” Failing to consider accessibility on foot in the fi rst 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/Students-on-high-s treet-near-market-stalls-section-home2.jpg 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