SUPER GREEN - the International Academy of Design and Health

Urban DesignTable 1 Research protocol for the street vendor studysome of vendors’ health problems.Compared to Magsaysay Avenue andAssumption Road, Harrison Road isconsidered the ‘healthiest’ site of all. Unlikeother sites with similar traffi c volumes, thisstreet has the best air quality conditions. Amajor explanation for such good air qualityis that the two sites on Harrison Street areadjacent to the main public park in BaguioCity. Burnham Park is about an acre of greenthat stretches along Harrison Street. Itstrees and good wind circulation mitigate theimpact of vehicle exhaust on vendors’ healthconditions. Those located on this street didnot report as many ailments as the others.Design and planning implicationsThese results clearly demonstrate therelationship between health and the builtenvironment. In the case of Baguio City, adrastic transportation plan to decrease thevolume of traffi c in the central businessdistrict will improve the health of notonly street vendors but also the generalpopulation that live, work, recreate and goto school in the area.A conventional solution would be toconstruct a bypass around the urban core– but that approach is far from beingsustainable. To preserve the character of thecity’s centre, highways should not be builtbecause these structures will only increasethe dark and cold tunnel effect of urbanspaces beneath them.Rather, a framework that encouragessatellite service centres around the city willdecrease the number of vehicles enteringthe urban core.Banks, professional offi ces, medical offi cesand other businesses can relocate todisperse services around the city.An important part of the environmentaldesign plan is to ‘pedestrianise’ severalstreets in the CBD. This move will decongestYear Research focus Research methodology1999 Social networks, microeconomicnature of street enterprisesBuilt environment assessment2000 Relationships between streetvendors and adjacent formalbusinesses2003 Health and environmentalassessmentthe sidewalks and encourage the use ofurban spaces for more community-oriented(social, leisure, cultural, and arts) activitiesand active living, while increasing theireconomic vitality.Several cities in India and Indonesia haveclosed major streets to accommodatepedestrians 9 . Evaluations of these planningstrategies have yielded positive results.Businesses have increased their sales, airquality improves, users are more encouragedto stay in these places, crime decreases andurban spaces are enlivened.Lastly, to improve the health of streetvendors and urban residents living, workingor visiting in the CBD, a greening movementshould be embarked upon. Restoringexisting parks to better health and plantingvegetation around the CBD will improve airquality and decrease the effects of the urbanheat during the hot, summer months.Next stepsThis longitudinal study of street vendorsis an example of a transdisciplinary work.Survey of 219 vendorsPhysical inventory of vendor sitesVisual documentation and informalinterviewsSurvey of 187 vendorsPhysical inventory of vendor sites2004 Air quality Air quality monitoring on 30 vendorsites and one central fi xed site2006 Health screening and visualdocumentationMedical screening for 15 vendors (e.g.physicals, blood tests, oximeter readingsat vendor sites)In-depth health survey for 10 vendorsVisual documentation of 30 vendor sitesThe extensive quantitative and qualitativedata that was collected provided adescription of places and people whichhelped us understand the relationshipbetween the built environment, architectureand the health of, in this case, street vendorsin the Philippines..However, to validate the implications ofthe study results, a tangible intervention, suchas implementing a transportation schemeto decrease traffi c in the central businessdistrict, is necessary. Medical screening tests,pre- and post-intervention, can be extendedto include the entire sample of vendors.These next steps would indeed put closureto the entire project.AuthorsMary Anne Alabanza Akers, PhD, Dean,School of Architecture and Planning, MorganState University, Baltimore, Maryland, USTimothy A Akers, PhD, assistant dean forresearch, School of Community Healthand Public Policy, Morgan State University,Baltimore, Maryland, USReferences1. United Nations. Human settlement country profi le.Washington DC: United Nations Department ofEconomic and Social Affairs, Division for SustainableDevelopment; 2004. Retrieved August 31, 2007 fromwww.un.org/esa/agenda21/natlinfo/countr/philipi/humansettlements2004.pdf2. Furman A and Mehmet L. Semi-occupationalexposure to lead: a case study of child and adolescentstreet vendors in Istanbul. Environmental Research 2002;83(1): 41-45.3. Pick WM, Ross MH and Dada Y. The reproductiveand occupational health of women street vendors inJohannesburg, South Africa. Social Science & Medicine2001; 54(2): 193-204.4. Ruchirawat M, Navasumrit P, Settachan D,Tuntaviroon J, Buthbumrung N, Sharma S.. Measurementof genotoxic air pollutant exposures in street vendorsand school children in and near Bangkok. Toxicology andApplied Pharmacology 2005; 206(2):207-214..5. Akers MAA, Sowell R and Akers TA. A conceptualmodel for planning and designing healthy urbanlandscapes in the Third World: a study of street vendorsin the Philippines. Landscape Review 2004; 9(1):45–9.6. Akers MAA, Akers TA. Urbanization, land useand health in Baguio City, Philippines. In G. Guest (Ed.),Globalization, health, and the environment: An integratedperspective. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press; 2005.7. Cassidy BE, Akers MAA, Akers TA, Hall DB, RyanPB, Bayer CW, Naeher LP. Particulate matter andcarbon monoxide multiple regression models usingenvironmental characteristics in a high diesel-use area ofBaguio City, Philippines. Science of the Total Environment2007; 381 (1-3): 47-58.8. Hippocrates. On airs, waters, and places. 400 BCE.(F. Adams, Trans.) Retrieved September 30, 2006 fromhttp://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.1.1.html9. Institute for Transportation and DevelopmentPolicy. Pedestrianizing Asian cities. Sustainable Transport2003; 22-25. Retrieved November 10, 2006 from www.itdp.org/documents/st_magazine/ITDP-st_magazine-15.pdfWORLD HEALTH DESIGN | October Summer 2008 00 59