Impact of a new mixed-use urban community on physical activity levels

Inadequate physical activity is a major and largely preventable public health problem. The extraordinary promise of changing the environment to be more supportive of physical activity could affect community populations on a relatively permanent basis by consistently helping individuals be more active, a task that has not been achieved by individually oriented interventions. Large proportions of people in the United States live in sprawling and exclusively residential environments associated with low levels of recreational and travel-related physical activity. Developments based on new urbanist principles with higher residential density, mixed land use, and accessible parks, shops, restaurants, and places to walk, have emerged to counter urban sprawl and encourage physical activity. Despite these advances, the diverse fields of urban planning and public health have not used consistent measurements, making it difficult to compare their research findings.;A cross-sectional, pre- and post-assessment was used to 1) examine whether moving to Mueller, a new urbanist community, promotes physical activity and non-motorized travel behavior, and 2) explore individual, psychosocial, and environmental predictors of physical activity. Residents increased their total physical activity by 66.4 minutes per week after moving to Mueller. The increase was in moderate-intensity activity, specifically walking inside the neighborhood for recreation, rather than transport-related activity. Findings suggest residents selected their new neighborhood for reasons associated with walkability, but the environment also seemed to have had an impact. The biggest increase in physical activity was seen among those who were the least active prior to moving to Mueller.;These data provide support that the environment can impact the physical activity levels of residents who relocate to this type of community. Therefore, developing new urbanist-inspired neighborhoods is imperative, given that physical activity they facilitate would likely be reduced if individuals who choose such neighborhoods were limited to conventional or less-walkable communities. Developing neighborhoods based on new urbanist principles should be a priority. Moreover, overall predictors of total physical activity and walking inside the neighborhood differed. These findings suggest that focusing on behavior-specific research will lead to a better understanding of determinants of physical activity.