About the Project

neighborhood structure is a precondition in defining individual and community activity patterns. Social class, race, along with the sense of value of personal well-being, are key determinants of travel behavior.

The team will gather data from six two-mile square neighborhoods in the Detroit Region. Surveys, approved through the IRB process and tested in a Lansing pilot study, will be mailed to 1600 households in the two inner-city Detroit neighborhoods and 800 households in four suburban Detroit neighborhoods. This will enable the research team to focus on urban form, travel behavior, physical activity, and obesity within the context of diverse socioeconomic conditions and race/ethnic populations. View Detroit sites where data collection takes place.

• Measuring neighborhood accessibility and quantifying functional differences for the neighborhoods
• Exploring how perceptions of travel behavior vary by income, race, age, and gender
• Exploring travel differences among the inner-city Detroit residents compared to residents in Birmingham, Ann Arbor, Bloomfield and West Bloomfield
• Exploring the association between obesity and accessibility
• Exploring travel behavior across neighborhoods as modified by neighborhood structures and connectivity
• Exploring urban structural modifiers of behavior including system feedbacks, thresholds, and dynamics in a complex systems simulation framework

Statistical methods of relevance include dummy variable and polynomial regression, location-allocation models, discriminant analysis, and multinomial logit models. A dynamic spatial simulation-modeling environment will be employed to characterize, link, and model structural determinants, feedback systems, thresholds, and individual, household, and community behaviors.