About Matthew

My name is Matthew Young. My major is in Computer Science and my interests are computers (of course), video games, programming, and politics (for entertainment).

Site Revisions

  1. I tagged every post with keywords that make it easier for researchers to find useful information on my site.
  2. I revised the titles of my posts to better represent their content and to make it easier for researchers to find useful information. For instance, instead of just having “Reading Summary One” in the title, I included the title of the article I was summarizing.
  3. I added better spacing (paragraphs, spaces between text and picts, etc.), improving the aesthetic of my posts.

2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard (Annotated Bibliography Thirteen)

Concluding Thoughts. 23. Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Aug. 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-scorecard-2015.pdf>.

This is report done by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute that discusses traffic congestion, what causes it, and what can be done to reduce it. In the report traffic congestion is described as a kind of tax that wastes the time and money of people. The report points to a number of contributory causes such as poor public transportation and lack of alternatives to automobiles.

The Built Environment and its Effects on Atlanta’s Traffic Congestion (Built Environment Analysis Final)

Atlanta, Georgia possesses higher amounts of traffic than cities like Boston, Massachusetts because the city’s built environment encourages it. City planners and policy makers must realize this and take steps towards changing what they can about the existing built environment to alleviate this problem as well as making sure their future designs account for the impact the built environment has on traffic; otherwise, the traffic in Atlanta will continue to disproportionately worsen as the population grows, bringing with it longer commutes and more pollution.

 

storm0622JG_01_FOCALYour typical day in Atlanta. source

 

Before I describe what exactly it is about the built environment in Atlanta that encourages traffic, I’m going to present some facts about Atlanta in comparison to Boston. My goal with this comparison is to demonstrate that Atlanta indeed has a traffic problem and to provide some interesting differences between the two cities and raise some questions. In Atlanta the population density is about 3,360 people per square mile while Boston, Massachusetts has a population density of about 13,340 people per square mile. That’s a stark difference and under normal circumstances one would assume based on this information that Atlanta would have much less traffic congestion. Surprisingly, that is untrue. According to INRIX, a company interested in using technology and scientific analysis to improve traffic, the average number of hours wasted in traffic in Atlanta during 2015 was 59 versus 64 in Boston. Another interesting discrepancy between Atlanta and Boston is the number of people who own automobiles. In Atlanta 20.39% of the population owns no vehicle and 42.20% of the population owns one vehicle. On the other hand, 39.51% of Boston’s population owns no vehicle and 38.51% of the population owns one vehicle. Based on this data, there is a pretty sizable gap between the two cities as it pertains to owning a vehicle.

 

chart

 

The aforementioned information raises some interesting questions. Namely, why does Atlanta contain a disproportionately higher number of automobiles and similar traffic congestion levels despite having a much smaller population density compared to Boston? I believe there are multiple reasons and they all have to do with the built environments found in both cities. In no particular order, I’m specifically talking about the differences between the two built environments with respect to bike lanes, public transportation, walkability, and geographical size.

Regarding biking, public transit, and walking, Atlanta earned the respective scores 50, 44, and 46 out of 100 from the website walkscore. Comparatively, Boston earned the scores 70, 74, and 80. The algorithm behind the score is based on a number of factors. The score for biking considers the number of hills, length of bike lanes and their destinations, and number of commuters. The score for public transit considers how many options are available nearby, their type, and how many stops there are. Finally, the score for walking considers how long it takes for pedestrians to walk to amenities, intersection density, block length, and population density. According to the score chart for biking and public transit provided by walkscore, Atlanta is described as a place where “most errands require a car” and where there is  ”minimal bike infrastructure.” As for public transit, it is described as “good,” but just barely. If it had scored one point lower, then it would have been described as sparse.

With regards to geographic size, Atlanta is 134 square miles while Boston is 89.63 square miles. It’s also worth noting that most of Atlanta is land while half of Boston is water. And not only is Atlanta’s population density lower than Boston, its overall population is lower as well (447,841 versus 645,966). So when one combines all these facts together, one comes to realize that Atlanta is just a much more spread out city than Boston is. This combined with its relatively poor walkability, public transportation, and poor bike infrastructure make for a city that cries out for its citizens to buy and use a car. On the other hand, Boston is more condensed, has better walkability, public transportation, and bike infrastructure. Consequently, Boston is a city that doesn’t necessitate the use of automobiles, contributing to traffic. By just comparing Atlanta with Boston and applying logic one can come to the conclusion that in order to improve Atlanta’s traffic congestion, the city will need to change its built environment to better accommodate a no-car option. However, instead of relying on purely logic, in the next part of my paper I will try to provide some other evidence and examples of why this is.

It’s reasonable to assume that if a place possesses easily accessible bike lanes, then people will take advantage of them as a means to a destination instead of using a car. That’s precisely what a survey done by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Civil Engineering found. The school surveyed residents from three different neighbors in Minneapolis and discovered that 25 percent of them commuted by bike. However, the survey discovered something even more important: the respondents who lived closer to bike lanes were more likely to use a bike to commute. The take away from this is that if Atlanta were to increase the number of bike lanes, then more people would use bikes as opposed to using a car, reducing traffic. As I’ve established earlier with the score found on walkscore, compared to cities like Boston, Atlanta’s bike infrastructure is poor and it’s very likely to be one of the reasons why there is so much automobile usage and traffic in Atlanta.

 

tumblr_inline_nv5cjafYgl1qbg499_500

 

Again, even without evidence, it would be reasonable for a person to assume that the quality and abundance of public transit inside a city would affect car usage. That being said, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute creates a yearly report that describes the amount of traffic congestion there is in urban areas inside the United States. The report does this by recording the amount of hours people waste in traffic, the amount of fuel they burn, etc. The report also provides some strategies to combat traffic congestion. One of them being to improve public transportation, “Getting more productivity out of the existing road and public transportation systems is vital to reducing congestion and improving travel time reliability” (Texas A&M Transportation Institute, P 23). So it would seem that according to common sense and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Atlanta’s relatively high traffic condition is very likely caused in part by its mediocre public transportation.

 

Public-Transportation

 

The walkability of a city seems to be something that’d affect whether or not one uses a car. After all, if a person could just walk to their destination without wasting money or time sitting in traffic, then why wouldn’t they? If you remembered, Atlanta received the unimpressive score of 46 out of 100 from www.walkscore.com. For Atlanta to improve its walkability, the city needs to become more “walkable”, according to this paper done by Western Riverside Council of Government titled Guide to Creating Walkable Communities. “A community is defined as “walkable” when a conscientious effort has been made by designers and planners to develop more pedestrian friendly streets, neighborhoods, and shopping areas in order to advocate walking instead of driving” (P 3). Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though Atlanta has followed this guideline. The sidewalks in Atlanta are crumbling, there are too many dangerous intersections, and everything is spread out so that walking is discouraged.

 

peds2

source

 

The built environment or to be more specific: the walkability, public transportation, and bike infrastructure of a city will affect whether or not people will use cars. And the more cars that are used the worse the traffic congestion will be. According to the data and expert opinion presented in this paper, traffic congestion is improved once these three aspects of the built environment are improved.  As I’ve pointed out previously, Atlanta is mediocre to poor in all of these aspects compared to cities like Boston. If the built environment isn’t taken into account when designing future portions of Atlanta—or if these three venues are not improved, then Atlanta will continue to be disproportionately worse off in traffic than many other cities. Some important questions to take away from this paper are why did the architects of Atlanta design the city in this way? And why is more not being done to improve it? The former may have been due to pure ignorance, although I doubt it; however, there is no excuse for the latter. I can’t help but think that there may be some sort of ulterior motive.

 

“Guide to Creating Walkable Communities.” (2012): 3. 9 May 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.wrcog.cog.ca.us/uploads/media_items/guide-to-walkable-communities.original.pdf>.

Atlanta City, Georgia. N.p.: US Census Bureau, n.d. QuickFacts. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/1304000>.

Boston City, Massachusetts. N.p.: US Census Bureau, n.d. QuickFacts. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/2507000>.

“INRIX 2015 Traffic Scorecard.” INRIX. INRIX, 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://inrix.com/scorecard/>.

“Atlanta, GA Number of Vehicles Per Household.” CLRSearch. CLRChoice, 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.clrsearch.com/Atlanta-Demographics/GA/Number-of-Vehicles-per-Household?compare=Boston%2C%2BMA>.

“Get Your Walk Score.” Walk Score. Walk Score, 2016. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.walkscore.com/>.

“Boston, Massachusetts.” New World Encyclopedia. MediaWiki, 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Boston,_Massachusetts>.http://www.snagout.com/atlanta

Concluding Thoughts. 23. Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Aug. 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-scorecard-2015.pdf>.

Very Rough Draft

Atlanta, Georgia possesses higher amounts of traffic than Boston, Massachusetts because the cities built environment encourages it. City planners and policy makers must realize this and take steps towards changing what they can about the existing built environment to alleviate this problem as well as making sure their future designs account for the impact the built environment has on traffic; otherwise, the traffic in Atlanta will continue to disproportionately worsen as the population grows, bringing with it longer commutes and more pollution.

Before I describe what exactly it is about the built environment in Atlanta that encourages traffic, I’m going to present some facts about Atlanta in comparison to Boston. My goal with this comparison is to demonstrate that Atlanta indeed has a traffic problem and to provide some interesting differences between the two cities and raise some questions. In Atlanta the population density is about 3,360 people per square mile while Boston, Massachusetts has a population density of about 13,340 people per square mile. That’s a stark difference and under normal circumstances one would assume based on this information that Atlanta would have much less traffic congestion. Surprisingly, that is untrue. According to <insert>, the number of hours wasted in traffic in Atlanta during 2015 was 59 versus 64 in Boston. Another interesting discrepancy between Atlanta and Boston is the number of people who own automobiles. In Atlanta 20.39% of the population owns no vehicle and 42.20% of the population owns one vehicle. On the other hand, 39.51% of Boston’s population owns no vehicle and 38.51% of the population owns one vehicle. Based on this data, there is a pretty sizeable gap between the two cities as it pertains to owning a vehicle.

The aforementioned information raises some interesting questions. Namely, why does Atlanta contain a disproportionately higher number of automobiles and similar traffic congestion levels despite having a much smaller population density compared to Boston? I believe there are multiple reasons and they all have to do with the built environments found in both cities. In no particular order, I’m specifically talking about the differences between the two built environments with respect to bike lanes, public transportation, walkability, and urban sprawl.

Regarding biking, public transit, and walking, Atlanta earned the respective scores 50, 44, and 46 out of 100 from the website www.walkscore.com. Comparatively, Boston earned the scores 70, 74, and 80. The algorithm behind the score is based on a number of factors. The score for biking considers the number of hills, length of bike lanes and their destinations, and number of commuters. The score for public transit considers how many options are available nearby, their type, and how many stops there are. Finally, the score for walking considers how long it takes for pedestrians to walk to amenities, intersection density, block length, and population density. According to the score chart for biking and public transit provided by www.walkscore.com, Atlanta is described as a place where “most errands require a car” and where there is  ”minimal bike infrastructure.” As for public transit, it is described as “good,” but just barely. If it had scored one point lower, then it would have been described as sparse.

With regards to urban sprawl, Atlanta is 134 square miles while Boston is 89.63 square miles. It’s also worth noting that most of Atlanta is land while half of Boston is water. And not only is Atlanta’s population density lower than Boston, its overall population is lower as well. So when one combines all these facts together, one comes to realize that Atlanta is just a much more spread out city than Boston is. This combined with its relatively poor walkability, public transportation, and poor bike infrastructure make for a city that cries out for its citizens to buy and use a car. On the other hand, Boston is more condensed, has better walkability, public transportation, and bike infrastructure. Consequently, Boston is a city that doesn’t necessitate the use of automobiles, contributing to traffic. By just comparing Atlanta with Boston and applying logic one can come to the conclusion that in order to improve Atlanta’s traffic congestion, the city will need to change its built environment to better accommodate a no-car option. However, instead of relying on purely logic, in the next part of my paper I will try to provide some other evidence and examples of why this is.

It’s reasonable to assume that if a place possesses easily accessible bike lanes, then people will take advantage of them as a means to a destination instead of using a car. That’s precisely what a survey done by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Civil Engineering found. The school surveyed residents from three different neighbors in Minneapolis and discovered that 25 percent of them commuted by bike. However, the survey discovered something even more important: the respondents who lived closer to bike lanes were more likely to use a bike to commute. The take away from this is that if Atlanta were to increase the number of bike lanes, then more people would use bikes as opposed to using a car, reducing traffic. As I’ve established earlier with the score found on www.walkscore.com, compared to cities like Boston, Atlanta’s bike infrastructure is poor and it’s very likely to be one of the reasons why there is so much automobile usage and traffic in Atlanta.

Again, even without evidence, it would be reasonable for a person to assume that the quality and abundance of public transit inside a city would affect car usage. That being said, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute creates a yearly report that describes the amount of traffic congestion there is in urban areas inside the United States. The report does this by recording the amount of hours people waste in traffic, the amount of fuel they burn, etc. The report also provides some strategies to combat traffic congestion. One of them being to improve public transportation, “Getting more productivity out of the existing road and public transportation systems is vital to reducing congestion and improving travel time reliability.” So it would seem that according to common sense and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Atlanta’s relatively high traffic condition is very likely caused in part by its mediocre public transportation.

The walkability of a city seems to be something that’d affect whether or not one uses a car. After all, if a person could just walk to their destination without wasting money or time sitting in traffic, then why wouldn’t they? If you remembered, Atlanta received the unimpressive score of 46 out of 100 from www.walkscore.com. For Atlanta to improve its walkability, the city needs to become more “walkable”, according to this paper done by Western Riverside Council of Government titled Guide to Creating Walkable Communities. “A community is defined as “walkable” when a conscientious effort has been made by designers and planners to develop more pedestrian friendly streets, neighborhoods, and shopping areas in order to advocate walking instead of driving.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though Atlanta has followed this guideline. The sidewalks in Atlanta are crumbling,

The built environment or to be more specific: the walkability, public transportation, and bike infrastructure of a city will affect whether or not people will use cars. And the more cars that are used the worse the traffic congestion will be. According to the data and expert opinion presented in this paper, traffic congestion is improved once these three aspects of the built environment are improved.  As I’ve pointed out previously, Atlanta is mediocre to poor in all of these aspects compared to cities like Boston. If the built environment isn’t taken into account when designing future portions of Atlanta—or if these three venues are not improved, then Atlanta will continue to be disproportionately worse off in traffic than many other cities. Some important questions to take away from this paper are why did the architects of Atlanta design the city in this way? And why is more not being done to improve it? The former may have been due to pure ignorance, although I doubt it; however, there is no excuse for the latter. I can’t help but think that there may be some sort of ulterior motive.

 

 

“Guide to Creating Walkable Communities.” (2012): 3. 9 May 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.wrcog.cog.ca.us/uploads/media_items/guide-to-walkable-communities.original.pdf>.

 

 

http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/1304000

http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/2507000

http://inrix.com/scorecard/

http://www.clrsearch.com/Atlanta-Demographics/GA/Number-of-Vehicles-per-Household?compare=Boston%2C+MA

https://www.walkscore.com/

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Boston,_Massachusetts

http://www.snagout.com/atlanta

http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-scorecard-2015.pdf

 

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9385.html

The Built Environment and Mental Health (Annotated Bibliography Twelve)

Evans, Gary. “The Built Environment and Mental Health.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. Cornell University, 2003. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

In his article titled The Built Environment and Mental Health, Gary W. Evans discusses the impact the built environment has on mental health. Things like light, the length of corridors, noise, crowding, or even the position of chairs in a psychiatric facility can impact the psychology and behavior of people. Lack of sunlight can affect concentration and may lead to seasonal affective disorder (a type of depression). If the corridors in a building are too long, then they may invoke helplessness in those who have to constantly walk down them. The noise from a busy street near a home may negatively impact the psychology of the children who live there. A person’s psychological well-being can also be negatively impacted by how crowded an area is. Finally, when chairs are arranged so that they’re facing each other, this promotes social interaction, which is taken advantage of by psychiatric facilities where isolation is seen as harmful for patients.

Obesity, Poverty, and The Built Environment (Annotated Bibliography Eleven)

Perdue, Wendy Collins. “Obesity, Poverty, and The Built Environment.” University of Richmond. University of Richmond, 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

In this scholarly article titled Obesity, Poverty, and The Built Environment Wendy Collins Perdue interacts with the idea that the built environment contributes to obesity, especially those found in poorer neighborhoods. One example the article mentions is poorer neighborhoods tend to have a greater number of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores instead of super-markets that sell healthier and more varied food. A second example is people living in poorer neighbors may be discouraged from walking or visiting a park due to crime or degraded infrastructure (e.g. sidewalks). That’s assuming there are any parks or recreational areas. Typically, it’s less likely a poorer area would have a place where people can play sports, picnic, hike, bike, etc. According to the article, the solution is to educate ourselves and others about how the built environment can influence health while working with experts and designers to slowly change the built environment into a more health-friendly environment.

CDC Images, Signage, and layout (Digital Built Environment)

Here’s a video that showcases the basic structure of the website. The website is broken up into drop-down menus, a giant banner, and different sections. The main colors of the website are blue and white, which provide a calming effect. It appears minimalistic and is easy to navigate. No flashy colors, effects, or sounds.

familyHere’s a picture of a family of non-whites outside, advertising National Minority Month. This gives me the impression that the CDC is interested in the health of minorities. To stretch it a little further, it seems to promote extended families as well.

pregnantHere’s a picture of the main banner that is the center stage of the www.CDC.gov site. Easy to see and it features what I presume to be what the CDC believes is the most important. At the present moment that is the Zika virus and how it affects the unborn.woman

Here’s a picture of a white woman working on something while wearing protective goggles, earmuffs, and an apron with the caption “Improving Workplace Safety and Health”. This gives me the impression that the CDC is interested in appealing women from all different job occupations, even ones where they’re a very small minority.

 

Built Environment Analysis Brainstorm

Poverty levels of certain parts of atlanta versus others. Does the built environment influence the concentration of poverty in certain parts of atlanta? There seems to be a concentration of wealth in the northern part of atlanta. Concentration of whites in the northern part of atlanta as well. Is it the type of housing that was created in the northern part of atlanta? Why isn’t the poverty evenly spread in atlanta? Where are businesses in relation to the northern parts of atlanta versus other parts of atlanta? Or maybe it has something to do with transportation? Nearby schools?

Bicycle Commuting and The Built Environment (Annotated Bibliography Nine)

“Exploring the Effects of the Built Environment on Bicycle Commuting.”Exploring the Effects of the Built Environment on Bicycle Commuting. University of Minnesota, Sept. 2013. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

This article discusses a survey conducted by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Civil Engineering in which residents from three different areas in Minneapolis were asked if they bicycled and if so, then how frequently. The results of the survey found that 25 percent of the respondents commuted by bike and one-fifth of the bicyclers used their bikes to get to work four or five times a week. The survey also found that those who lived near bike lanes were more likely to use them; however, this did not necessarily mean these same people would use their bike to get to work. Instead, according to the survey, what influences whether or not one will commute to work with their bike is distance and parking. With respect to parking—if a person’s workplace has free nearby parking, then their chances of using a bike to commute to work goes down.