Density, Destinations or Both? A Comparison of Measures of Walkability in Relation to Transportation Behaviors, Obesity and Diabetes in Toronto, Canada
Figure 1
Spatial Concordance Between Residential Density and Availability of Walkable Destinations.
Data from: the 2006 Canada Census; DMTI Spatial Inc., 2009; the City of Toronto, 2009; and the Ministry of Education, 2009. Residential density was calculated as the number of residential dwellings per square kilometer in all census disseminations blocks (DB) intersecting an 800 m buffer of a given DB's residentially-weighted centroid. Availability of walkable destinations was calculated as the number of retail and service destinations, including public recreation centers and schools, within an 800 m buffer of a given DB's residentially-weighted centroid. A DB was labeled ‘high’ for residential density or availability of walkable destinations if its value for that attribute placed it within the highest 2 quintiles for that attribute; similarly a DB was labeled as ‘low’ if its value placed it within the lowest 2 quintiles for that attribute.