Health Considerations of Community Design Changes

Key points

  • Some community design changes may increase the risk of displacing longtime residents and businesses.
  • Displacement can negatively affect health and prevent people from using and benefitting from community design changes.
  • Policies and strategies to promote community stability can help all residents stay in communities to access these changes.
A dad is holding the hands of two kids while walking on a sidewalk

Background

Community development is the process of investing in an area's social, economic, political, and environmental change to improve conditions.1 Historically, this can involve investments in housing and social services. More recently, community development and design efforts have included improving infrastructure to promote physical activity, active transportation, and healthy living.2

Community design changes that create opportunities for safe and convenient physical activity can enhance health and connectivity within neighborhoods. However, increased investment in community design changes may raise local property values over time as additional people relocate to an area to access community design amenities34. This can result in potential increases in living or commercial costs for existing residents and businesses.

Types of displacement

Displacement of community residents and businesses may occur because of community design investments to increase physical activity.

Residential displacement occurs when a household is forced to move from its residence due to conditions affecting the home or area. These conditions are beyond the household's ability to prevent. These conditions include making continued home occupancy hazardous or unaffordable, even if the household previously met occupancy conditions.

Commercial displacement can also occur because of community investments. This displacement happens when small businesses are displaced by higher-value businesses or upscale housing.56

Cultural displacement occurs when the values, norms, preferences, and behaviors of new residents are dominant over those of longtime residents.78

Health effects

Changes to a community's design through active transportation infrastructure investments may not benefit all residents equally.

Community stability and neighborhood change due to active transportation investments may negatively affect health among groups who may be more susceptible to displacement. Black people and people with lower incomes living in areas undergoing investments and changes reported negative effects. These effects include mental health and problems poor self-rated health.9

For people and communities that already experience health inequities and disparities, community instability may worsen these outcomes.10

Strategies

Below are nine categories of strategies to promote community stability. Consider these categories when planning community design changes to increase physical activity.

Public health practitioners can consider implementing and evaluating one, or more, strategies when planning community design projects to increase physical activity.

Practitioners can work with community residents and partners to identify which strategies may be most effective within a community context.

Resource Spotlight‎

For more information on strategies to promote community stability see: Healthy Community Design, Anti-displacement, and Equity Strategies in the USA: A Scoping Review or a translated one-pager of findings.

Preservation

Preserve existing affordable rental units.

Protection

Help longtime residents who wish to stay in the neighborhood.

Inclusion

Ensure a variety of housing options in new developments.

Revenue generation

Harness growth to expand financial resources for increased housing options.

Incentives and disincentives

Create incentives for housing developers and disincentives to discourage raising living costs.

Property acquisition

Facilitate acquiring sites for housing development.

Stabilization

Stabilizing long-term or historical residents by securing long-term housing.

Community engagement and education

Educate and engage with community members on factors related to community stability.

Cross-cutting

Overarching thematic approaches related to community stability and increased housing options.

Resources

Equitable Development and Environmental Justice
Information, key definitions, and case studies of equitable development practices.

Healthy Development Without Displacement: Realizing the Vision of Healthy Communities for All
How community development and changes to a community's design can be implemented equitably to prevent or mitigate community instability.

Toward Equitable Transportation and Land Use Policies: Strategies for Advancing Implementation
Guidance on how transportation and land use policies (including policies to support community stability) can be implemented equitably and sustainably by consulting communities.

Better Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors
Information, discussion questions, and next steps for practitioners considering implementing anti-displacement strategies.

Print
Content Source:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)
  1. Building Healthy Places Network. Community Development 101: An Overview of Community Development as a Partner for Health Equity. Accessed October 11, 2024. https://buildhealthyplaces.org/sharing-knowledge/publications/our-publications-and-reports/community-development-101-overview-community-development-partner-health-equity/
  2. Physical Activity: Built Environment Approaches Combining Transportation System Interventions with Land Use and Environmental Design. The Community Guide. Accessed October 11, 2024. https://www.thecommunityguide.org/findings/physical-activity-built-environment-approaches.html
  3. Liu JH, Shi W. Impact of bike facilities on residential property prices: 103141/2662–06. 2017;2662(1):50–58. dio:10.3141/2662-0
  4. Tehrani SO, Wu SJ, Roberts JD. The color of health: residential segregation, light rail transit developments, and gentrification in the United States. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(19). dio:10.3390/IJERPH16193683
  5. Ferm, J. (2016). Preventing the displacement of small businesses through commercial gentrification: are affordable workspace policies the solution? Planning Practice & Research, 31(4), 402–419. doi:10.1080/02697459.2016.1198546
  6. Rodriguez, R., Lung-Amam, W., Knaap, G., June-Friesen, K., & Johnson, D. (2023). Keeping Small Businesses In Place: Voices From the Field. Small Business Anti-Displacement Network
  7. Hyra, Derek. (2014). The Back-To-The-City Movement: Neighbourhood Redevelopment and Processes of Political and Cultural Displacement. Urban Studies. 52. doiL 10.1177/0042098014539403.
  8. Zukin S. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (2010; online edn, Oxford Academic, 12 Nov. 2020), doi:10.1093/oso/9780195382853.001.0001
  9. Smith GS, Breakstone H, Dean LT, Thorpe RJ. Impacts of gentrification on health in the US: a Systematic review of the literature. J Urban Heal. 2020;97(6):845–856. doi: 10.1007/s11524-020-00448-4
  10. Smith GS, Thorpe RJ. Gentrification: a priority for environmental justice and health equity research. Ethn Dis. 2020;30(3):509–512. doi: 10.18865/ED.30.3.509.