Section 1. Overview of Changing the Physical Structure of the Community

 

• What do we mean by changing the physical structure of the community?

• Why would you change the physical structure of the community?

• When would you try to change the physical structure of the community?

• Who should be involved in changing the physical structure of the community?

• How do you change the physical structure of the community?

 

Atlanta, Georgia, developed around automobile travel, and major highways have shaped how different parts of the city connect with one another. The Downtown Connector, for example, separates areas of the city and can make travel between them more difficult for people walking, bicycling, or using public transportation.

When the former Atlantic Steel Mill site was redeveloped, planners and developers had to address environmental contamination as well as transportation and access. One response was the 17^th Street Bridge, which connects the redevelopment with surrounding areas and accommodates vehicles, public transportation, bicycles, and people walking.

Redevelopment of the site also included environmental cleanup, green space, water-conservation measures, plantings, and transportation options intended to reduce reliance on private vehicles.

This example illustrates how changes to the physical environment can address several community priorities at the same time: environmental health, transportation, housing, economic development, accessibility, and opportunities for walking and bicycling.

This section introduces ways communities can use changes in the built and natural environment to support health and quality of life. It also emphasizes the importance of involving people who will experience those changes directly.

What do we mean by changing the physical structure of the community?

The physical structure of a community includes the places, systems, and natural features that shape everyday life. It includes buildings and streets, but also parks, waterways, transportation systems, utilities, public spaces, and the connections among them.

Changing that structure might mean creating something new, modifying what already exists, restoring a damaged area, improving accessibility, or preserving something the community values.

Examples include:

• Buildings – residential, commercial, industrial, recreational, institutional, educational, cultural, and historic
• Spaces around buildings – plantings, gathering areas, seating, terraces, and other features
• Roads, sidewalks, crosswalks, and walkways
• Bridges and underpasses
• Parks and open space
• Playgrounds and recreation areas
• Squares, waterfronts, street markets, and other public spaces
• Rivers, streams, wetlands, drainage systems, and other water features
• Public transportation and mobility systems
• Signs, wayfinding, and public information
• Streetlights and other public lighting
• Trees, plantings, gardens, and green infrastructure
• Infrastructure – water, energy, communications, stormwater, sewer systems, and treatment facilities

Infrastructure includes the physical systems that allow a community to function, along with the people and processes needed to operate and maintain them. Roads, bridges, water systems, electricity, communications, drainage, waste systems, and transportation are all examples. Infrastructure may look different in a small rural community than in a large city, but it is important in both.

• Landfills, recycling facilities, composting facilities, and waste-treatment sites
• Golf courses, cemeteries, sports fields, community gardens, and other uses of open land

The physical structure of a community includes both the built environment and the natural environment. Community development may alter natural environments, but it can also restore them. A former industrial site might become a park, for example, or a vacant paved area might be converted into green space.

Restoring natural features can provide several benefits. Trees and native plantings may reduce heat, absorb stormwater, provide habitat, improve air quality, and create more comfortable public spaces. Restoring soil, waterways, wetlands, and vegetation can also strengthen biodiversity and ecological function.

Physical changes can have effects beyond the immediate site. Transportation systems, energy use, water systems, development patterns, pollution, and natural-resource decisions can affect neighboring communities and larger ecosystems.

Changes may be relatively small, such as adding accessible curb ramps, shade, seating, or safer crossings, or they may involve major projects such as redeveloping an industrial site into mixed-income housing, businesses, parks, and transportation connections.

Community organizations and residents may be able to carry out some changes themselves. Larger projects usually involve local government, public agencies, developers, businesses, property owners, funders, and other partners.

Whatever the scale, people affected by the change should have meaningful opportunities to identify priorities, raise concerns, contribute local knowledge, and help evaluate possible alternatives.

A healthy community approach considers how a physical change affects the community as a whole. A transportation project, housing development, park, business district, or environmental improvement may affect health, cost of living, accessibility, social connection, transportation, economic opportunity, culture, and the natural environment at the same time.

Why would you change the physical structure of the community?

• Health promotion and disease prevention. Physical environments influence access to health care, nutritious food, physical activity, clean air and water, shade, transportation, and other conditions related to health. Communities might build clinics in areas with limited access, create walking and biking routes, remove environmental hazards, or improve access to parks and recreation.
• Safety. Street lighting, safe crossings, sidewalks, traffic calming, fire protection, emergency access, building maintenance, and other improvements can reduce hazards and help people move through the community more safely.
• Strengthening community connection and stewardship. Well-maintained public spaces, community-led improvements, and places where people can gather may support social connection and encourage residents to participate in caring for shared spaces.
• Improving accessibility. Accessible sidewalks, curb ramps, crossings, entrances, restrooms, transportation, signage, seating, and other features can make communities easier to navigate for people with disabilities and many others.
• Improving transportation and mobility. Public transportation, sidewalks, bike routes, trails, shelters, accessible stops, and safe connections can help people reach employment, schools, health care, stores, recreation, and community services.
• Conserving natural resources. Water-efficient fixtures, native and drought-tolerant plantings, energy-efficient infrastructure, green stormwater systems, and other improvements can reduce resource use.

Physical changes can spread through example as well as formal planning. A successful community garden, native planting project, safer intersection, or improved public space may encourage nearby residents, organizations, or businesses to consider similar improvements.

• Economic development. Infrastructure and development can support jobs, businesses, housing, and tax revenue. Communities should also consider who benefits, what public resources are being committed, and whether development contributes to displacement or other unintended effects.
• Restoring or expanding green space. Vacant lots, former industrial sites, paved areas, or other underused spaces may be converted into parks, gardens, habitat, or other community green space.
• Environmental protection. Wastewater treatment, pollution prevention, habitat restoration, community monitoring, and cleanup of contaminated sites can improve environmental and community health.
• Meeting housing needs. Communities may build, preserve, rehabilitate, or adapt housing to increase affordability, accessibility, energy efficiency, stability, and the range of housing options available.
• Expanding economic opportunity. Transportation, broadband, housing, neighborhood investment, childcare access, and proximity to employment can influence whether residents facing economic barriers can reach jobs and other opportunities.
• Historic preservation. Reusing and maintaining historic buildings can preserve community history and cultural resources while allowing structures to serve new purposes.
• Supporting arts and culture. Public art, performance spaces, cultural centers, festivals, and community-designed spaces can reflect local identity and expand access to cultural experiences.
• Improving everyday experience. Shade, seating, landscaping, public art, clean spaces, and attractive design can make public environments more comfortable and inviting.
• Recreation. Courts, fields, playgrounds, trails, pools, parks, and other facilities can expand opportunities for movement, recreation, and social connection for people of different ages and abilities.
• Physical comfort. Shade, shelter, drinking water, seating, restrooms, weather protection, and other features can make outdoor and public spaces more usable.
• Encouraging social interaction. Parks, plazas, markets, community centers, pedestrian areas, and other shared spaces can create opportunities for people to meet and interact.
• Supporting connection across communities. Shared community spaces can provide opportunities for people from different neighborhoods, cultures, generations, or backgrounds to participate in activities together when those spaces are designed and programmed collaboratively.
• Advancing equity. Infrastructure and public investment can help address longstanding differences in access to transportation, housing, parks, environmental quality, broadband, public facilities, and other community resources.

These goals frequently overlap. A transportation project may affect health, employment, accessibility, environmental quality, and housing. A park may support recreation, stormwater management, social connection, cooling, habitat, and neighborhood identity.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion identifies peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice, and equity as important conditions for health. Changes to the physical environment can influence many of these conditions.

When would you try to change the physical structure of the community?

Opportunities for physical improvements may arise during planning, redevelopment, infrastructure work, environmental restoration, or community-led projects.

• When a new development or project is being planned. Residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, school, park, and renovation projects can provide opportunities to consider affordable housing, accessibility, green space, transportation connections, environmental performance, and other community priorities before designs are finalized.
• When funding becomes available. Grants, capital-improvement funds, private investment, or other resources may create opportunities to address projects that communities have already identified.
• When community assessment or public attention identifies an issue. Local data, resident experience, planning processes, environmental monitoring, or public discussion may bring attention to housing, safety, transportation, accessibility, environmental, or public-space needs.
• When major development decisions are being negotiated. Communities can participate in planning discussions about infrastructure, public space, transportation, affordable housing, environmental safeguards, local employment, and other possible community benefits.
• When evidence shows that existing conditions are creating serious risks or barriers. Unsafe crossings, environmental contamination, inaccessible facilities, deteriorating infrastructure, repeated flooding, inadequate lighting, or other conditions may require prompt attention.

Who should be involved in changing the physical structure of the community?

Physical changes affect people differently depending on where they live, how they travel, whether they rent or own property, their age, disability, income, work, culture, and many other factors. Planning should therefore include more than technical professionals and formal decision-makers.

• Community members and resident-led groups. Residents bring knowledge about how spaces are actually used, what works, what creates barriers, and which places or features matter to the community. They may participate in planning, design, stewardship, evaluation, or community-led improvement projects.

For example, young people who regularly use a playground or recreation area may understand its strengths and problems differently from adults who visit only occasionally. Involving them in planning can lead to improvements that better reflect how the space is actually used and can strengthen their connection to the project.

• Public officials and public agencies. Local governments, planning departments, transportation agencies, public works departments, parks departments, housing agencies, and other public institutions often have authority over land use, infrastructure, funding, maintenance, or regulation.

Some changes are also shaped by state or federal laws and regulations. Environmental, transportation, housing, accessibility, historic-preservation, and infrastructure requirements may affect what is permitted, required, or funded.

• Local businesses. Businesses may contribute funding, property, expertise, maintenance, or other resources and may be affected by changes in transportation, parking, public space, or development.
• Larger employers and corporations. Major employers can influence land use, transportation, employment, environmental conditions, and local investment. Their involvement should be considered alongside the interests and experiences of residents, workers, and other community members.
• Developers and property owners. Developers can help create housing, businesses, infrastructure, and public spaces. Effective partnerships clearly identify community goals, public responsibilities, private responsibilities, costs, benefits, and accountability.
• People with disabilities and accessibility organizations. Their participation can help ensure that accessibility is built into projects from the beginning rather than added later.
• Tribal governments and Indigenous communities. Projects affecting Tribal lands, culturally important places, natural resources, or Indigenous communities should include the appropriate governments and communities in decision-making.
• Environmental, housing, transportation, health, cultural, and other community organizations. These groups may contribute specialized knowledge and community relationships.
• Design and technical professionals. Planners, architects, engineers, landscape architects, public health professionals, ecologists, transportation specialists, and others can help translate community goals into safe and workable designs.

How do you change the physical structure of the community?

Every community has different opportunities, constraints, resources, and priorities. The examples below illustrate some of the ways physical environments can be improved.

Begin by asking community members what places support their daily lives and which places create barriers. Consider vacant or underused properties, transportation gaps, inaccessible buildings, lack of shade or green space, housing conditions, environmental hazards, public gathering places, recreation, and infrastructure.

Avoid assuming that the appearance of a neighborhood tells you how people who live there feel about it. Residents may value relationships, history, culture, businesses, public spaces, and other assets that are not visible to an outside observer. Community assessment should identify both strengths and areas for improvement.

Buildings

Building design, location, maintenance, accessibility, and environmental performance can influence health, energy use, transportation, social interaction, economic activity, and quality of life.

Communities can encourage new construction and renovation that:

• Uses energy and water efficiently
• Reduces exposure to harmful materials
• Supports accessibility and universal design
• Provides healthy indoor air and appropriate ventilation
• Connects safely to sidewalks, transportation, and nearby services
• Preserves or creates green space where appropriate
• Supports interaction with streets and public spaces rather than isolating buildings from the surrounding community

Housing and residential development. Housing location, cost, condition, accessibility, energy efficiency, and proximity to transportation and services can strongly affect household stability and quality of life.

• Building and preserving affordable housing. Affordable housing should also be safe, accessible, well maintained, connected to transportation and services, and located in places where residents can participate fully in community life.
• Supporting shared-equity and community-based homeownership approaches. Some programs reduce the cost of homeownership through volunteer labor, community land trusts, cooperatives, shared-equity models, financial assistance, or other strategies.
• Rehabilitating vacant or deteriorated buildings. Existing houses, apartments, commercial buildings, schools, and other structures may sometimes be restored or adapted for housing rather than demolished.
• Including affordable, accessible, and environmentally responsible housing in larger developments. Communities may use planning, incentives, funding, or other tools to encourage a range of housing options.

Housing policy should avoid framing residents as people who need to be taught how to live in a particular neighborhood or housing type. Residents bring their own skills, cultures, relationships, and priorities. When people move into new housing, useful supports might include tenant information, opportunities to build community, access to services, and clear information about rights and responsibilities – provided in ways that respect residents' agency.

Commercial buildings and development. Neighborhood businesses can provide goods, services, employment, gathering places, and opportunities for local ownership.

Commercial development should be planned with attention to what existing residents need and value. New investment can strengthen a neighborhood, but it can also contribute to rising costs or displacement if affordability and local participation are not considered.

Industrial buildings and development. Industrial development can provide employment and economic activity, but location, traffic, noise, emissions, waste, and other environmental effects should be considered carefully.

Communities can examine whether environmental burdens are concentrated in particular neighborhoods and can use planning, regulation, monitoring, cleanup, and community participation to reduce harmful exposure.

Office and government buildings. Their design and location can affect workers, visitors, public access, transportation, energy use, and surrounding businesses and neighborhoods.

Cultural centers. Theaters, museums, performance spaces, libraries, cultural centers, and community arts facilities can strengthen cultural life when they are accessible, welcoming, affordable, and connected to the communities they serve.

Recreation and entertainment facilities. Sports facilities, theaters, recreation centers, amusement facilities, and other destinations can provide recreation and economic activity. Planning should also consider transportation, public cost, accessibility, surrounding neighborhoods, environmental impacts, and who can afford to use them.

Historic buildings, sites, and monuments. Communities may preserve, restore, reinterpret, relocate, or otherwise reconsider physical reminders of local history. Decisions about public history can involve different perspectives about culture, identity, memory, and community values. Inclusive public processes can help communities determine how historic places and monuments should be understood and used.

Educational facilities. School design can influence accessibility, safety, teaching, recreation, transportation, environmental quality, and opportunities for collaboration. Buildings can include traditional classrooms as well as shared learning spaces, outdoor classrooms, laboratories, arts spaces, recreation, technology, and community-use areas.

Large redevelopment projects can improve infrastructure and create new opportunities, but they can also displace residents or businesses if housing affordability, property costs, community ties, and local ownership are not considered.

Past urban-renewal projects demonstrate why redevelopment should include meaningful participation from the people who live and work in the affected area and should consider how existing residents can share in the benefits.

Public spaces

Public spaces contribute to community life when they are accessible, welcoming, well maintained, comfortable, and connected to the places people need to go.

Public spaces include areas around buildings, parks, plazas, pedestrian streets, markets, waterfronts, trails, and neighborhood gathering areas.

Spaces around buildings. Trees, plantings, public art, seating, shade, lighting, water features, and accessible walkways can make streets and buildings more inviting.

Parks. Parks can provide recreation, nature, cooling, community gathering, habitat, and relief from traffic and noise. Good planning considers accessibility, lighting, maintenance, transportation, programming, restrooms, shade, and how different groups experience the space.

Pedestrian areas. Streets or districts designed primarily for walking can support social interaction, local businesses, recreation, and public events. Accessibility, deliveries, emergency access, transportation connections, and the needs of nearby residents should also be considered.

Waterfronts. Waterfronts can support recreation, cultural activities, transportation, environmental restoration, businesses, and public gathering.

Redevelopment should preserve meaningful public access and consider affordability so that improvements remain useful to a broad range of community members.

Neighborhood spaces. Lighting, occupied buildings, safe crossings, well-maintained sidewalks, transportation, recreation, businesses, and active public spaces may contribute to people's comfort and use of neighborhood streets.

Avoid assuming that physical design alone causes or prevents violence. Community safety is also influenced by housing, economic opportunity, social connection, services, trauma, policing practices, substance use, education, and many other conditions.

Vacant and underused lots. Community-led projects can convert unused spaces into gardens, play areas, gathering spaces, habitat, stormwater features, or other uses identified by residents.

Public art. Murals, sculpture, temporary installations, performances, and other forms of public art can reflect community history, identity, creativity, and values.

Community participation in selecting artists, themes, locations, and interpretation can help public art represent the people and places around it.

Roads and other infrastructure

City streets. Crosswalks, traffic signals, sidewalks, lighting, accessible curb ramps, bike lanes, traffic calming, shade, and clear signage can improve mobility and safety for people walking, bicycling, driving, or using mobility devices.

Placement and maintenance of roads and train tracks. Highways and rail lines can connect communities, but they can also divide neighborhoods or create noise, pollution, and safety concerns.

Bridges, underpasses, crossings, transit connections, greenways, and other design changes may help reconnect areas that have been separated by transportation infrastructure.

Rural road planning may involve different considerations, including agricultural access, wildlife habitat, scenic character, historic features, safety, and the preservation of community identity.

Road and infrastructure maintenance should also be examined for equity. Communities can compare pavement quality, sidewalks, drainage, lighting, transit access, and other investments across neighborhoods to identify longstanding gaps in public infrastructure.

Public transportation. Reliable and accessible public transportation can connect people with employment, education, health care, shopping, recreation, and community services while reducing the need for some automobile trips.

Routes, schedules, fares, stops, shelters, accessibility, and connections should reflect the needs of different neighborhoods and riders.

Walking and bicycling routes. Trails, sidewalks, protected bike routes, greenways, and other connections can support transportation, recreation, social interaction, and physical activity.

Public recreation facilities such as basketball courts, volleyball courts, playgrounds, fields, and other spaces can also provide opportunities for physical activity and community connection.

Electricity, communications, water, sewer, and gas infrastructure. Replacing aging pipes, maintaining energy systems, expanding broadband, improving drainage, and modernizing other infrastructure can have major effects on health, safety, economic opportunity, and daily life.

Infrastructure upgrades should consider which neighborhoods have experienced longstanding gaps in investment and whether new systems are affordable and accessible to residents.

The natural environment

Open-space preservation. Parks, forests, farmland, wetlands, waterways, habitat, and other open spaces can provide recreation, environmental benefits, cultural value, and opportunities to experience nature.

Preservation decisions should consider ecological importance, public access, Indigenous and cultural connections to land, community priorities, and long-term development needs.

Restoration of environmentally damaged areas. Former mines, industrial sites, oil and gas sites, landfills, and other disturbed areas may require cleanup, soil restoration, replanting, removal of hazardous materials, water restoration, or other forms of remediation.

Where possible, organizations responsible for environmental harm should participate in or fund appropriate cleanup, while communities and regulatory agencies help establish standards and monitor results.

Pollution prevention. Pollution can sometimes be prevented through cleaner technologies, wastewater treatment, safer materials, environmental controls, appropriate siting, maintenance, and enforcement of environmental standards.

Pollution prevention also includes community infrastructure. Maintaining sewer systems, septic systems, stormwater systems, drinking-water infrastructure, and household connections can prevent contamination and protect health.

Correcting existing pollution. Contaminated soil, groundwater, buildings, waterways, and industrial sites may require cleanup or containment. Remediation should involve appropriate technical expertise, regulatory oversight, and meaningful communication with people who live or work nearby.

Identifying opportunities to improve the built and natural environment is only the beginning. Physical improvements need long-term maintenance. Buildings need repairs, trees and plantings need care, trails and roads need upkeep, public art may need restoration, and infrastructure requires regular inspection and investment.

Maintenance should be planned from the beginning so that improvements remain safe, accessible, and useful over time.

In Summary

The built and natural environments together form the physical structure of a community. Housing, transportation, public spaces, infrastructure, buildings, green space, waterways, environmental conditions, and other features can influence health, accessibility, economic opportunity, social connection, environmental quality, and everyday life.

Physical change can range from a small neighborhood improvement to a major redevelopment or infrastructure project. Whatever the scale, strong planning begins by understanding existing community strengths, priorities, barriers, and history.

Community members – particularly people who will be most directly affected – should have meaningful opportunities to participate in decisions about what changes are needed, what tradeoffs are acceptable, and how benefits and burdens will be distributed.

Effective changes also consider accessibility, affordability, displacement, environmental impact, cultural and historic resources, transportation, maintenance, and unintended consequences.

The goal is not simply to make places look different. It is to create and maintain environments that support health, belonging, safety, accessibility, opportunity, environmental sustainability, and quality of life for the people who use them.

 

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