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Different aspects of the built and natural environment appear related to people's walking behavior. State-of-the-art transport studies typically incorporate built environmental measures (e.g., density, diversity, design). However, street view (SV) environments capturing how pedestrians perceived their surroundings on site are understudied. Therefore, this study examined possibly non-linear associations between multiple SV-derived environmental features and pedestrians’ walking duration in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We used travel survey data (N = 1,886) between 2014 and 2017. SV-derived environmental measures (e.g., cars and people) were extracted from SV images through a fully convolutional neural network. Covariate-adjusted generalized additive mixed models were fitted to the data. Our results showed that walking-SV features associations differed between weekdays and weekends. On weekdays, pedestrians walked more in neighborhoods with fewer individual standing walls and lower address density. On weekends, pedestrians’ walking duration increased with more street greenery, fewer cars, higher address density, pronounced land-use diversity, and further distances to train stations. Non-linear associations were found only in the case of weekday SV-derived people, even after adjusting for other neighborhood characteristics (e.g., address density, land-use mix, and street connectivity). Our findings suggest that SV environmental features complement the typically used built environmental measures to explain pedestrians’ mobility. Policy-makers and urban planners are advised to incorporate characteristics of the street environments, also should not only rely on the conventional thinking “the more, the merrier”.

The extent to which people can travel by their preferred mode (travel mode consonance) and its impact on travel satisfaction has received increased interest in recent years. However, how travel mode consonance and satisfaction differ between spouses has not been investigated. Also, research in this domain from non-western contexts is still limited. Using survey data collected from dual-earner couples with school-age children in Ganyu, a small Chinese city, this research provides a deeper investigation into the extent to which female and male partners are able to travel by their preferred travel mode and whether this impacts their travel satisfaction for the commute. Descriptive analysis revealed that only about half of the couples commute by their preferred travel mode, whereas the remaining couples were those where one or both partners were unable to use their preferred travel mode, mostly due to travel distance. Multivariate analysis indicates that travel satisfaction for both couples is more influenced by the travel mode used by individuals rather than whether the chosen travel mode is preferred or not. Moreover, the level of travel satisfaction is significantly associated with perceptions of the environment and traffic congestion during the trip, and this effect differs between women and men.

Summary An increasing number of governments worldwide have introduced a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) for public health. However, the adoption of such a policy is still debated in many other countries, such as in the Netherlands. We investigated Dutch stakeholder views on taxation of SSB and perceived barriers and facilitators to its adoption in the Netherlands. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2019 with 27 stakeholders from health and consumer organizations, health professional associations, trade associations, academia, advisory bodies, ministries and parliamentary parties. Data were analysed using a thematic content approach. The findings reveal that, between and within sectors, stakeholders expressed contradictory views on the effectiveness, appropriateness and (socio)economic effects of an SSB tax. Perceived barriers to the adoption of an SSB tax in the Netherlands included an unfavourable political context, limited advocacy for an SSB tax, a strong lobby against an SSB tax, perceived public opposition, administrative load and difficulties in defining SSB. Perceived facilitators to its adoption included an increasing prevalence of overweight, disappointing results from voluntary industry actions, a change of government, state budget deficits, a shift in public opinion, international recommendations and a solid legal basis. In conclusion, this study shows that several challenges remain to be overcome for the adoption of an SSB tax in the Netherlands. Similar research on stakeholder views in other countries may further inform SSB tax policy processes.

House prices in China have increased greatly in recent decades, and the dynamics seem to vary across cities. It is rational to assume that urban housing prices converge to different equilibria and form club convergence (i.e., subgroups). Empirical evidence on the existence of club convergence is limited, however, as is evidence on the underlying mechanisms. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to 1) detect club convergence in housing prices across Chinese regions over the period 2006–17 and 2) examine the determinants influencing club formation. A log t test in combination with a clustering algorithm was used to assess club formation. The results showed that regional housing prices face heterogeneous dynamics, providing some evidence of housing market segmentation. Four convergence clubs of Chinese regions with different convergence levels were identified. Ordered logit model showed that population growth, income, and housing regulation are among the drivers of club formation. The results also indicated that being in a different Chinese city-tier and differences in urban healthcare affect housing market club membership. The findings are supportive for policymakers to coordinate balanced regional housing development across China.

Commercial gentrification in contemporary cities is fed by the Instagrammable nature of a growing number and variety of consumption spaces. A prominent example is the rise of specialty coffee bars (SCBs), with their offline spreading and the impact of online ‘clickable aesthetics’ via Instagram. In-depth interviews and Instagram go-alongs with 17 female millennials in Seoul revealed that SCBs are often visited for their Instagrammable aesthetics and less so for the quality of the coffee. Taking pictures in “photo zones” is typical behaviour in coffee bars, often imitating symbolic images of place as proof of a successful visit. Moreover, the intertwined online and offline popularity of SCBs spurs the gentrification of commercial streets in Seoul neighbourhoods. It generates a growing dominance of replicated coffee bars lacking authenticity and drawing gentrifying businesses together in Instagrammable clusters. SCBs going viral may eventually result in the experience of “placelessness”, not only for affected local residents but also for visiting gentrifiers. Self-critical gentrifiers often stop sharing geotags to avoid further commercial gentrification of neighbourhoods and streets.

The Netherlands have a problem regarding quality as well as equality in their school system. Many students fail to reach minimal skill levels and underachieve with respect to their own learning capacities. They end up on educational levels that do not correspond to their learning potential, especially when their parents do not speak the language or cannot afford tutoring to exploit this potential. In this article, we argue that important reasons for this development lie in a lack of validity of judgments on various levels of the educational system. We summarize these reasons into 8 theses about the validity of methods, starting from methods of testing and assessment, over the design of the teaching process and underlying paradigms, and ending with the more general cybernetic effects of school policy and the meritocratic social paradigms in which they are embedded.

Promoting adolescents’ active school travel may support their health and wellbeing. Based on survey data of 473 adolescents in Guangzhou, China, and street view images, we employed generalized structural equation models to examine 1) the relationships between objective and perceived streetscape characteristics and adolescents’ active school travel and 2) the mediating roles of perceived safety, walkability, and air pollution. Results showed that street safety, vitality, greenery, and vehicle volume were positively related to odds of active school travel, while higher pavement ratio was associated with lower odds of active school travel. Street safety, pavement ratio, and vehicle volume were related to active school travel through perceived walkability, while street vitality and vehicle volume were associated with active school travel through the perceived safety-walkability path and perceived air pollution-walkability path. Our findings provide practical insights that could help city planners to make urban street environments more child-friendly for adolescents’ active travelling.

The adjustment of urban spatial structure in the process of urbanization and suburbanization leads to the separation of work and residence, which further leads to long-distance commuting. While there has been a lot of research on long-distance commuting in Western countries, the relevant studies in China are not enough. In the Chinese context, some factors deserve special attention, namely the hukou system and occupation. However, few studies have focused on the individual and interaction effects of these two factors on long-distance commuting. This paper explores the commuting behavior of different socioeconomic groups in Xiamen, China. Heckman's sample selection model was applied to data from the 2015 Xiamen household travel survey to separate the effect of socioeconomic factors and that of residential selection. Results show that the continued suburbanization of the industry attracted substantial numbers of blue-collar workers to live in the outer districts (Haicang, Jimei, Tong'an, and Xiang'an), and thus blue-collar workers are less likely than pink- and white-collar workers to be long-distance commuters in the outer districts. Among residents of the outer district, pink-collar migrants and white-collar migrants are more likely to be long-distance commuters than their local counterparts, while blue-collar migrants (a coefficient of −0.153) are less likely to be long-distance commuters than blue-collar locals (a coefficient of −0.046). For people who live in the inner districts, blue-collar locals (a coefficient of 0.256) are more likely to be long-distance commuters than blue-collar migrants (a coefficient of −0.029). These results have practical significance for providing alternative housing for migrants in urban renewal.

The European Policy Evaluation Network (PEN), initiated in autumn 2018, aimed at advancing the evidence base for public policies impacting dietary behaviour, physical activity and sedentary behaviours in Europe. This is needed because non-communicable diseases—the leading cause of global mortality—are substantially caused by physical inactivity and unhealthy dietary behaviours, which in turn are driven by upstream factors that have not yet been addressed effectively by prevention approaches. Thus, successful policy interventions are required that target entire populations and tackle the ‘causes of the causes’. To advance our knowledge on the effective implementation of policies and their impact in terms of improving health behaviours, PEN focused on five research tasks: (i) Adaptation and implementation of a Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) and development of a Physical Activity Environment Policy Index (PA-EPI); (ii) Mapping of health-related indicators needed for policy evaluation and facilitating a harmonized pan-European approach for surveillance to assess the impact of policy interventions; (iii) Refining quantitative methods to evaluate the impact of public policies; (iv) Identifying key barriers and facilitators of implementation of policies; and (v) Advance understanding the equity impact of the development, implementation and evaluation of policies aimed at promoting physical activity and a healthy diet. Finally, and in order to provide concrete evidence for policymaking, existing exemplary policies, namely sugar-sweetened beverages taxation, active transport policies and school policies on nutrition and physical activity were assessed in consideration of these five tasks. At the end of the PEN project’s formal runtime, considerable advancements have been made. Here, we present an overview of the most important learnings and outputs.

Background Walkability indices have been developed and linked to behavioural and health outcomes elsewhere in the world, but not comprehensively for Europe. We aimed to 1) develop a theory-based and evidence-informed Dutch walkability index, 2) examine its cross-sectional associations with total and purpose-specific walking behaviours of adults across socioeconomic (SES) and urbanisation strata, 3) explore which walkability components drive these associations. Methods Components of the index included: population density, retail and service density, land use mix, street connectivity, green space, sidewalk density and public transport density. Each of the seven components was calculated for three Euclidean buffers: 150 m, 500 m and 1000 m around every 6-digit postal code location and for every administrative neighbourhood in GIS. Componential z-scores were averaged, and final indices normalized between 0 and 100. Data on self-reported demographic characteristics and walking behaviours of 16,055 adult respondents (aged 18–65) were extracted from the Dutch National Travel Survey 2017. Using Tobit regression modelling adjusted for individual- and household-level confounders, we assessed the associations between walkability and minutes walking in total, for non-discretionary and discretionary purposes. By assessing the attenuation in associations between partial indices and walking outcomes, we identified which of the seven components drive these associations. We also tested for effect modification by urbanization degree, SES, age and sex. Results In fully adjusted models, a 10% increase in walkability was associated with a maximum increase of 8.5 min of total walking per day (95%CI: 7.1–9.9). This association was consistent across buffer sizes and purposes of walking. Public transport density was driving the index’s association with walking outcomes. Stratified results showed that associations with minutes of non-discretionary walking were stronger in rural compared to very urban areas, in neighbourhoods with low SES compared to high SES, and in middle-aged (36–49 years) compared to young (18–35 years old) and older adults (50–65 years old). Conclusions The walkability index was cross-sectionally associated with Dutch adult’s walking behaviours, indicating its validity for further use in research.