Building Healthy Corridors: Transforming Urban and Suburban Arterials into Thriving Places

Corridor redevelopment is not a new topic. Various planning and design approaches—such as complete streets, living streets, and livable streets—aim to redevelop commercial corridors to meet more of their users’ needs, including their need for walking and biking rather than just traveling by car. A marked difference between a healthy corridors approach and other approaches is that the former looks beyond just the street and considers how the street supports the daily needs of all who live, work, and travel along it. Building Healthy Corridors: Transforming Urban and Suburban Arterials into Thriving Places takes a comprehensive view and considers how the corridor contributes to the overall health of the surrounding community, including community members’ opportunities to be physically active. It also considers safety, housing affordability, transportation options, environmental sustainability, and social cohesion as well as modifications that would link residents to the corridor and improve connections to jobs and adjacent parts of the community.

Sara Hammerschmidt is a Senior Director of Content at the Urban Land Institute, where she develops content and programs focused on the impact of the built environment on public health through the Building Healthy Places Initiative. Through her career, Sara has done extensive work on issues that lie at the intersection of health and the built environment. Previously, she worked at PolicyLink in Oakland, California, researching the inclusion of social and economic equity into projects, plans, and policies that are being implemented at the intersection of health and the built environment. Sara has spoken on the topics of Health Impact Assessment, the role of urban planning in creating healthier cities, and recommendations for incorporating health into all built environment decision making at several national conferences. Sara holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin.