Planner’s Portfolio: Healthy Communities

The Healthy Communities Planner’s Portfolio looks at several planning topics through a health lens.

Healthy communities are places where the healthy choice is the easy choice for everyone who lives, works, or visits. This means more than just the absence of illness and rather focuses on creating healthy lifestyles. The design of a community directly affects the ability of people to live a healthy lifestyle.

This portfolio provides a short handout which focuses on key elements to a healthy community such as equity, physical activity, social connectivity, and healthy food access. It also includes an easy to use healthy community checklist that can help assess whether a policy, plan, or project will improve the health of residents in your community.

For example, communities that create inviting places for residents, workers, and visitors to exercise or play and encourage people to walk or bicycle to destinations increase physical activity. Community trails and complete streets, which provide safe spaces for all driving, bicycling, walking, and public transit, make it easier and safer for people to incorporate physical activity into their everyday life.

The County works closely with Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) and PennDOT to identify state roads that are scheduled for resurfacing and discuss potential changes to the road configuration. This identification provides opportunities for striping improvements, road diets, lane re-allocations, bike lanes and other components of complete streets. You can find more information about the Complete Streets Resurfacing Program here.

For more information, check out the Healthy Communities issue or the entire Planner’s Portfolio series.