What’s the Score? Walkable Environments and Subsidized Households

Young-Jae Kim and Ayoung Woo
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Young-Jae Kim: Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, North Dakota State University, 711 2nd Avenue North, Office #308, Fargo, ND 58102, USA
Ayoung Woo: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, A340 Langford Architecture Center, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-20

Abstract: Neighborhood walkability can influence individual health, social interactions, and environmental quality, but the relationships between subsidized households and their walkable environment have not been sufficiently examined in previous empirical studies. Focusing on two types of subsidized housing developments (Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and Public Housing (PH)) in Austin, Texas, this study evaluates the neighborhood walkability of place-based subsidized households, utilizing objectively measured Walk Score and walking-related built environment data. We also used U.S. Census block group data to account for the socio-demographic covariates. Based on various data, we employed bivariate and multivariate analyses to specify the relationships between subsidized households and their neighborhood walkable environment. The results of our bivariate analyses show that LIHTC households tend to be located in car-dependent neighborhoods and have more undesirable walking-related built environment conditions compared with non-LIHTC neighborhoods. Our regression results also represent that LIHTC households are more likely to be exposed to neighborhoods with low Walk Score, less sidewalk coverage, and more highways and major roads, while there are no significant associations for PH households. These findings imply that more attention and effort toward reducing the inequitable distributions of walkable neighborhood features supporting rather than hindering healthy lifestyles must be provided to subsidized households.

Keywords: street smart walk score; walking-related built environment; low-income housing tax credit households; public housing households (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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