Walking to School: The Experience of Children in Inner City Los Angeles and Implications for Policy

Neighborhood walkability has become an important public health concern. The child’s-eye view of safe and walkable environments is typically remiss from the literature. Particularly the experience of inner city kids, very different from that of suburban neighborhoods, remains unreported.

  • The study reported here offers new insights based on the walking to school experience reported by the children of inner city neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
  • Interviews with fifth-graders from five grade schools suggest that the dangers in their social milieu are a much greater concern for them than the physical milieu, which the walkability research typically emphasizes. The findings necessitate new policies.

Tridib Banerjee, JungA Uhm, Deepak Bahl. Walking to School:  The Experience of Children in Inner City Los Angeles and Implications for Policy. Journal of Planning Education and Research 2014;34(2):123-140.

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