Making our city more walkable

Stimulating an active lifestyle may mean redesigning our infrastructure around people.

People biking on Corniche to keep healthy life in their busy schedule in Abu Dhabi. Ravindranath K / The National

The mayor of Oklahoma City, Mick Cornett, discussed at Daman's Creating Health Communities conference in Abu Dhabi this week his city's journey to collectively losing a million pounds (450,000kg), which began at the end of 2007 after the city was ranked among the most obese cities in the United States. He said that the secret behind such notable success is that the city invested in redesigning its infrastructure in a way that nudged people towards a healthier and more active lifestyle.

And this is what Abu Dhabi can learn from to address our lifestyle-related national health issues, including obesity and diabetes. As Mr Cornett rightly said, Abu Dhabi and Oklahoma City have many things in common. Both cities have experienced rapid development as a result of commodity-based economies with a focus on oil and other natural resources. Both cities are also spread out and have very wide streets and large highways. We can follow Oklahoma City’s step in making its streets more walkable and pedestrian-friendly by adding more pavements to connect neighbourhoods to parks, schools, work places and shopping malls. In busy areas, particularity in the city centre, we should make more efforts to prioritise people above cars to not just encourage people to walk but also to ease congestion.

When it comes to summer’s hot weather, Mr Cornett suggested an innovative solution: we can design readily available access to air-conditioned venues to reduce the strain of heat for those who choose to walk. Nowadays, many of those who want to incorporate walking in their lifestyle have to go to a shopping mall to find that. Why not make it easier for them? Making a shift in culture requires innovation and creativity.

More focus must also be put on creating awareness about the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle on the the physical and psychological well-being. Walking does not only solve many health issues, but also makes it possible to recover the pure sensation of being and rediscover the little things in our surroundings.