Measure	Definitions	Study areas	Data sources	Examples of studies where applied
Population Density	No. of residents living in census tracts or census blocks per area (gross population density)	California; Indianapolis IN; Chapel Hill NC; New York City NY; El Paso TX; Puget Sound WA; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Census	1–7
	No. of persons in housing units per unit land area in parcels	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Census, parcel-level data*	6
	No. of persons in housing units per unit land area in residential parcels	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Census, parcel-level data	6
	No. of housing units per residential acre	Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY Metropolitan Area Erie County NY; Atlanta, GA King County WA San Diego CA	Census; parcel-level data; regional land cover data from aerial images	8–12
	No. of residential units in the household parcel	Seattle WA	County’s parcel-level and building-level assessor’s data	13
	No. of persons in housing units plus total employees per unit land area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Census, parcel-level data	6
	No. of housing units as counted by the census, including both occupied and unoccupied units, per unit land area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN; 10 largest consolidated metropolitan statistical areas in U.S.	Census, parcel-level data	6,14
	Building footprint area divided by area in parcels, excluding vacant or agricultural land uses	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Census, parcel-level data	6
	No. of residents and jobs per area	Gainesville FL	Gainesville built environment database	15
	Developed-area population density	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census Transportation Planning Package, Association of Bay Area Governments’ Land-use File (hectare -level land use)	16
	Mean net residential density within buffer	Seattle WA	County’s parcel-level and building-level assessor’s	13
Land-use mix
Accessibility	Distance (network and/or straight-line) to closest specified destination(s) (e.g., fast food restaurant, school, shopping center) or groups of destinations	Cincinnati OH; U.S.; Rockhampton, Queensland; Seattle WA; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN; Northern California	Yellow/white pages on Internet, phone book, school district, county parcel-level and building- level assessor’s data	13,17–20
	Accessibility index (from gravity model) comprised of attractiveness and travel time	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census Transportation Planning Package, Association of Bay Area Governments’ Land-use File (hectare -level land use), MIN-UTP (travel times)	16
	Distance to closest neighborhood retail establishments based on North American Industrial Classification System categories (having ≤200 workers)	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	3rd quarter ES202 employment records coded, geocoded and cleaned by the Minnesota Dept of Employment & Economic Development	21
Intensity	No. of types of businesses (service, retail, cultural, educational, recreation, neighborhood serving/ retail, employment) located in a neighborhood (range from 0 to 7)	Ten largest consolidated metropolitan statistical areas in U.S.	Standard Industry Classification codes in specific area	14
	No. of types of destinations (churches, community centers, libraries, p- patches, parks, playgrounds, post offices, schools, swimming pools, theaters, banks, bars, grocery stores, and restaurants)	Seattle WA	Washington State Geospatial Data Archive and Urban Form Lab at University of Washington	22
	No. of types of businesses and facilities (department, discount, and hardware stores; libraries, post offices; parks; walking and biking trails; golf courses; shopping centers; and museums and art galleries), ranging from 0 to 7	Pittsburgh PA	Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission databases	23
	No. of types of businesses and no. of establishments of each type, classified as institutional (church, library, post office, bank), maintenance (grocery store, convenience store, pharmacy), eating out (bakery, pizza, ice cream, take out), and leisure (health club, bookstore, bar, theater, video rental)	Northern California	Yellow/white pages on Internet	20
	Commercial floor area /43,560*commercial land area	Gainesville FL	Property appraiser’s database	15
	Percentage of area for different uses (e.g., residential, commercial, industrial, special use, park, water, parking lot, and transportation)	Indianapolis IN	Parcel-level data	4
	Percentage of total parcel area in the following: major land uses (commercial, industrial, office, parks and rec, residential, tax exempt, vacant), night time uses, social uses, retail uses, industrial and auto-oriented uses	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Parcel-level data	24
	Percentage of total number of parcels (accessible by the street network) that are residential	Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY Metropolitan Area	Parcel-level data	9
	Percentage of total buildings that are nonresidential	El Paso TX	City of El Paso Planning, Research and Development Dept	5
	Gross employment density (no. of employees per area)	Puget Sound, WA; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Washington State Department of Economic Security, Puget Sound Regional Council (area of census tracts in acres), Census, parcel-level data	2,6
	Employment per unit land area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Commercial data base, parcel-level data	24
	Retail employment per unit land area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Commercial data base, parcel-level data	24
	Density of employees in major retail subcategories: general merchandise, food stores, eating and drinking places, miscellaneous retail	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Commercial data base, parcel-level data	24
	Jobs density	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census Transportation Planning Package, Association of Bay Area Governments’ Land-use File (hectare -level land use), MIN-UTP (travel times)	16
	Presence of shopping mall	Portland OR	Regional Land Information System from assessment and taxation records	25
Pattern	Dissimilarity index as a function of the number of actively developed hectares in the tract and an indicator for whether the central active hectare’s use type differs from that of a neighboring hectare	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census Transportation Planning Package, Association of Bay Area Governments’ Land-use File (hectare -level land use)	16
	Entropy index as a function of the proportion of developed land across six land-use types (residential, commercial, public, offices and research sites, industrial, and parks recreation)	San Francisco Bay Area CA;109 (2) Minneapolis–St. Paul MN;133 Puget Sound111	Census Transportation Planning Package, Association of Bay Area Governments’ Land-use File (hectare -level land use),109 Parcel-level data,133 King County BALD file (parcel data)111	2,16,24
	Mean entropy as the average of neighborhood entropies computed for all developed hectares within each census tract, where neighborhood is defined to include all developed area within 0.8 km of each relevant active hectare	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census Transportation Planning Package, Association of Bay Area Governments’ Land-use File (hectare -level land use)	16
	Land-use diversity factor (for both origin and destination) comprised measures of mixed use entropy, employed resident-to-jobs balance index, resident-to- retail/services balances index, “residentialness” index	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census Association of Bay Area Governments	26
	Job-residents balance as a function of the number of jobs and residents in a TAZ	Gainesville FL	Gainesville built environment database	15
	Job mix as a function of the number of commercial, industrial, and service jobs	Gainesville FL	Gainesville built environment database	15
	Land-use mix defined as evenness of distribution of square footage of residential, commercial, and office development (see equation in text)	Atlanta GA; King County WA; San Diego CA	Parcel-level land use from County Tax Assessors Data, metropolitan planning organization	8,10,12
	Land-use mix comprised of residential and commercial building area	New York City NY	Tax assessors data	7
	Proportion of dissimilar land uses among grid cells in an area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Parcel-level data	24
	Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, HHI	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Parcel-level data	24
Access to recreation facilities
Accessibility	Proportion of suburb area allocated to public open space	Melbourne, Australia	Open Space 2002 spatial dataset supplied by the Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology	27
	Distance to (network and/or straight-line) nearest facility (playgrounds, parks, trail, gyms, recreation centers)	Cincinnati OH; Rockhampton, Queensland; Southeastern SC; San Diego CA; Seattle WA; El Paso TX; Arlington MA; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN; San Antonio TX	Variety of data sources, including: health department inventory;143 Internet searches; department of parks and recreation;69metropolitan planning organization, yellow pages, web sites, phone calls;137park layer, Puget Sound Regional Council’s regional transportation network data;138City of El Paso Parks and Recreation Dept, Center for Environmental Resource Management (schools), Online yellow pages listings (gyms);125and parcel-level data133	5,13,18,19,28-31
	Accessibility to public open space (>2 acres) based on gravity model with adjustment for attractiveness (based on observational assessment), distance, and size	Perth, Western Australia	Ministry of Planning	32,33
Intensity	Density of 48 types of recreational facilities based on kernel densities, simple densities, densities adjusted for population density. Recreational facilities did not include school, churches, private facilities, trails not in parks. Stratified by type of facility (e.g., related to team/dual sports) and requirement of facility user fees.	Forsyth County NC Baltimore County MD Manhattan and Bronx boroughs NY	Online yellow page and Internet searches; Departments of city planning and recreation; Other GIS units	34
	No. of recreational facilities (out of 169 facility types falling under schools, public facilities, youth organizations, parks, YMCA, public fee facilities, instruction, outdoor, member, all facilities)	U.S. (N=42,857 block groups)	Commercially purchased set of digitized business records using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes	35
	No. of for-fee indoor exercise facilities, categorized as private (commercial, requiring membership) or public (owned/managed by local authority/council, with pay per session, membership, or club usage), classified as gym, sports hall, and/or swimming pool	England	Commercial database	36
	No. of resources (parks, gyms, recreation center, and/or public school with public access)	Southeastern SC San Diego CA	Internet searches; department of parks and recreation; yellow pages; metropolitan planning organization, yellow pages, web sites	28,30
	No. of private (e.g., fitness clubs, dance studios, skate rinks) and public (parks, schools) facilities	San Diego CA	Yellow page phone books, phone calls, and internet. Schools and public parks obtained from San Diego Assoc of Governments	10
	No. of recreation facilities (parks, gyms, schools, and biking/walking paths)	El Paso TX	City of El Paso Parks and Recreation Dept, Center for Environmental Resource Management (schools), Online yellow pages listings (gyms)	5
	No. of exercise facilities (out of 385) that were classified as either free (public parks, sports fields, public recreation centers, colleges & universities, public schools) or pay (tennis/racquet clubs, aerobic and dance studies, membership swimming pools, health or fitness clubs, YMCAs and YWCAs, and skating rinks). Excluded bike and walking trails, private tennis courts, private swimming pools	San Diego CA	Telephone classified directory, local sports and exercise publications and other commonly available sources	37
	Amount of park area (in hectares) accessible by the street network	Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY Metropolitan Area	Unspecified	9
	Acres of park	San Diego CA	Metropolitan planning organization	30
	Presence of park and trail	Portland OR	Regional Land Information System from assessment and taxation records	25
	Percentage of total residential area that is park or non-park recreation area (Park area included nature trails, bike paths, playgrounds, athletic fields, and state, county, and municipally owned parks. Recreational area included ice or roller skating rinks, swimming pools, health clubs, tennis courts, and camping facilities.)	Erie County NY	Parcel land-use data from NY State GIS Clearinghouse	11
	Square meters of green space and recreational space, including woods, parks, sport grounds (not gyms or fitness centers)*, allotments where people grow vegetables, and grounds used for day trips, e.g., zoo and amusement parks	Maastricht, The Netherlands	Existing GIS databases of Statistics Netherlands on land utilization including the amount of green space and recreational space.	38
Street pattern
Indices	Composite measure of alpha, beta, and gamma indices (measures of the ratio of intersections to street segments)	U.S.	Street centerlines	17
	Composite measures of block size (average of street length, block area, block perimeter)	U.S.	Street centerlines	17
	Walkability score comprised: negative of ave block size; percentage of all blocks having areas of <0.01 square miles; no. of 3-, 4-, and 5-way intersections divided by the total no. of road miles.	U.S.	Street centerlines (not explicitly stated)	39
	Pedestrian-/bike-friendly design factor (for both origin and destination) comprised of square meters per block within 1 mi (average), proportion of intersections that are 3-way intersections, proportion of intersections that are 4-way intersections, proportion of intersections that are 5-way intersections, proportion of intersections that dead ends	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Street centerlines	26
	Street characteristics factor (dichotomized as high or low) comprised of the sum of the following dichotomized variables: no. of road segments (link count); ratio of road segments to intersections (link-node ratio); density of ≥3 way intersections; census block density	Forsyth County NC; Jackson, MS	Street centerlines	40
Single variables	No. of intersections with ≥4 roads	Melbourne, Australia	Street centerlines	27
	Percentage of intersections that are 4-way intersections (connected node ratio)	10 largest consolidated metropolitan statistical areas in U.S.; El Paso TX; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	5,14
	Block length	10 largest consolidated metropolitan statistical areas in U.S.	Street centerlines	14
	No. of intersections per length of street network (in feet or miles)	California; Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY Metropolitan Area; Erie County NY	Street centerlines	1,9,11
	No. of intersections per area	AtlantaGA; King County WA; New York City NY; El Paso TX; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	5,7,8,10,12
	No. of 4-way intersections per area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Ratio between airline and network distances to specified destination(s) (e.g., church, office)	Seattle WA; Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	County’s parcel-level and building-level assessor’s, Puget Sound Regional Council’s regional transportation network data; street centerlines	13
	Network segment average length	Indianapolis IN	Street centerlines	4
	Percentage of intersections that are cul-de-sacs	El Paso TX	Street centerlines	5
	Average census block area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Median census block area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	No. of access points	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Road length per unit area	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Ratio of 3-way intersections to all intersections	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Median perimeter of block	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Street miles per square mile	Gainesville FL	Street centerlines	15
Sidewalk coverage
	Sidewalk length divided by road length	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN; Gainesville FL; El Paso TX	Street centerlines;133 County’s bicycle and pedestrian level-of- service database;108Black and white photos with 1 ft resolution, acquired by Surdex in 1996 and were subsequently bought by the Public Senate Board, available free through the PdNMapa Initiative funded by Paso del Norte125	15,24
	Total length of sidewalks within buffer	Seattle WA	Puget Sound Reg’l Council’s transportation network	13
	Percentage of shortest route to closest bus stop with sidewalk; Percentage of shortest route to campus with sidewalk	Chapel Hill NC	Orthophotographic images, NC Secretary of State, Orange County Land Records Office, Chapel Hill Planning Office, and Chapel Hill Transit	3
	Commute time difference without and with taking into account walking/cycling paths information	Chapel Hill NC	Orthophotographic images, NC Secretary of State, Orange County Land Records Office, Chapel Hill Planning Office, and Chapel Hill Transit	3
	Average sidewalk width	Gainesville FL	County’s bicycle and pedestrian level-of-service database	15
Traffic
Indices
	Traffic factor (dichotomized as high or low) comprised of the sum of the following dichotomized variables: mean speed, maximum speed, and majority speed	Forsyth County NC; Jackson, MS	Posted speed limits from the road network file from Forsyth County Tax Office and the Traffic Engineering Division and City Ordinance Book from Jackson, MS	40
	Volume factor (dichotomized as high or low) comprised of the sum of the following dichotomized variables: maximum traffic volume, mean traffic volume	Forsyth County NC; Jackson, MS	Annual Average Daily Traffic counts (interpolated values for roads without counts using Spatial Analyst)	40
Single variable	Distance (network and/or straight-line) to nearest busy street (e.g., ≥60 kph)	Rockhampton, Queensland	Unspecified	18
	Mean traffic volume within buffer	Seattle WA	Puget Sound Regional Council’s transportation network	13
	No. of crashes involving a pedestrian or bicyclist per population for 10-year period 1993-2002	Forsyth County NC	University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center	40
	Street width (excluding sidewalk), likely to affect the volume of traffic and incidents of accidents	Erie County NY	Street centerlines (TeleAtlas)	11
	Busy street barrier, defined as present where at least one of the four busiest streets in Arlington MA would have to be crossed to access the Minuteman Bikeway	Arlington MA	Street centerlines	31
Crime	No. of serious crimes per 1,000 residents per year	Cincinnati OH	Police department’s website	19
	No. of emergency police calls per 1,000 residents per year	Cincinnati OH	Police department’s website	19
	No. of crimes per 100,000 people (includes both violent and property crimes)	U.S.	Federal Bureau of Investigation	39,41
	No. of violent crimes	San Antonio	Police blotters published daily in a San Antonio newspaper	29
Other
Slope	Mean slope within buffer	Seattle WA	Unspecified	13
	Any 100 m road segment with ≥8% slope	Forsyth County NC; Jackson MS	Digital Elevation Models from United States Geological Survey	42
	Commute time difference without and with taking into account slope information	Chapel Hill NC	Orthophotographic images, NC Secretary of State, Orange County Land Records Office, Chapel Hill Planning Office, and Chapel Hill Transit	3
	Average change in elevation (in ft) in a subject’s neighborhood. Calculated by subtracting the lowest elevation point from the highest elevation point.	El Paso TX	Purchased from Topo Depot (www.topodepot.com)	5
	Slope of ≥10% for a continuous distance of ≥100 m along shortest route from home to Minuteman Bikeway	Arlington MA	GIS elevation data	31
Greenness / vegetation	Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) For Tilt 2007, calculated mean of the NDVI values within a circle with the same area as the average walkable area defined by GIS Network Analysis (0.4 mi walking distance of residential parcels)	Indianapolis, IN; Seattle WA	Biophysical remote sensing techniques and multispectral imagery acquired by the Landsat Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) remote sensing system.; Dataset acquired from Landsat 5 and process for geo- registration, instrument calibration, atmosphere correction, and topographic correction by the Urban Ecology Research Laboratory at the University of WA	4,22
Coastal location	Coastal suburb (Y/N)	Melbourne, Australia	--	27
Dogs	No. of registered dogs	Rockhampton, Queensland	Unspecified	18
Street lighting	Amount of roadway within 20 m of streetlight	Rockhampton, Queensland	City Council from State’s electrical supplier	18
	Street lights per length of road	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Aerial photos	24
Trees	Percentage of street miles with trees	Gainesville FL	County’s bicycle and pedestrian level-of- service database	15
	Total no. of street trees within buffer	Seattle WA	Unspecified	13
	Street trees (trees within an certain distance buffer) per length of road	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Aerial photos	24
Transit	No. of bus stops and subway stations per square kilometer	New York City NY	New York City Dept. of City Planning	7
	Distance to nearest transit stop	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
	Transit stop density	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Street centerlines	24
Regional accessibility	Accessibility index as a function of (1) the number of trip attractions in a specified zone for the particular trip purpose and (2) interzonal friction factor for particular trip purpose	Gainesville FL	Unspecified	15
	Regional accessibility using total retail employment and gravity model calculation	Central Puget Sound metropolitan area WA	Employment data from Washington State	43
Bike paths and shoulders	Distance to on-street and off-street bike paths	Minneapolis–St. Paul MN	Minnesota Department of transportation	21
	Length of bike path and paved shoulders divided by road length	Gainesville FL	County’s bicycle and pedestrian level-of- service database	15
Neighborhoo d themes / patterns	Used cluster analysis to identify patterns of environmental characteristics and to specify homogeneous, non- overlapping clusters of neighborhoods sharing various meaningful characteristics. Major neighborhood types: (1) rural working class; (2) exurban; (3) new suburban developments; (4) older, upper-middle class suburbia with highway access; (5) mixed- race/ethnicity urban; (6) low SES, inner city. GIS variables included four measures of street connectivity, one measure of access to recreational facilities, two measures of road type, and one measure of crime	U.S.	Street centerlines (street connectivity), commercially purchased set of digitized business records using SIC codes (recreational facilities), Census feature class roads (road types), U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting county- level data from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data	44
	Used cluster analysis to identify neighborhood themes consisting of (1) planned unit development; (2) traditional neighborhood development; and (3) mixed	Orange County CA	Land-use database from Orange County Administration Office, Census TIGER files	45
Home age	Median year home built	Southwestern PA	Census	14,23
Composite variables
Neighborhoo d accessibility	Comprised: (1) density; (2) no. of employees for specific neighborhood retail businesses; (3) block area	Central Puget Sound metropolitan area WA	Census, employment data from Washington State	43
Neighborhoo d walkability index	Comprised of land-use mix, residential density, and intersection density	Atlanta GA; King County WA; San Diego CA	Census, regional land cover data from aerial images, street centerlines, parcel-level land-use data	8,10,20,30
Walkability score	Comprised of eight variables related to proximity/density of grocery stores and other retail destinations, educational parcels, office mixed use complexes, and block size.	King County WA	Assessor’s files (parcel), park information, streets, foot/ bike trails, land slope, vehicular traffic, public transit	46
Intensity factor	Comprised: retail store density, activity center density, retail intensity, walking accessibility, park intensity, and population density	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census; Census Transportation Planning Package; Association of Bay Area Governments	47
Walking quality factor	Comprised: sidewalk provisions, street light provisions, block length, planted strips, lighting distance, flat terrain	San Francisco Bay Area CA	Census; Census Transportation Planning Package; Association of Bay Area Governments. Some indicators from field inventories	47
Sprawl indices	Comprised: residential density (7 variables), land- use mix (6 variables), degree of centering (6 variables), street accessibility (3 variables)	U.S. counties (448) and metropolitan areas (83)	Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Inventory	41,48
	Comprised: percentage of total population in low density (>200 and <3500 persons per square mile) and high density (≥3500 persons per square mile) census tracts	330 U.S. metropolitan areas	Census	49
	Comprised: proportion of census metropolitan area (CMA) dwellings that are single or detached units, dwelling density, and percentage of CMA population living in the urban core	Canada	Canadian Census of Population	50

^*Typically derived from tax assessors records though also used for land-use planning.