Examination of residential and running environments of urban and rural runners in the Netherlands
Summary
In the course of urban growth, the living environment and lifestyle of residents in urban and rural areas are undergoing gradual changes (e.g., increase in dependency on automobiles and loss in public open spaces to exercise). This transformation places the importance of protecting or improving the environments that encourage people to participate in physical activities. While currently, little is known about the environments of a specific physical activity ̶ running ̶ which is conveniently accessible and considerably benefits health.
Thus, this research aims to examine the differences between urban and rural runners regarding their residential and running environments. It will also explore the differences between residential and running environments of the runners (urban and rural). Furthermore, it will conduct further investigation on the running environments of those urban and rural runners running different distance, duration, at weekends/on weekdays, inside/outside their
neighbourhoods and with different running frequency.
To achieve the goal, the following processes will be carried out. The first step is to collect routes taken by runners living in the Netherlands via a GPS mobile tracking application, Endomondo, and then to extract features (e.g., geolocations of routes, running duration and start time) from the GPS data. Subsequently, defining runner’s urban/rural status and measuring the environmental variables (e.g., street connectivity and residential building density) of residential areas and surroundings of GPS tracks with the support of geographical and census data. Finally, carrying on t-tests to compare the objectively measured environmental variables of running environments between urban and rural runners and the sub-groups (i.e., weekdays/weekends, inside/outside neighbourhoods, different running distance, duration, and frequency) and compare the environmental variables of the runners
(urban and rural)’ residential and running environments.
The results showed that urban runners were exposed to running and living environments with relatively heterogeneously distributed land uses more streets, addresses and coverage of residential buildings, yet less green and blue areas than their rural counterparts. Both urban and rural runners preferred running in places with more vegetations while running outside their neighbourhoods. Besides, when urban runners run at weekends,
they choose more heterogeneously distributed land uses and streets. In addition, the longer tracks (long-distance
or duration) and the tracks of more frequently practised runners were taken in environments with more vegetation and fewer addresses. Moreover, urban and rural runners chose more environments with more blue spaces for running.
This research found that the running environments of urban and rural runners had distinct characteristics. Their choices of running environments were restricted by their residency. It, therefore, suggests policy to promote running acknowledging these differences between running environments in urban and rural areas.