Walkable Livable Communities Institute

The Walkable Livable Communities Institute (WALC) is our partner for coaching communities on how to become more livable.

Town Makers Guide: Healthy Building Placement

This image from the Walkable Livable Communities Institute shows how to design people-focused neighborhoods for better livability.

Town Makers Guide: Livable Schools

This image from the Walkable Livable Communities Institute shows how to consider better livability when designing school campuses.

Streets and Sidewalks are a Path to Well-Being

Environments strongly influence our behaviors. Communities designed for automobiles tend to discourage walking, biking and other natural movements that keep people happy, healthy and fit.

But, in communities designed for natural movement, residents are more likely to walk to the store or bike to the park. These communities encourage fitness and social interactions, thus contributing to everyone’s well-being. In walkable and bikeable communities, the healthy choice is the easy choice.

What’s more, the improvements that make a community more walkable and bikeable tend to be long-lasting. Sidewalks and bike lanes endure for years — even decades — improving the community’s livability well into the future.

Along with Healthways, the Blue Zones Project™ has exclusive agreements with the world’s leading experts—people like Dan Burden—and applies their expertise to transforming communities.

About Dan Burden

In 2001 Time Magazine selected Burden as one of the six most important Civic Innovators in the World. He is a visionary community-planning expert that has created methods to improve traffic flow, commuter safety and road design. For the past 38 years, Dan Burden has worked with cities and towns all over the United States to improve the well-being of citizens by making their communities more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists.

Read Dan’s full bio here.