How can urban design and planning better support social connection, walkability and other important contributors to health and wellbeing?
As planner and urban designer Jenny Donovan addresses this question in the context of lutruwita/Tasmania and the state’s ambition to be “a place where every Tasmanian can live well”, many of the issues she highlights are relevant for other places too.
Jenny Donovan writes:
The Tasmanian Government, through the exposure draft to its 20-year preventive health strategy, “The Health Revolution”, sets out an inspiring vision for a more nurturing environment.
It recognises that health “comes from the kind of lives we get to live. The world we grow up in. The places we wake up, the people we love, the money in our pockets, the stress we carry, the food we can get, the air we breathe and the safety of the streets we live on”.
In this article, I put forward an approach to urban development that deliberately “hardwires” our surroundings so that meeting the many challenges essential to our wellbeing becomes easier, more intuitive, and better supported by the places we live in.
Most Tasmanians live in places that lock them into car dependency – low‑density housing with wide roads and rigorously separated land uses. While these places feel familiar and have allowed many people to find happiness, the reality is that car‑based mobility excludes many: older adults, children, people with disabilities, and those on lower incomes.
Furthermore, whether or not they can drive, people living in car‑dependent suburbs also tend to have more sedentary and isolating lifestyles. Yes, connection and activity are still possible in these areas, but they become harder – and for many, prohibitively difficult.
The sad consequences of this are well documented: higher rates of chronic disease, increased social isolation, and reduced civic participation.
The Tasmanian Population Health Survey consistently identifies loneliness, sedentary behaviour, and poor mental wellbeing as major statewide concerns. Added to this are the impacts of road trauma, noise and air pollution, mental health strain, and the heavy resource consumption associated with car use.
Inspiring examples
Fortunately, none of this is inevitable.
Around the world, there are many inspiring examples of how we can design or redesign our built environment to make the provision of appropriate housing more realistic, make it easier for people to connect with others and with nature, to make walking and cycling pleasant and safe, and to live without the stress and pollution that accompany traffic.
These models typically share two core characteristics:
- Streets are designed as places to be, not just corridors to pass through – creating valued shared space that serves ecological and social purposes.
- Dwellings are arranged more compactly, aligned to benefit from high‑quality shared landscapes and amenities.
The subdivillage model is one such approach. It envisages reframing neighbourhoods as clusters of 80–150 dwellings organised around walkable, green, socially rich streets.
Homes are compact, energy‑efficient, and close together; streets are narrow, highly landscaped, and designed for people first; and shared spaces – pocket parks, community gardens, micro‑squares – sit within a two to three minute walk of every front door.
While this pattern resembles the older inner suburbs prized for their “liveability”, it is not a vision based on nostalgia. It is a contemporary, evidence‑driven public health strategy and draws from many tried and tested initiatives.
These include the woonerfs of the Netherlands and the Home Zones of the UK. In Canada and here in Australia, architecture and landscape are considered together to make clusters of units on laneways appealing. Three reasons they work are outlined below.
1. Loneliness is reduced through everyday encounters
Loneliness is recognised by the World Health Organization as a global public health threat, with health impacts comparable to smoking and obesity. In Australia, the Ending Loneliness Together report found that one in three adults experiences problematic levels of loneliness.
Neighbourhood design plays a decisive role. Research shows that street greenery, slower traffic, and short walking distances increase casual social encounters – powerful protective factors against loneliness.
Narrow, landscaped streets fronted by residences where landscape dominates encourage residents to linger, greet neighbours, and participate in community life, as much or as little as they wish.
Compact housing strengthens this effect. It aligns with the shrinking household sizes of an ageing population and helps older residents stay connected.
Evidence from the UK’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that higher‑density, human‑scaled neighbourhoods generate stronger social networks than car‑oriented suburbs, even with similar demographics.
For lutruwita/Tasmania – where many towns face ageing populations and social fragmentation – subdivillage design and other similar approaches offer a structural antidote to reduce the toll of isolation.
2. Physical activity is increased in walkable environments
Physical inactivity remains one of Tasmania’s most persistent health challenges; only 55 percent of Tasmanian adults meet recommended activity levels.
Walkability is the strongest built‑environment predictor of daily physical activity. Subdivillage type streets – narrow, shaded, and traffic‑calmed – create safe, attractive walking routes for all ages. International evidence shows that people walk more when streets feel enclosed by trees, buildings, and human activity, rather than by wide asphalt corridors.
The subdivillage model also supports “incidental movement”, such as:
- walking to a pocket park
- strolling to a neighbour’s house
- supervising children in shared green spaces
- gardening in communal areas.
These short but frequent movements accumulate into significant health benefits, especially for older adults and people managing chronic conditions.
3. Community engagement is strengthened through shared landscapes
Highly landscaped streets are not merely decorative – they function as social infrastructure. Greenery reduces stress, improves mood, and increases civic pride.
When paired with compact housing, these landscapes become shared assets.
The emphasis on landscape and carefully thinking about the messages embodied in place means that subdivillages (and similar types of development) invite:
- community gardening
- outdoor gatherings
- shared maintenance days
- informal play
- neighbour‑to‑neighbour support networks.
This aligns with findings from Jie Qi et al of Sheffield Hallam University in the UK that small, frequent, high‑quality public spaces generate stronger community participation than large, infrequent ones.
For Tasmania’s towns – many of which are seeking to consolidate and strengthen local identity – subdivillage‑type development offers a scalable, place‑specific tool for rebuilding civic life.
It is also worth noting that Tasmania is not alone. Other states are also grappling with the twin challenges of finding secure housing for the growing number of people in housing stress, whilst recognising the disruption that often accompanies moving to a new place can also fray already eroded social bonds.
While local circumstances will always differ, providing safe, comfortable, welcoming and attractive settings for social interactions – where people can choose their own level of engagement with those around them – is likely to help newcomers form a nurturing connection with that place and the people with whom they share it.
Wise investments needed
From a public health perspective, subdivillages (and similar development approaches) that facilitate ‘gentle intensification’ are not simply a planning preference – they are a preventative health strategy that can help us achieve the vision outlined in ‘The Health Revolution’.
They provide housing suited to the growing number of smaller, older households and allow them to enjoy narrow, green, socially active streets. In doing so, Tasmania can reduce loneliness, increase physical activity, and strengthen community engagement –three of the state’s most pressing determinants of wellbeing.
However, it is evident this can’t be done on a lot by lot basis. It requires larger sites where subdivision patterns and street design can be considered together, particularly nearer town centres where walkability is most beneficial.
Unfortunately, such sites are few and far between, and their social benefits are economically uncompetitive given the yields that more conventional housing can achieve.
Achieving a more nurturing type of development will require many changes – to planning schemes, to developers’ areas of interests and to builders’ comfort zones.
This will be difficult but, compared to the growing burden of isolation and poor health on our society, it can be seen as a very wise investment.
• References are available here.
Author details
Jenny Donovan is a planner and urban designer, and a member of the Heart Foundation’s Tasmanian Advisory Board. She is the principal of the urban and landscape design practice Inclusive Design. She also works for the Cradle Coast Authority as a Consultant Planner and Urban Designer, and before that, the UN in Afghanistan where she managed a major human development and security program. Jenny is passionately interested in the social outcomes influenced by the places we build. Throughout her professional life she has been fortunate enough to work in roles that have focussed on helping people to overcome disadvantage, meet their needs, thrive and fulfil their potential. Her recent work includes ‘Care in Transit’, for Transport for New South Wales which provided design and placemaking guidelines to ensure train stations reconciled the needs of all users and the Steps Towards Sustainability program for Waratah Wynyard Council that installed a suite of pause places in northwest Tasmania. She is the author of books on socially responsible urban design, most recently “Designing to Heal” (2014) (CSIRO), “Designing the Compassionate City” (2017) and “Recipes for Urban Happiness” (2024) (Routledge).
Previously at Croakey
- How citizen science can help strengthen health and belonging
- From the Cradle Coast, a call for rail to be recognised as public health infrastructure for regional communities
See Croakey’s archive of articles on housing and health
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