Ruimte voor Bewegen in de Regio (Space2Move)

Recent research shows that stimulating people to more exercise results in positive health effects. The Space2Move project aims to identify and implement spatial planning-based location specific interventions to stimulate people to walk and bike more (as examples of ‘healthy mobility’) and, subsequently, to analyse the health impact. In a number of local and regional experiments in the region of Arnhem-Nijmegen we analyse more in detail how effective actually various initiatives that stimulate people to walk and bike (instead of car or public transport use) are and whether this results in a positive impact on health. Regarding these initiatives we distinguish spatial planning initiatives on a regional level, city level, and neighbourhood level. Space2Move will connect to and make use of (the results) of recent, partly regional, research into the relation between exercise and health and the impact of location-specific interventions on individuals’ decisions to walk and bike more. In our research we will work with different target groups, distinguished by ‘the extent to which they exercise’ and ‘the degree of their health problems (if any), since we assume that different types of interventions should target these groups to be effective. Aiming to develop a regional approach, Space2Move will analyse and develop innovative governance models and public private partnerships between regional and local authorities, societal partners and the private sector. These models and partnerships should connect stakeholders from different policy domains, notably the spatial planning domain, the recreational sector and the sector health. Stakeholders from these domains participate in Space2Move and will actively be involved in the project. The project’s focus will be on innovative types of collaborative governance (public private partnerships; include interventions that stimulate exercise in area development) and business models (“inclusive” concession models and tendering; value capture; individual reward model to stimulate exercise; health prevention fund). The ultimate project goal is to propose realistic spatial planning-related and location-specific policies and interventions as part of new local and regional spatial visions, promoting ‘healthy mobility’, based on the pilots and our research that add to a more health society. As such, the project also aims to contribute to the requirements in the new Dutch planning law to do so. Also, Space2Move wants to create a regional platform to institutionalize these new types of cooperation between stakeholders from the different domains that we identified above and to suggest the implementation of innovative, collaborative governance and finance arrangement.