10 September 2013

Crace residents become lab rats

| Barcham
Join the conversation
14

UC researchers are studying Crace to see if it is making people happy and healthy.

We haven’t seen much by the way of the results yet, however I will tell you that if they discover that living in a house that looks exactly like every other house on the street while having to pick your garden out of a catalogue so it matches your neighbours actually makes people happier, then I will stop calling myself a person and look for a new species to identify as.

Led by Léan OBrien, senior research fellow at the University’s Faculty of Health, ‘The Crace Study’ aims to find out whether the design of suburbs can have long-term benefits for the health and wellbeing of their residents.

“Crace, which had its first release of homes in 2009, was designed to be attractive and safe and to promote getting out and about, engaging in fun activities, social interaction and sustainable living,” Dr OBrien said. “Current thinking is that these design features will also have long-term benefits for the health and wellbeing of residents, which The Crace Study will test.”

The study is a novel exercise for Canberra but Dr OBrien and colleagues hope the findings will be informative at regional, national and international levels.

Professor Helen Berry, who leads the University’s healthy and sustainable communities research program, says that projects like these are rare and it has already attracted interest from policy-makers.

“The Crace Study is part of a growing international effort to understand how to build our cities in a way that keeps people healthy and happy. There’s growing demand for studies like these, which is why policy-makers and international bodies like the World Health Organization are watching The Crace Study closely,” Professor Berry said.

The study began in 2012 with an initial survey of 277 people, and is planned to continue for at least five years. The second wave of data will be collected in a survey opening later this month.

Responses to the first survey suggested Crace residents were physically active, well connected with their neighbours, and engaged with community events. Subsequent stages of the study will look for improvements in the health and wellbeing of residents as the suburb develops.

Join the conversation

14
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

Don’t be like that, people … I hear East Berlin is quite lovely this time of year.

downindowner said :

“however I will tell you that if they discover that living in a house that looks exactly like every other house on the street while having to pick your garden out of a catalogue so it matches your neighbours actually makes people happier, then I will stop calling myself a person and look for a new species to identify as.”

+1

+1,000
How people can stand to live in such a soulless place is beyond me

If the study concludes that Crace is hell on earth and living there is actively killing people and making them miserable in the process (as I suspect), will the residents be able to sue the developer, who undoubtedly sold the blocks as being a really nice place to live, the nicest development in the history of housing developments?

How the fark do they intend to account for confounding factors? Are they comparing it to some other recently built suburb with similar prices, lots of defence housing and in the middle of nowhere?

switch said :

So UC also has a School of Inconsequential Studies?

Yeah, health, what’s the point of that?

So UC also has a School of Inconsequential Studies?

wildturkeycanoe said :

LSWCHP said :

I don’t want to hurt the feelings of Cracians, but jeez that place looks like a dump. I’ve seen factories and dockyards that were more pleasing to the eye. It’s like the planners (if it was planned) deliberately aimed to make a lot of the houses look like cinder block retaining walls.

Anyone who bought there had no taste in the first place, so I wouldn’t be worried about their feelings. For style and size they aren’t houses any more than the crates on the Tampa.
For half a million I’d want somewhere I couldn’t hear my neighbors doing the naughty and had space to swing my cat in the backyard.

I enjoy a good cat swinging my self

“Crace, which had its first release of homes in 2009, was designed to be attractive and safe and to promote getting out and about, engaging in fun activities, social interaction and sustainable living,”

Was the word ‘allegedly’ was dropped from this sentence? Or the phrase ‘according to the developers’?

And where’s that photo that someone always posts when Crace is mentioned?

wildturkeycanoe8:18 am 11 Sep 13

LSWCHP said :

I don’t want to hurt the feelings of Cracians, but jeez that place looks like a dump. I’ve seen factories and dockyards that were more pleasing to the eye. It’s like the planners (if it was planned) deliberately aimed to make a lot of the houses look like cinder block retaining walls.

Anyone who bought there had no taste in the first place, so I wouldn’t be worried about their feelings. For style and size they aren’t houses any more than the crates on the Tampa.
For half a million I’d want somewhere I couldn’t hear my neighbors doing the naughty and had space to swing my cat in the backyard.

downindowner6:07 am 11 Sep 13

“however I will tell you that if they discover that living in a house that looks exactly like every other house on the street while having to pick your garden out of a catalogue so it matches your neighbours actually makes people happier, then I will stop calling myself a person and look for a new species to identify as.”

+1

I don’t want to hurt the feelings of Cracians, but jeez that place looks like a dump. I’ve seen factories and dockyards that were more pleasing to the eye. It’s like the planners (if it was planned) deliberately aimed to make a lot of the houses look like cinder block retaining walls.

“Crace, which had its first release of homes in 2009, was designed to be attractive”

to who a forklift driver. The suburb looks like a shipping container yard . Maybe they are lab rat houses.

Holden Caulfield5:03 pm 10 Sep 13

Oh, so that’s where Essendon* will recruit its players from after ASADA is finished with them. I guess there is the Canberra connection with St James and all.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.