Active Living Logan Square

This article profiles the work of Active Living Logan Square, a program run by the Logan Square Neighborhood Association with funding from Active Living by Design (ALbD). Logan Square is a low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood in Chicago, IL with high levels of obesity and few local resources for active living.

The Logan Square Neighborhood Association partnered with the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing and the Illinois Health Education Consortium, along with other community groups, to promote healthy living opportunities in Logan Square schools and communities.

Key Findings:

  • Active living improvements in schools included implementing health-related activities for children in all grades in the local elementary school, building a playground so that all students could take a 10-minute recess, and integrating bike safety classes into the middle school curriculum.
  • Funding from ALbD and matching grants supported a full-time coordinator and carved out time for the project for other key staff members.
  • Active Living Logan Square helped make the Bloomingdale Trail, a rails-to-trails project, a priority for the city of Chicago, which in 2008 received federal funding to develop the trail.
  • Two Open Streets pilot events, where streets were closed to traffic and physical activities were encouraged, attracted over 10,000 residents.
  • A major challenge for Active Living Logan Square was balancing the need to support long-term projects and policies while simultaneously creating and building upon smaller, short-term successes.

Active Living Logan Square was able to make positive active living improvements by engaging the community and a wide variety of partners. The project focused limited resources on specific school and community projects that could be sustained and replicated.

Active Living by Design featured in a Special Supplement of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

  1. 1. The Active Living by Design National Program
  2. 2. Bike, Walk, and Wheel
  3. 3. Project U-Turn
  4. 4. Promoting and Developing a Trail Network Across Suburban, Rural, and Urban Communities
  5. 5. Building the Base
  6. 6. Leveraging Neighborhood-Scale Change for Policy and Program Reform in Buffalo, New York
  7. 7. Active Living Logan Square
  8. 8. ACTIVE Louisville
  9. 9. Slavic Village
  10. 10. Get Active Orlando
  11. 11. Active Seattle
  12. 12. Achieving Built-Environment and Active Living Goals Through Music City Moves
  13. 13. Partnership Moves Community Toward Complete Streets
  14. 14. Activate Omaha
  15. 15. From Partnership to Policy
  16. 16. Establishing Best Practices for Changing the Built Environment to Promote Physical Activity
  17. 17. Implications of Active Living by Design for Broad Adoption, Successful Implementation, and Long-Term Sustainability
  18. 18. Active Living by Design as a Political Project
  19. 19. Active Living by Design

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