Greater Geelong Built Environment Inventory with 95 Suburb-Level Measures

May 2014 data from a research project by Healthy Together Geelong and the University of Melbourne calculates accessibility to lifestyle amenities and health pitfalls. The dataset contains 95 measures for each suburb, aggregated from meshblock distances to features like greengrocers, bus stops, tobacco sellers, and rail trails. It includes land use mix entropy scores and was created using a proprietary method from Community Indicators Victoria.

Use Cases

• Modeling walkability and active transport potential based on distances to amenities and public transit.
• Assessing neighborhood health risks by analyzing proximity to tobacco sellers and access to recreational trails.
• Evaluating land use diversity and urban planning outcomes using entropy scores for six land use categories.
• Correlating built environment features with socio-economic or health outcome data at the suburb level.

Strengths

• Contains 95 distinct built environment measures for each suburb.
• Derived from a sophisticated, proprietary methodology developed by a university research centre.
• Includes a calculated land use mix entropy index with values between 0 and 1.
• Aggregates data from fine-grained meshblocks to the neighborhood level.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Data is from May 2014; freshness should be verified for contemporary applications.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from a separate lookup file after download.

Provenance

Source

City of Greater Geelong, Community Indicators Victoria, McCaughey Centre: VicHealth Centre for the Promotion of Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne

Collection Method

Calculated using a proprietary method from distances along street centrelines to dozens of features, aggregated from meshblocks to suburbs. Land use mix calculated via an entropy formula.

Time Range

May 2014

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 21:06:42.861848; freshness should be verified

Geography

City of Greater Geelong, Australia