Materializing change: exploring human rights-based approaches to improve built environment accessibility at the neighbourhood scale

Improving built environment accessibility at the neighbourhood scale can be supported through the application of a human rights lens. Enacting change requires a multi-dimensional understanding that bridges built environment legislation and disability policy, centring rights-holders in decision-making processes. Built environment practitioners reference building regulations, and are largely unaware of disability discrimination discourses, disability policy, the status of people with disabilities as rights-holders, or the significance of their own role as duty-bearers. This chapter explores bringing disability human rights-based approaches directly to built environment accessibility praxis, bridging the gap between rights-holders and duty-bearers. First, it acknowledges that the built environment wields substantial influence over lived experiences of disability and attainment of human rights. Second, it considers how rights-holders and duty-bearers operate within complex adaptive sub/systems. Third, it presents the Universal Mobility Index (UMI) Process for assessing neighbourhood accessibility and policy, as an applied model of human rights-based, built environment accessibility praxis.