Creating vibrant neighborhoods starts with making them a safe place for everyone. While there are many large and small changes that could be made, traffic calming can have systemic benefits, including addressing equity.
Victoria Transport Policy Institute: Traffic calming tends to increase horizontal equity by reducing the external costs imposed by motor vehicles and improving the balance between different uses of public streets. Traffic calming tends to increase vertical equity because it benefits people who are physically, economically and socially disadvantaged, while imposing the greatest disbenefits on relatively wealthy, higher mileage drivers.
While that report on traffic calming has a whole menu of options, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) provides a succinct series of implementation options for the neighborhood scale, which carry additional benefit (such as stormwater management).