Posted on 01/16/2002 5:20:35 AM PST by blackbag
Sprawl aired as matter of our health
Sprawl and health: Is suburban life beneficial or detrimental to one's health? Do the CDC's sprawl studies encourage sound science or promote an anti-suburban political agenda?
You haven't smoked a cigarette in years, and you've learned to control your cravings for doughnuts and barbecue. Now, some doctors say, you have another health hazard to worry about: urban sprawl.
People who live in communities where they have to drive for even simple errands are breathing foul air and getting too little exercise, some public health experts say.
"It's clear that urban sprawl is one of the important contributors to our epidemic of heart disease, diabetes, asthma and obesity," said Dr. Hugh Tilson, a professor of epidemiology and health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
But such statements are drawing fire from home builders and developers, who note that federal health statistics show that people who live in suburban subdivisions are among the nation's healthiest.
Tilson and his boss, Dr. William Roper, dean of UNC's School of Public Health, are teaming up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Friday to broadcast a nationwide conference on the health effects of sprawl. Tilson, Roper and other panelists will argue that developers and local governments need to think about people's health as they design and build communities.
"One of the things we hope to achieve with this broadcast is that public health professionals will initiate a dialogue with city planners and transportation planners," said Donna E. Davis, director of the program that organized the conference for UNC. "They all need to be at the same table."
The nation's home builders say that there's always more room at the table but that the notion that suburbs cause heart disease or obesity is ludicrous. When two CDC researchers released a report last fall on the health effects of urban sprawl, the National Association of Home Builders accused them of promoting an anti-suburban political agenda rather than sound science.
"We'll all be better off if they stick to what they do best -- fighting physical diseases, not defending political ones," Bruce Smith, a California builder and the association's president, said in a statement.
In fact, Smith said, the CDC released a report in September concluding that people who live in the suburbs were healthier on average than those in cities and rural areas. It said that suburban residents were more likely to exercise during leisure time and that suburban women were the least likely to be obese.
But suburbanites are healthier primarily because they're wealthier, more educated and better insured and have easier access to sophisticated medical care, said Mark Eberhardt, a CDC epidemiologist and lead author of the report Smith cited. Eberhardt said his study didn't consider the design of suburbs or how much time people spent in their cars.
And even if suburbanites are better off, Tilson said, that's not the point.
"The question is how much healthier could they be if their area were better designed," he said. "We happen to know that urban sprawl is a problem. Rural life has its own set of problems."
The conference Friday will be broadcast on the Web and beamed to televisions in 250 conference rooms and auditoriums throughout the country, where more than 1,800 people are expected to gather, Davis said.
The audience will be mostly public health workers, many of whom will be hearing about this subject for the first time. While the connection between exercise and good health is well established, epidemiologists are just beginning to document the links between health and the man-made environment, Tilson said.
The conference will highlight national health trends. The percentage of American adults who are overweight or obese, for example, rose from 47 percent in 1976 to 61 percent in 1999. It also will focus on the trends in Portland, Ore., where state and local governments have made a concerted effort to contain sprawl and encourage walking.
Triangle governments are trying to make it easier for people to walk, too, by requiring sidewalks and planning greenways, said Dan Jewell, a landscape architect in Durham who designed most of that city's greenway trails. But the region has a long way to go, and local governments should do more to coordinate and encourage developers to create a network of sidewalks and trails, said Jewell, who also plans subdivisions.
"[Developers] are always thinking about pedestrian movement on the land that they control," he said. "The difficulty comes when we suggest that we also look at connections to the greater region -- how do they connect with their neighbors' property or the shopping center down the road?"
Still, there are plenty of parks and trails in the Triangle, if people are motivated to turn off the television or the computer to use them, said Karen Stevenson of North Raleigh. She doesn't think sprawl is necessarily unhealthy.
"It depends on your lifestyle," said Stevenson, who drove her 6-year-old daughter, Annalise, to Shelley Lake Park on Tuesday afternoon to take advantage of the sun and the playground. "You can be sedentary anywhere."
Suburbanites also get their hearts going at places such as gyms, where running machines and aerobics, yoga and step classes take the place of a brisk walk to the store.
"We're in a white-collar area, here in Preston," said Cory Daker, manager of the Gold's Gym on Northwest Maynard Road in Cary. "A lot of these people work behind a desk all day."
Tilson acknowledges that many people go to gyms or hit the walking trails. But those who aren't as motivated to exercise suffer from the automobile-oriented culture of today's cities, he said.
"The environment that we live in gives us subtle but compelling signals about physical activity," Tilson said. "If you create barriers to being physically active, people will be physically inactive."
What is the first thing a doctor tells a patient with typeII diabetes or heart disease? Walk! The problem is that for many people living under sprawl-type zoning ordinances, there is no place to safely walk. In many American suburbs you can't even cross the street without risking your life.
Why is this?
I can tell you it didn't do anything for my health when I 'took advantage' of public transportation.
Is calling this guy an IDIOT a personal attack? Or the truth? "Sprawl" is caused by those who SPRAWL on their sofa in front of the black box too much. How can this guy be a PROFESSOR? Can we start Homeschooling at the University level, soon? Please?
TRANSLATION: "The main thing we hope to achieve with this broadcast is to continue the growth of medical fascism. We at the AMA and our running dogs, the FDA and CDC, intend to increase our political power until we have complete totalitarian control of the US population and can finally wipe out the chiropractors and vitamin salesmmen. Drugs and surgery uber alles."
bulldawg
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I don't really have a file of links put together ( Rats! Another thing to do! ) but here are a couple:
-The Thoreau Institute Urban Growth and Transportation Studies--
has a lot of info & opinion refuting the "urban sprawl," "Lite rail/mass transit" and related items...
And more here:
I gave the little sweetheart all the links but she/he/it is adamant that goobermint must "do" something, anything to stop this travesty or we're all gonna die.
Her mother prolly got frightened by a car once and she can't bear the thought of walking anywhere in sight of nasty ol' cars.
grasshopper2: Let me repeat some of those links. Maybe this time you'll go to them and see where you've been misled by the usual watermelon BS.
I can't do all the research for you, but these will get you started (or restarted), if indeed you are interested in anybody's opinion but your own.
Urban Sprawl = Bush Country
Ever heard of a park?
Plan B, a mall? Lots of grannies and grandpas are able to find it for walking.
The problem is that for many people living under sprawl-type zoning ordinances, there is no place to safely walk
Ever heard of a park?
How do you get there?
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