Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl

Smart Growth America  published the first national study to establish a direct association between the form of the community and the health of the people who live there... over a decade ago. The report that was also covered by BBC, the New York Times, USA Today, and NPR confirms the adverse relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity, and morbidity. The results are not surprising. Here's what we found out:

• people living in counties marked by sprawling development are likely to walk less and weigh more than people who live in less sprawling counties
• sprawling counties are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure
• the results hold true for factors of age, education, gender, race, ethnicity
• people in sprawling areas are missing out on significant health benefits that are available simply by walking, biking, climbing stairs, and being active as a part of everyday life
• 55 percent of Americans would like to walk more instead of driving;
• 52 percent would like to bike more

Now, onto the shocking part: We've been building, are building, and will continue to build communities - and not just ex-urban, but places we classify as cities - that prove detrimental to our health (think of many southeastern cities, like Atlanta). Instead we should be putting limits to our growth and thinking about maximizing space and becoming as efficient as possible. There are several reasons to do so besides the health benefits; less reliance on automobiles as well as the non-renewable fuel sources that come with transportation, conservation and preservation of land and habitat, the ability to create a more localized economy, closer-knit communities, etc. For starters that means less parking lots which is essentially dead space that promote driving. It's alarming that in some cities parking space covers a third of the land area, becoming such a dominant feature of our built environment that it has started to define it. Such dull environments obstruct our motivation and creativity. Limiting growth also means establishing city limits, mixed-use zoning regulations, transit-oriented development, narrow streets, and not just dense but compact development.

While American cities may not have much on our European counterparts, below are the 10 cities with the largest share of their populations in functional urban cores (most compact), and they may compare the closest. It wouldn't come as a surprise if some of these cities were also the most fit.
 

1. New York City (97.3 percent)

2. Buffalo (94.5 percent)

3. San Francisco (94.0 percent)

4. Boston (89.7 percent)

5. Hartford (87.4 percent)

6. Providence (86.5 percent)

7. St. Louis (84.1 percent)

8. Minneapolis (83.5 percent)

9. District of Colombia (83.4 percent)

10. Philadelphia (83.4 percent)

These should be the years for compact growth, urban infill, core renewal. How much containment and smart growth is possible? Hopefully the possibilities are not endless - at least spatially. But it all starts with a plan. 

_________

Sources & Links:

Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl / Smart Growth America 

Almost Half of America's Biggest Cities Are Basically Built Like Giant Suburbs 

Urban Cores, Core Cities and Principal Cities  

America's Suburb Future

Urban vs. Suburban Growth in U.S. Metros 

U.S. Cities Are Slowing But Suburbs Are Growing

City Sprawl from 2000-2010 / CityLab 

Most Sprawling US Cities by Rank / CityLab

Parking Lots as Public Spaces / NY Times

Is Perpetual Densification to Eliminate the Suburbs the Answer?

A Planetizen article published in 2011 uses the case study of Athens to explore a "city without suburbs."

Athens, Greece started eradicating its suburbs in the 1970s and continued this densification goal through the 80s. There were four main reasons for this push: 1) confined land space, 2) a capitalistic political system, 3) developer lobbying, and 4) increasing population pressure. In 1981 the municipality peaked at a population of 885,000 with a density of approximately 60,000 people per square mile. Although its population has been on the decline since the 2000s, it remains one of the most dense urban areas in the developed world. 

As the city's compactness and so-called walkability in the suburbs grew, car ownership did not decrease, and positive impacts for modes of walking, cycling, and transit were not reported. Between 1990 and 2000, public transit actually fell while private transport increased. To paraphrase the conclusion from the Planetizen article: "Athens exemplifies every single urbanist approach, yet fails to deliver anticipated results. Elements in the Athenian version of natural urbanism have produced unwelcome outcomes; the pinnacle of urbanisn that achieved the eradication of suburbs came at substantial quality of life and environmental costs. 
"Dysfunctional cases in any discipline trigger insights by demanding explanation.
Athens is a case of dysfunctional urbanism and offers a true laboratory for testing assumptions, principles, and theories toward a more robust model of an urbane city."

I will take it upon myself to address the last part of this article. The first and most important question is: was there a plan from the beginning? What was it? Was it simply to answer the demand for population increase, or were there additional, more comprehensive goals? At least from this article's information, the 4 reasons mentioned above seem to answer that question. The article points out that Athens ranks lowest on a quality of life ranking for Western European cities; it's filled with noise, traffic, and pollution. Traffic fatalities also rank among the highest comparatively. These are indications that the city may not have incorporated plans to manage the consequences of an increasing population. 

My conclusion: Athens is not the case of dysfunctional urbanism, it's the case of dysfunctional planning, or lack thereof. The city's goal was to eradicate the suburbs and increase density - this was achieved. So it did succeed, if only in this way. It seems to me that quality of life was pushed under the rug in the attempt to attract and fit more people. Yet a place can immediately loose its appeal as social and environmental issues are sacrificed. Shelter alone won't cut it; people need connection and community as well. Athens may exemplify a few elements of urbanism very well, so while those can be used as a lesson, the case study as a whole can be used to see interconnectivity at work. And because of this dense web of connections, we will never get a complete story of the past, nor will we be able to predict the future. But we sure can plan with intention, holistic goals, and measurable targets towards better living situations and healthier lives for people in our cities and on this planet.

Food for thought: "If you build it, they will come" ...

Sources
Planetizen 
newgeography 

Healthly and Equitable Density

A recent post on CEOs for Cities from Stantec senior principle David Dixon entitled "To Make Your Community Healthier, Make It Denser" contains a number of meaty statistics about the connections between health, cars, equality, and cities... fueling the reality that density saves lives:

•  1999: The Centers for Disease Control reported that inactivity and poor diet caused 300,000 deaths in the United States, second only to tobacco (CDC)
•  2008: University of Utah researchers found that men who lived in walkable neighborhoods weighed 10 pounds less than men in low-density neighborhoods (NRDC)
•  2014: Cities with more compact street networks have lower levels of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease (Journal of Transport & Health)
• Per-capita auto fatalities rise roughly 400 percent along a continuum of density from typical urban to typical suburban (Accident Analysis & Prevention)
• The United States has three to five times the amount of traffic fatalities relative to other developed countries; auto fatalities represent the #1 cause of accidental deaths in the U.S. (Source)
•  Ten percent of U.S. households control 75 percent of all U.S. wealth - the wealthy are consuming the walkable neighborhoods at a voracious rate. 
• For the first time in this country's history, more poor people live in suburbs than in cities (Source) 

"The payback from density extends beyond physical health. Walkable neighborhoods promote economic health by attracting knowledge workers and investment and promote environmental health by creating an inviting alternative to sprawl... [Yet] as we employ density to create healthy neighborhoods, we also need to employ it to create equity."

 

Early Observations of San Francisco

It's hard to believe I visited San Francisco this past January 2015 before taking the real plunge in moving to the city the following month. I had been here once before in September 2011 for a tournament with my college soccer team (doesn't count, right?). Little did I know I would be back to stay, and so quick to fall in love with this place for so many reasons. The above picture was taken in January because I was so exited to finally be here and to start making observations on the minute details of the city that I have such an eye for. Unfortunately, I haven't had many pictures to follow this (hence my falling behind on intended posts). And there was also the whole "finding a place to live in the most expensive and housing-competitive city in the country" that was a distracting priority. It's almost as if I've stopped noticing many of the details that make this city amazing, and maybe that was okay too, because that's exactly what makes life in here that great. Natives or people who are accustomed to this lifestyle may not understand what makes this place tick. People who just experience living here shorter term question why they would ever leave and ask what was so wrong (different) about back home.
On a different note, that may be the best part: the chance to be and become a part of the routine, because I notice these things. I won't ever fail to recognize that I am living in what is quite possibly the closest to my dream world, every single day. These realizations have created the opportunity for me to be more conscious and mindful of what I do and see on a daily basis, with the goal of sharing my experiences here on this blog.

Some of my first observations of this city:

• The "Green Wave" that has traffic signals set for 13 mph - the average speed of a bike. Convenience for bikes is favored over cars.  
• The density. San Francisco is 7 miles by 7 miles. It's a growing city. Everything must be built close, in between, or on top of something else.
• That makes it really easy to walk, bike, transit, etc. places (the most you would ever need to travel to get from one end of the city to the other is... 7 miles!)
• Suburban sprawl doesn't and physically cannot exist. Therefore big box stores and parking lots do not exist (my biggest eyesores!)
• Public transportation is almost too easy. So much variety! The electric buses are cool and it shows that the city cares about air pollution.
• It's annoying and expensive to own a car here. Parking? Traffic? No thanks. 
• Then again people love their benz and beamers...money. But there are also many homeless people - the whole range is present.
• I expected more bicyclists. In my opinion, not enough people bike and/or the city could be doing more for bike commuters. Catering for hobby cyclists and tourists?
• The neighborhoods (!!) filled with contrasting vibes and people that allow the blending of diverse communities together.
• Oh yeah, and the weather is phenomenal.

For those of you who still check back and follow, thanks for sticking with me! Much much more to come,

Kristin

TED Talk: Jeff Speck, Walkable Cities

Highlights

• Invest in walkability: Portland as a great example
• Has fundamentally changed how Portlanders live
• Portlanders drive 20% less than the average American, they are saving 3% of their GDP, and are able to spend that on recreation
• Educated, young people are moving there in droves; it's a place people want to be because it offers a quality of life that people want
• 2004: Urban Sprawl and Public Health
• The suburbs are killing us and the cities can save us
• Obesity, diabetes, etc.
• Urban/Suburban lifestyle relates to diet, but it seems to correlate even more with inactivity
• The American health care crisis is really an urban design crisis, with walkability at the heart of the cure
• The correlation between sustainability of communities and quality of life
• Does "being sustainable" make our quality of life better? No. The things that make us sustainable make our lives better. That thing is living in a walkable community
• How to get people to walk? Requirements:
• A reason to walk (balance of uses)
• A safe walk (reality and perception)
• A comfortable walk (space and orientation)
• An interesting walk (signs of humanity)

More from Jeff Speck

The Bikeable Suburbs of Copenhagen and Munich

Suburbs in Munich and Copenhagen are designed around and for diverse means of transportation. In contrast to this, the trend in American suburbs has been design around and for automobiles; travel by car is the only means of transportation built into the infrastructure, creating dependency on cars, unsafe roadways and traffic. 

Since I have a strange obsession with urban cores and like to focus my attention away from suburbs (especially American suburbs, simply because I think they are characterless and ugly - wide, spread out lots and streets with cookie-cutter houses give me anxiety), I can't help but to notice how differently the suburbs in Europe evolved in terms of planning, design, and function.

A few pictures will help. 

Brøndby, Denmark (suburb of Copenhagen)

Peds, Bikes, Cars/Buses

Barrier between bike lane and street for added safety

Street obstacles force cars to slow down

Slower traffic increases safety to encourage bikers

One-car-at-a-time

Vaterstetten and Baldham, Germany (suburb of Munich) 

CLICK ME

Paths for Sunday afternoon walks

Roadway incorporates greenery

Smaller streets = slower traffic

Mirrors help see around corners

Designated "Play Street" - more on this later

Mixed streets, varying priority for people/bikes and cars

Several non-car "secret passage ways"

Watch for bikes

Watch for peds

Sidewalk for peds, street for bikes and cars

Cars never drive fast down these roads

This stoplights only purpose is to stop traffic for peds

Open for all kinds of traveling

Similar road blocks in the street as Denmark

Not many pictures are needed of American suburbs since they all pretty much look alike (images from Google).

How does one walk or bike around in this mess???