A new health report draws a direct link between urban sprawl and midriff bulge.
If the scientists' conclusions are on the mark, expect the waistlines of Lawrence residents to expand with the city limits. And get ready for more cases of diabetes and heart disease.
Against a backdrop of a West Lawrence neighborhood Sunflower School students play on the school grounds recently during recess. A new report from officials at the Centers for Disease Control says urban sprawl is a threat to public health.
Officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control say urban sprawl poses a national health threat that must be addressed by planners.
"Land-use decisions are just as much public health decisions as are decisions about food preparation," wrote the report's authors, Dr. Richard J. Jackson and Chris Kochtitzky.
Local activists say the report proves the city needs to rethink its approach to growth.
"The way we're designing our community is a death-knell to the quality of life and the quality of our health," said Carey Maynard-Moody, president of the Lawrence chapter of the Sierra Club.
But Planning Director Linda Finger said Lawrence already has a number of initiatives including an air quality advisory committee, adding bike lanes to city streets, changing code requirements to mandate sidewalks along all streets and proposals to preserve open space to help local residents lead healthy lives.
"I think Lawrence (is) on the right course to address the issues the CDC raised," she said. "Which, put another way, is just smart, comprehensive community planning."
Sprawl Watch
The report is not the official position of the CDC. Jackson, director for the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, and Kochtitzky, an associate director for policy and planning at the center, wrote the article for Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse.
"It's important because we're beginning to realize some of the less obvious things we do to create our society have long-term potential impacts on public health," Kochtitzky told the Journal-World.
The pair say sprawl's primary offense is to put people farther away from their schools, jobs and stores. Rather than walk to those increasingly distant destinations, people jump in their cars to make the trip.
That causes two problems, the authors said: air pollution from cars and obesity from lack of exercise. Pollution puts people at increased risk for respiratory diseases such as asthma. Obesity, of course, leads to a host of other health problems.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many of those problems, the authors said, can be avoided through better planning.
"Many different types of urban design encourage sedentary living habits," Jackson and Kochtitzky wrote. "While older cities and towns were planned and built based on the practical idea that stores and services should be within walking distance of residences, the design of most new residential areas reflects the supposition that most people will drive to destinations."
There are other problems, the authors said. Sprawl encroaches on green space, which has psychological and water quality benefits. And sprawling suburbs, they wrote, are so focused on serving automobiles that pedestrians and bicyclists are often at risk.
Practical planning
These arguments aren't completely new to Lawrence. Johannes Feddema, an associate professor of geography at Kansas University, protested rezoning in October of the intersection of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive for a home improvement store by telling city commissioners increased traffic would raise the risk of asthma for area residents
The commission approved rezoning, however, and Feddema felt he was ignored.
"I think on the whole, people haven't really thought about this issue, and they haven't faced the environmental reality we're going to face in the future," he said.
Planning Commissioner John Haase said it will be hard to put such ideas into planning practice.
"It's probably on the same plain as the greenhouse effect," Haase said. "There's a body of evidence that's convincing, but it's going to be a hard sell to the population."
Lawrence's planning standards call for projects to be judged for their effects on public health, Finger said, but there aren't clear standards for doing so.
And even though the city is increasingly making attempts to accommodate walkers and bikers, she said it's unlikely that planners will convince people to walk instead of drive.
"It is a little too simplistic to think that, given the opportunity, people in areas like the Midwest will abandon their cars in favor of walking to work or church or to do shopping," she said. "That's more a matter of social engineering."
Kochtitzky acknowledged those hurdles, but told the Journal-World that government can encourage behavioral changes with planning.
"There are some things individuals don't have control over in their society the placement of schools and whether it's easy to walk to schools," he said. "That's something that city and counties have to decide."
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.