If Washington-area Smart Growth advocates were serious, they’d want to fix this first
C.P. Zilliacus, American Dream Coalition
Not surprisingly, the American Dream Coalition promotes the idea that those who want to live in the suburbs should be able to. The suburbs of Washington D.C. house no small number of smart growth supporters—but clearly they support high-density neighborhoods for other people, and not for themselves. There is an inherent hypocrisy, the article suggests, in proponents of smart growth who live in the suburbs. C.P. Zilliacus argues this week that it is unfair to expect people to live in urban rather than suburban areas if they have children attending the local public schools. Smart growth, of course, advocates mixed neighborhoods precisely so that a more equitable division of resources will go to area schools, but the argument that the schools need to be improved first in order to make the urban environment an appealing one is fair.

Act Locally: Ten Steps Toward Sustainability — Step 5: Enact Environmentally-Friendly Land Use Laws
Steven Filler, GreenCounsel, New York
GreenCounsel’s list of ten ways in which communities can approach a greater sustainability most recently listed smart growth and related land-use laws as the fifth on its list. The article advocates the use of zoning laws to preserve environmentally sensitive areas, limit the footprint of development, and to provide incentives for developers who build with environmentally-friendly energy and substances.

“Smart Growth?”
Around Natick, Natick, MA
This blog has an ongoing discussion of a proposed smart growth development in Natick; many of the features of smart growth are perceptively analyzed through the lens of of these specific plans. The author of the blog proposes on a number of occasions that the new development may have more to do with tax revenue than community consciousness. In this particular post, the situation in Natick is contrasted with that of the nearby town Weston. Also take a look at the post Smartgrowth from Pulte.

Sprawl–what is it good for?
My Left Nutmeg, Connecticut
Conversely, author ‘commonweal’ suggests that the tax structure in Connecticut is what is responsible for suburban sprawl. Reliance on property tax for municipal expenditures, such as the public education system, creates a pressure to develop all available land for funding. Consequently, land is purposely developed inefficiently so that it will yeild a larger tax revenue. The author puts forth a sharp, suprising analysis of Connecticut’s suburban sprawl, asserting that “far from being the result of a free market system, urban sprawl is the direct consequence of government subsidies, intense corporate lobbying and manipulation through the legalized bribery we call campaign contributions, and stifling zoning regulations that have limited the choices Americans have when it comes to where we live and how we get from place to place.”

Smart Growth is Still Vital
RiteOn.org, St. Charles County, Missouri
RiteOn.org’s “Independent Conservative Voice” assesses the importance of smart growth to constituents and politicians of its local Missourian community. Recent electoral results might suggest that smart growth was of no concern, but a meeting of the County Council proved otherwise. The author notes that politicians have the choice to serve self interests, in which case they will pander to developers and their possible monetary support, or community interests, in which case they will support smart growth, which has a high showing amongst voter concerns. “Self interest on the part of politicians is common and we might even say legitimate in many instances, no question,” the article asserts, “but in this case, in a county where traffic congestion, water pollution problems and inadequate roads are noticeably impacting the quality of life, it makes more sense to set self interest aside and, among other things, take precautions to protect water quality.”

Can Urban Planning Cure Obesity?

With 43 percent of school children in New York City classified as overweight or obese, the City’s Health Department is desperately seeking solutions for a health issue that is no less than an epidemic.

The solution to any problem develops through an understanding of the cause, and common knowledge dictates that the primary causes of weight problems are a poor diet and lack of exercise. In response to the dietary problems pervasive in modern American culture, the Health Department has begun regulating the use of trans fats in restaurant and fast food menus, and targeting neighborhoods with especially high obesity rates for the promotion of healthy food vendors.

But a plan for providing the average city dweller more exercise is more difficult to implement. The Health Department has begun examining the option of promoting greater mobility through urban planning and building codes. After all, zoning and building codes were orginally created in part to control the contagious diseases that festered and spread quickly in a city’s crowded tenements. But is a non-contagious epidemic like obesity, or like asthma, another common ailment among urban youth, controllable through urban planning?

Eva Hanhardt, coordinator the Pratt Institute’s Environmental Planning Masters Program, explains that zoning and land use are responsible for a community’s “general health, safety and welfare.” Her current study on reinstituting helath concerns into urban planning was born when she began wondering why “health doesn’t the same attention as safety and welfare.” She notes that “By neglecting to incorporate public health in the design of land use and zoning policies, these policies have been part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

But what can zoning policies do? To address the ‘poor diet’ half of the problem, they could restrict the amount of unhealthy or fast food outlets within certain neighborhoods, such as those near schools. These restrictions would have precedent in the Zoning Resolution that prohibits sex shops in specific areas.

But in order to promote greater physical activity in children (and also in adults), urban planners need to focus on providing open park space for recreation. New York City claims on of the lowest amounts of park acreage per capita in the United States. The concerns and resources of Parks Department are continually subjugated by other civic needs, and the few parks and playgrounds often disappear to make way for parking or building development. An increase on the minimum requirements for open space would furnish a stage for physical recreation, while more restrictions on environmental risks within neighborhoods would render the outdoor room a more pleasant option.

But perhaps most importantly, increasing attention to the tenets of smart growth and new urbanism can revitalize a community’s health by promoting physical activity in a number of ways. A study at Saint Louis University, almost halfway across the country from New York, was asking the same questions as the Health Department of the nation’s largest city. They found that activity-oriented neighborhoods are the key to improving public health. Dr. Laura Brennan Ramirez of Saint Louis University’s School of Public Health explained that there are a “range of different influences that [get] people engaging in physical activity not just for recreation but as part of their everyday life.”

The Saint Louis University study sifted the attributes and habits of activity-friendly communities into a list of the top factors that promote mobility. Many of the suggestions are aimed towards lessening the dependence on automobiles. “The number of hours we spend in our car everyday detracts from our physical, social and mental health,” explained Dr. Brennan Ramirez. “People are increasingly becoming aware of it. Our dependence on the car is overwhelming.”

The first reccomendation deals with Land Use. Mixed-use neighborhoods with commercial and residential buildings alongside one another encourage walking. The study also showed that crosswalks, sidewalks and hiking and biking trails do promote walking and bike activity. A usable mass transit system provides a Transporation alternative that includes more physical activity.

After all, people are more likely to use the same transportation that they witness their neighbors using, a factor that the SLU study dubs ‘Travel Patterns.’ Advertising and media Promotions can also draw the public eye towards the importance of physical activity, and recreation and mass transit possibilities in their own neighborhood.

Aesthetics also play a much larger role than is generally acknowledged. Residents will be overwhelmingly more likely to walk in neighborhoods with pleasant architecture, trees, parks, or other monuments and historic attractions. It is neccessary for a city to recognize the need for attractive avenues, park and recreation facilities, and bike and pedestrian lanes, by Public Policies that redistribute funds from items that perpetuate unhealthy lifestyles, such as highways. Incentives for Institutional and Organizational Policies promote the creation of physical activity centers and gyms in schools and in the workplace.

An additional study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health confirms the theory that neighborhood renovation and reorganization may curb our nation’s problems with weight. Dr. Thomas Glass and his colleagues found that those living in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods are far more likely to be overweight. The nationwide obesity rate is at an unsettling 38 percent, with variations apparently responding to the danger of the neighborhood: the least hazardous neighborhoods showed a 27% obesity rate, while the most hazardous neighborhoods have a population that is 53% obese.

Dr. Glass explained that “the risk is not something that can be explained away by personal variables such as dietary intake, tobacco use and household wealth.” The most ‘hazardous’ neighborhoods are not necessarily the most impoverished ones, and little connection was found between income level and obesity rate, once individual risk factors of diet and exercise were eliminated from consideration. Instead, high obesity rates correspond to neighborhoods with high incidences of crime, neglected buildings, businesses and streets, and community disorder.

What this suggests is that a healthy community creates healthy individuals, whether obesity in these situations is caused simply by stress, or a hampered mobility due to fear. The implication is also that the problem is more than simply a personal, case-by-case problem of diet and exercise. “It may be that there are major things going on in our communities that play a bigger role in the obesity problem than simply the fact that people are not eating right and exercising,” declared Glass. “This is an environmental epidemic and it’s going to require environmental solutions.”

Read some thoughts on the connection between urban planning and public health at Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, an excellent blog by Richard Layman, a self-described “historic preservation and urban revitalization advocate and consultant.”

Though the rise of the suburbs in the last half of the 20th century is rooted in various cultural shifts, the creation of middle-class suburban communities may have as much to do with the building practice of new development as with the issue of personal choice. In the nation’s largest cities, new housing developments are most frequently luxury apartments for the very wealthy; meanwhile, the social concern with providing enough affordable housing has increased pressure to create homes for low-income families. What’s left out of the cities? Middle-income housing.

Karrie Jacobs of Metropolis Magazine became aware of how this problem in her native New York. “Middle-income neighborhoods are disappearing from cities,” she writes, “and in New York they’re being squeezed to the very edge.”

The issue first grabbed her attention several months ago at a panel discussing a new development of townhouses in downtown Brooklyn—not, historically, a ritzy neighborhood. But the new homes are marketed at over $2 million. The plans included a 217-apartment complex to serve artists and low-income individuals, but nothing for those who fall somewhere in between.

Even more unsettling, when Jacobs queried the panel about housing for middle-income families, another developer pointed out that in New York’s real estate market, the $2-plus million homes actually represent the middle. In June, a study by the Brookings Institution showed that in 1970, middle-income neighborhoods accounted for 58% of the urban cityscape, versus 41% today. The fact that families of a given income will tend to live surrounded by families of a similar income is hardly news, but it is worthy of attention; the Brookings Institution argues that the existence of integrated middle-class neighborhoods is crucial to a community’s sense of upward mobility.

The findings of the report are echoed in specific examples. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, built for veterans after WWII, have long been middle-class islands in the sea of Manhattan, but Metropolitan Life is vying to sell them off. The future seems clear: a new developer will most likely replace the 11,250 middle-income apartments with luxury condominiums, and no one, most likely, will replace the middle-income housing that is lost.

In an effort to do some investigation, Jacobs visited the Brooklyn Navy Yard, now occupied by a company called Capsys, who specializes in the construction of prefabricated houses. The houses are intended for a new community being established at the far edge of East New York. The neighborhood, known at one time for its high murder rate, will now become a development of middle-income homes called Spring Creek.

The new houses attracted her eye because the architect, Alexander Gorlin, presented his plans at the same panel that featured the $2 million townhouses in Brooklyn. Gorlin’s designs have focused on giving the townhouses “a more sophisticated look,” and have been viewed as an upgrade for the neighborhood. The houses, mostly two-story, 1,600-square-foot three-bedroom homes, will be sold by lottery, as the 637 available houses have already received roughly 12,000 requests. Though the median household income in New York City was $39,937 (versus $43,318 nationwide), the maximum income to be considered for the new housing development is 85,080 for a two-person household and $99,000 for a three-person household. At $204,000 with a $46,000 subsidy from the city, the new houses represent a possibility for middle-income families, if still slightly above average.

“I consider it a moderate-income development, between low and middle,” explained Ronald Waters, Nehemia Development Corporation’s general manager and director, the company responsible for the mixed-use affordable housing initiative. “It’s for people climbing out of the low-income level.” Precisely the kind of housing that the Brookings Institution said society—not just the middle-class—needs.

Read excellent descriptions and knowledgeable analysis of Alexander Gorlin’s new Spring Creek houses at both Architecture News (Well-Known Architect Breaks Ground on Phase One for Affordable Housing Development) and Miss Representation (Housing for the Rest of Us).