Targeting economic and health benefits of greenways andb
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The document discusses a workshop about the economic and health benefits of greenways and trails, using the Virginia Creeper Trail as a case study. It introduces several speakers who will discuss how the trail promotes healthy lifestyles and economic development in the region through tourism and other initiatives. The speakers will also address the links between the trail and other health and economic efforts in surrounding communities.
![TARGETING ECONOMIC AND HEALTH BENEFITS OF GREENWAYS AND TRAILS Stunningly beautiful Southern Appalachia has some outstanding greenways and trails. This workshop exposes attendees to the Virginia Creeper Trail, a successful example of creating economic and health benefits. Hear how wellness, environmental, and agriculture experts work with urban planners in addressing challenges in adding trail mileage and improving livability. Learn of stakeholder efforts to promote healthy lifestyles and go well beyond tourism dollars to target schools and workplaces. ANTHONY J. (TONY) DELUCIA, PH.D. EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY 423 439-6202 [email_address]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/targetingeconomicandhealthbenefitsofgreenwaysandb-100924164921-phpapp01/85/targeting-economic-and-health-benefits-of-greenways-andb-1-320.jpg)
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Semelhante a Targeting economic and health benefits of greenways andb
Semelhante a Targeting economic and health benefits of greenways andb (20)
Targeting economic and health benefits of greenways andb
- 1. TARGETING ECONOMIC AND HEALTH BENEFITS OF GREENWAYS AND TRAILS Stunningly beautiful Southern Appalachia has some outstanding greenways and trails. This workshop exposes attendees to the Virginia Creeper Trail, a successful example of creating economic and health benefits. Hear how wellness, environmental, and agriculture experts work with urban planners in addressing challenges in adding trail mileage and improving livability. Learn of stakeholder efforts to promote healthy lifestyles and go well beyond tourism dollars to target schools and workplaces. ANTHONY J. (TONY) DELUCIA, PH.D. EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY 423 439-6202 [email_address]
- 7. CARTOON “SAYS IT ALL”
- 9. FOR YOURS TRULY, A BIT OF A “LIFE CYCLE” THING
- 10. WE WOULDN’T BE HERE W/O ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THIS MISSION: TO IMPROVE OUR COMMUNITY THROUGH CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN DETERMINING OUR FUTURE, SUCH AS CITY’S BAYS MOUNTAIN PARK
- 11. PEOPLE, PLACES, PLAY, JOBS, GOVERNMENT
- 12. ABINGDON, VA KEEPING HEALTHY THROUGH HISTORY
- 13. THE VIRGINIA CREEPER TRAIL
- 14. 35 MILES…ABINGDON TO NORTH CAROLINA
- 18. CREATIVE CLASS CONSTRUCTING EDUCATIONAL KIOSKS ALONG THE CREEPER TRAIL
- 21. ABINGDON 2012 GREENWAY PLAN
- 22. PORTERFIELD GATEWAY – WOLF CREEK NATURE WALK
- 25. CREEPER TRAIL A “BEST PRACTICE” IN THIS PUBLICATION BY HANNAH TWADELL & DAN EMERINE
- 26. Blue Blaze Bike & Shuttle – Damascus, Virginia REVENUE FROM RELATED ACTIVITIES
- 27. The Buchanan Inn Bed & Breakfast at Green Cove Station estimates that 75% of its business comes from visitors using the Virginia Creeper Trail pictured here in the foreground. TOURISM BENEFITS
- 28. ESRI COMMUNITY TAPESTRY 15. Silver and Gold Silver and Gold residents are the second oldest of the Tapestry segments and the wealthiest seniors, with a median age of 58.5 years; most are retired from professional occupations. Their affluence has allowed them to move to sunnier climates. More than 60 percent of the households are in the South (mainly in Florida); 25 percent reside in the West, primarily in California and Arizona. Neighborhoods are exclusive, with a median home value of $326,600 and a high proportion of seasonal housing. Residents enjoy traveling, woodworking, playing cards, birdwatching, target shooting, salt water fishing, and power boating. Golf is more a way of life than a mere leisure pursuit; they play golf, attend tournaments, watch golf on TV, and listen to golf programs on the radio. They are avid readers, but allow time to watch their favorite TV shows and a multitude of news programs.
- 29. SAGA FOLKS WHO LIVE IN ABINGDON “CO-HOUSING”
- 30. THE TRAIL MODEL WORKS WITH HEALTHY SENIORS: KATY TRAIL
- 32. MARYVILLE - RUBY TUESDAY’S “ the specific site (for the new headquarters) was chosen in downtown Maryville primarily due to its location on the beautiful Greenbelt and trail system,” said Sandy Beal, Chairman & CEO, Ruby Tuesday, Inc.
- 33. “ IMPORTANT 1 ST ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE AN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY AND PROVIDE ADEQUATE HOUSING FOR WORKERS IN A SYLVAN SETTING” KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE
- 34. JOHN NOLEN – THE DESIGNER OF GREAT PLACES
- 36. EXPANDING THE EVER-POPULAR KINGSPORT GREENBELT
- 37. A DESCRIPTION OF THE KINGSPORT GREENBELT FROM ITS WEBSITE HTTP://WWW.KINGSPORTGREENBELT.COM/ The Kingsport Greenbelt is a linear park that connects residential neighborhoods, traditional parks, downtown, commercial districts, schools and activity centers. A special feature of this unique park is a pathway for pedestrian and bicycle use. The pathway meanders through marshlands, glides across open meadows, and passes by sites of historical and aesthetic value. Development and operation of the Greenbelt are guided by a citizen advisory committee and the Kingsport Parks and Recreation Department
- 38. USED IN “MOVE TO…” LITERATURE
- 40. ROLE OF STRONG COMMUNITY STEWARD
- 42. ENGAGE OUR LOCAL LEADERS: TWO LOCAL MAYORS WHO “GET IT”
- 43. AWARD WINNING LOCAL PROGRAMS: JOHNSON CITY “UP AND AT ‘EM” TURKEY TROT AWARDS ON THANKSGIVING DAY
- 44. IF PEOPLE HERE THINK THIS IS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- 45. Childhood Obesity Prevention Summit / October 18-19, 2007 Physical activity Air pollution And by the way… Infrastructure costs Social capital CO 2 emissions Depression Injuries Osteoporosis petroleum consumption COURTESY, HOWIE FRUMKIN, MD
- 46. LOCAL FOOD AND LAND USE ECONOMICS
- 48. “ I CAN ALWAYS GROW HOUSES”
- 49. A STATISTIC
- 51. ROY’S 2003 URBAN FORESTRY MEETING IN KINGSPORT A BETTER WAY THROUGH LAND USE EDUCATION
- 52. WE APPLIED FOR ATTENDANCE AT THIS!!!
- 53. ED McMAHON TALKING ABOUT ENVIRONMENT, ECONOMIC, AND COMMUNITY GOALS…AS THE CONTAINER VESSELS AND DOLPHINS CRUISE BY
- 54. WORK OF THE WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TEAM
- 55. “ WORK” OF OUR TEAM!!!
- 56. WORKSHOPS WITH A BUILT ENVIRONMENT FOCUS – JAMIE BUSSELL, ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
- 58. MARK FENTON’S 1 ST VISIT
- 60. SCHOOLS AN EARLY SUCCESS
- 62. ONE-HALF THE TEAM FOR WORKFORCE HEALTH
- 63. A STRONG FUTURE WITH OUR PARTNERS GREENWAYS ALLIANCE “ CONNECTING PEOPLE, NATURE, AND COMMUNITIES WITH GREENWAYS AND NATURE”
- 65. CURRENT SAGA AREA Scott Hancock Sullivan Hawkins Johnson Washington Carter Washington Greene Lee Unicoi Virginia Tennessee
- 67. GOVERNOR BREDESEN SAGA PLAN RELEASE EVENT APRIL 20, 2007 KINGSPORT - GREENBELT
- 68. Historic Tweetsie Trail ELIZABETHTON TO JOHNSON CITY
- 69. HISTORY The ET&WNC was chartered in 1866. The 5-foot gauge railroad would run from the Cranberry Iron Works, west through the Doe River Gorge to Elizabethton and then to “Johnson’s Depot” (Johnson City), and a connection with the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad (later Southern Rail).
- 70. LOCATION Where is the Historic Tweetsie line located?
- 71. PIKE’S PLACE MARKET WAS TO BE CONDEMNED PLACEMAKING: PUBLIC MARKETS BECOME VIBRANT PUBLIC SPACES WHILE ALSO ACHIEVING BROADER SOCIAL IMPACTS – FROM COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, TO HEALTH AND NUTRITION, TO PRESERVING FAMILY FARMS -- PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES WEBSITE: WWW.PPS.ORG
- 73. POSTSCRIPT THIS WAS WAITING FOR ME IN MY LOCAL NEWSPAPER WHEN I RETURNED HOME
Notas do Editor
- This is the Blue Blaze Bike shop in Damascus Virginia. It was the first bike rental shop & shuttle service to open there. Now there are 4 shops in town that operate using the Creeper Trail as a base for business. If you visit Damascus in the summer or a good weekend you will see shuttle buses and cars from multiple states and lots of money being spent with local businesses. Damascus also holds an event called Trail Days based on the Through Hikers on the Appalachian Trail. If you took these two trails away from Damascus, it would be a very different place.
- A complimentary trail Amenity;A Bed and Breakfast along the Creeper Trail out side of Damascus, VA.
- Source: Economic Impacts of Rivers, Trails and Greenways: Property Values Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance National Park Service 1995, Fourth Edition, Revised Photo on Left: This photo was taken by "Greenways Incorporated" at a residential subdivision in Apex, North Carolina. The subdivision has been very successful and the greenway is utilized everyday by community residents.
- Ruby Tuesday Inc. moved its national headquarters from Mobile, Alabama to the Knoxville, Tennessee area for several reasons, but the specific site was chosen in downtown Maryville primarily due to its location on the beautiful Greenbelt and trail system. Approximately 104 people are currently employed at the site. The Training facility uses the trail by offering Bicycles to guests while they are training at the Headquarters. Ruby Tuesday also houses the Maryville Trail Authority Coordinators offices at their facility.
- Wrote grant to EPA Aging Initiative
- City, suburban designs could be bad for your health By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY Why don't Americans walk anywhere? Old answer: They're lazy. New answer: They can't. There is no sidewalk outside the front door, school is 5 miles away, and there's a six-lane highway between home and the supermarket. Many experts on public health say the way neighborhoods are built is to blame for Americans' physical inactivity — and the resulting epidemic of obesity. The health concern is a new slant on the issue of suburban sprawl, which metro regions have been struggling with for a decade. These health experts bring the deep-pocketed force of private foundations and public agencies into discussions about what neighborhoods should look like. The argument over whether suburbs are bad for your health will hit many Americans precisely where they live: in a house with a big lawn on a cul-de-sac. "The potential for actually tackling some of these things, with the savvy of the folks who have tackled tobacco, is enormous," says Ellen Vanderslice, head of America Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group based in Portland, Ore. A study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking 8,000 residents of Atlanta to determine whether the neighborhood they live in influences their level of physical exercise. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey, the country's largest health care philanthropy, is spending $70 million over five years on studies and programs to make it easier for people to walk in suburbs, cities and towns. "We want to engineer routine activity back into people's daily lives," says Kate Kraft, the foundation's senior program officer. "That means we need to start creating more walkable, bikeable communities." For decades, cities, towns and suburbs have been developed on the assumption that every trip will be made by car. That has all but eliminated walking from daily life for people in most parts of the country. Americans make fewer than 6% of their daily trips on foot, according to studies by the Federal Highway Administration. Three-quarters of short trips, a mile or less, are made by car, federal studies show. Children don't get much more of a workout. Fewer than 13% of students walk to school. That's partly because regulations for school construction effectively encourage building schools on large sites at the edge of communities, beyond walking distance for most students, according to a National Trust for Historic Preservation report. Federal health statistics show that nearly 65% of Americans are overweight and that 31% are obese, or more than 30 pounds over a healthy weight. A big part of the cause is all that driving and not enough walking. "Obesity is not just (that) we're eating more. We're getting less activity. People just don't walk that much," says Tom Schmid, head of the CDC's Active Community Environments program. Why you can't walk there from here: Spread-out neighborhoods. Bigger houses on bigger lots mean neighborhoods stretch beyond walking distance for doing errands. Zoning. Residential neighborhoods are far from jobs and shopping centers, even schools. Reign of cars. Roads are built big and busy. Intersections and crosswalks are rare. Shopping centers and office parks are set in the middle of big parking lots, all of which have become dangerous places to walk. In many cul-de-sac suburbs and along shopping strips, sidewalks don't exist. Suddenly, the crowded city looks healthy. In old, densely built cities such as New York and Boston, people walk. It's not necessarily for exercise, but simply to get from one place to another. College towns and cities with military bases also have high rates of walking, Census data show. Houses and workplaces are near each other. If people don't walk to work, they often walk to public transit. In November, Oakland became one of a few large cities to pass a pedestrian master plan. The city already has a walking-friendly design because it was laid out at the turn of the 20th century along streetcar lines. Nevertheless, city officials want to make sure that people can walk to a new rapid-transit bus system. That will mean spending money to upgrade sidewalks and intersections near the transit stops. "It's back to the future. We're going to have this transportation system where you don't need to drive," says Tom Van Demark, director of Oakland's pedestrian safety project. In newer cities, especially those in the Sun Belt where growth has boomed since 1950, walking anywhere is not easy. Families wanted more space for their children, so they moved to single-family houses with yards in big residential neighborhoods. Jobs and services, like shopping, followed people to the suburbs, away from the downtown that could easily be served by public transit. Hopping into SUVs Even in places designed to be walkable, things have changed. Victoria Talkington, a lawyer and mother of two children, lives north of San Francisco in Mill Valley, on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. A network of paths and steps connects roads that switch back along the mountainside. The footpaths lead from downtown into elevated residential neighborhoods. But in the hundred years since the paths were laid out, they had fallen into disuse. Instead, people drive down the roads. "People with SUVs and kids have moved in, and they've displaced people who knew about the paths," says Talkington, a planning commission member. Near her house is a path with a great view of the mountain. "Nobody who lived within a hundred yards of it knew about it," she says. So she took a pruner and cleared the overgrown path last fall. Now, people occasionally use it. Steven Gayle, director of the transportation system in Binghamton, N.Y., is running seminars on pedestrian improvements, paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "What we really need to do is redesign our communities so that people walk as a matter of course, the way they used to do," Gayle says. "Hopping in your SUV to drive to the park to walk on the trail for 20 minutes and hopping in the car to drive home is not what we need to see." Public health advocates are well-funded allies for advocates of "smart growth," who criticize suburban sprawl and development. They have been arguing for a decade that communities should be walkable. Neighborhoods should be built with shorter blocks, smaller yards and streets that connect to each other rather than dead-end. Stores and offices should be close to or mixed with residential neighborhoods, they say. The Urban Land Institute, a group for developers and planners, estimates that 5% to 15% of new development follows the principles of "walkable" neighborhoods. Nearly 1.6 million homes were built in 2001. "There's a big awareness of the issue in the planning community, that walkable places are nicer and sometimes are more economically viable," says Reid Ewing, a Rutgers University professor and author of an upcoming study on sprawl and health. "The question is, are they healthier? That's really the new wrinkle." To find the answer, the CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are funding studies such as the one in Atlanta. The public health experts want to find out what kind of neighborhood designs and amenities have a statistically significant link to increased walking. Some metro areas are taking steps to make their cities pedestrian-friendly, either by upgrading neighborhoods with sidewalks and crosswalks or changing the rules for building developments. Lots of people walk in Rochester, N.Y. And enough people commute by bicycle that city buses are equipped with bike racks. But "the suburbs are built without sidewalks and without adequate shoulders on the roads," says Bill Nojay, chairman of the regional transportation authority. Last year, the region spent $5 million to upgrade walking and biking trails that connect the 19 towns in the county surrounding Rochester. 'Shocked into it' Fewer people walk to work in Atlanta and Charlotte than in any other large metro areas, according to Census data. But both cities are trying to make walking easier. They want to focus development around public transit and spend money on sidewalks. In Atlanta, poor air quality from traffic congestion forced the issue. The region could not spend federal transportation funds on new highways until it came up with a plan to improve air quality. "The only projects we could build were the small projects geared toward the pedestrian," says Tom Weyandt of the Atlanta Regional Commission, the metro area's planning agency. "So in a sense, we were sort of shocked into it." The region is spending $175 million to build 385 miles of sidewalks by 2005. That's a small slice of the region's 16,000 miles of roads and highways. But $350 million more over 10 years will go to transportation projects tied to the development of higher-density, mixed-use areas. Those will be mostly pedestrian improvements, Weyandt says. In Charlotte, fewer people walk to work than any other metro area of more than 1 million people. The city also made the top 10 "fattest cities" list in the February issue of Men's Fitness magazine. But a master plan adopted by the city in 1998 calls for development to be clustered along light-rail and rapid-bus lines to encourage people to walk to public transit. The city now requires new subdivisions to have sidewalks and few cul-de-sacs. Also, the city is hiring a "pedestrian coordinator" to work with developers. Voters approved a $10 million bond issue in November to build sidewalks in places that never had them. Less than half of Charlotte's 2,800 miles of streets have sidewalks on one or both sides. Most of the motivation for these changes has been to cut down on traffic and pollution. "The community health aspect of it is one that's just emerging as a topic," says Danny Pleasant, deputy director of transportation for Charlotte. Public health vs. the good life Many people, of course, get physical exercise regardless of where they live. And for good or ill, a suburban house in a bedroom community is to many people the American dream. "A large part of what some people call sprawl is what other people call affordable housing, jobs, highways that go somewhere and get you there," says Daniel Fox, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a health policy research foundation based in New York. Builders of suburban neighborhoods and office parks often view a walkable development as expensive to construct, hard to get past local planning agencies and difficult to finance, says Clayton Traylor of the National Association of Home Builders. Also, the main component of walkable neighborhoods is density, or the number of people per square mile — but density is what many homebuyers are trying to get away from. "It's just our own definition of what the good life includes, which is a couple of cars and a house on the cul-de-sac," says Kraft of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "The good life means you can be a couch potato." That may mean Americans don't want to walk regardless of what public health experts urge. "Population health is what the population says it is," Fox says. "Why can't Americans change their values? Why can't everyone in Texas, instead of going to high school football games, spend their Friday nights exercising? Well, that's the way it is, folks." Even so, those pushing for walkable developments hope that a public health approach will be more palatable than talking about smart growth and sprawl. "Too many people just don't care at all about design or sprawl," says Adrienne Schmitz of the Urban Land Institute, based in Washington, D.C. "But when you start talking health, it's a real hot button."
- Full benefits accounting – Howie Frumkin CDC
- City, suburban designs could be bad for your health By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY Why don't Americans walk anywhere? Old answer: They're lazy. New answer: They can't. There is no sidewalk outside the front door, school is 5 miles away, and there's a six-lane highway between home and the supermarket. Many experts on public health say the way neighborhoods are built is to blame for Americans' physical inactivity — and the resulting epidemic of obesity. The health concern is a new slant on the issue of suburban sprawl, which metro regions have been struggling with for a decade. These health experts bring the deep-pocketed force of private foundations and public agencies into discussions about what neighborhoods should look like. The argument over whether suburbs are bad for your health will hit many Americans precisely where they live: in a house with a big lawn on a cul-de-sac. "The potential for actually tackling some of these things, with the savvy of the folks who have tackled tobacco, is enormous," says Ellen Vanderslice, head of America Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group based in Portland, Ore. A study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking 8,000 residents of Atlanta to determine whether the neighborhood they live in influences their level of physical exercise. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey, the country's largest health care philanthropy, is spending $70 million over five years on studies and programs to make it easier for people to walk in suburbs, cities and towns. "We want to engineer routine activity back into people's daily lives," says Kate Kraft, the foundation's senior program officer. "That means we need to start creating more walkable, bikeable communities." For decades, cities, towns and suburbs have been developed on the assumption that every trip will be made by car. That has all but eliminated walking from daily life for people in most parts of the country. Americans make fewer than 6% of their daily trips on foot, according to studies by the Federal Highway Administration. Three-quarters of short trips, a mile or less, are made by car, federal studies show. Children don't get much more of a workout. Fewer than 13% of students walk to school. That's partly because regulations for school construction effectively encourage building schools on large sites at the edge of communities, beyond walking distance for most students, according to a National Trust for Historic Preservation report. Federal health statistics show that nearly 65% of Americans are overweight and that 31% are obese, or more than 30 pounds over a healthy weight. A big part of the cause is all that driving and not enough walking. "Obesity is not just (that) we're eating more. We're getting less activity. People just don't walk that much," says Tom Schmid, head of the CDC's Active Community Environments program. Why you can't walk there from here: Spread-out neighborhoods. Bigger houses on bigger lots mean neighborhoods stretch beyond walking distance for doing errands. Zoning. Residential neighborhoods are far from jobs and shopping centers, even schools. Reign of cars. Roads are built big and busy. Intersections and crosswalks are rare. Shopping centers and office parks are set in the middle of big parking lots, all of which have become dangerous places to walk. In many cul-de-sac suburbs and along shopping strips, sidewalks don't exist. Suddenly, the crowded city looks healthy. In old, densely built cities such as New York and Boston, people walk. It's not necessarily for exercise, but simply to get from one place to another. College towns and cities with military bases also have high rates of walking, Census data show. Houses and workplaces are near each other. If people don't walk to work, they often walk to public transit. In November, Oakland became one of a few large cities to pass a pedestrian master plan. The city already has a walking-friendly design because it was laid out at the turn of the 20th century along streetcar lines. Nevertheless, city officials want to make sure that people can walk to a new rapid-transit bus system. That will mean spending money to upgrade sidewalks and intersections near the transit stops. "It's back to the future. We're going to have this transportation system where you don't need to drive," says Tom Van Demark, director of Oakland's pedestrian safety project. In newer cities, especially those in the Sun Belt where growth has boomed since 1950, walking anywhere is not easy. Families wanted more space for their children, so they moved to single-family houses with yards in big residential neighborhoods. Jobs and services, like shopping, followed people to the suburbs, away from the downtown that could easily be served by public transit. Hopping into SUVs Even in places designed to be walkable, things have changed. Victoria Talkington, a lawyer and mother of two children, lives north of San Francisco in Mill Valley, on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. A network of paths and steps connects roads that switch back along the mountainside. The footpaths lead from downtown into elevated residential neighborhoods. But in the hundred years since the paths were laid out, they had fallen into disuse. Instead, people drive down the roads. "People with SUVs and kids have moved in, and they've displaced people who knew about the paths," says Talkington, a planning commission member. Near her house is a path with a great view of the mountain. "Nobody who lived within a hundred yards of it knew about it," she says. So she took a pruner and cleared the overgrown path last fall. Now, people occasionally use it. Steven Gayle, director of the transportation system in Binghamton, N.Y., is running seminars on pedestrian improvements, paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "What we really need to do is redesign our communities so that people walk as a matter of course, the way they used to do," Gayle says. "Hopping in your SUV to drive to the park to walk on the trail for 20 minutes and hopping in the car to drive home is not what we need to see." Public health advocates are well-funded allies for advocates of "smart growth," who criticize suburban sprawl and development. They have been arguing for a decade that communities should be walkable. Neighborhoods should be built with shorter blocks, smaller yards and streets that connect to each other rather than dead-end. Stores and offices should be close to or mixed with residential neighborhoods, they say. The Urban Land Institute, a group for developers and planners, estimates that 5% to 15% of new development follows the principles of "walkable" neighborhoods. Nearly 1.6 million homes were built in 2001. "There's a big awareness of the issue in the planning community, that walkable places are nicer and sometimes are more economically viable," says Reid Ewing, a Rutgers University professor and author of an upcoming study on sprawl and health. "The question is, are they healthier? That's really the new wrinkle." To find the answer, the CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are funding studies such as the one in Atlanta. The public health experts want to find out what kind of neighborhood designs and amenities have a statistically significant link to increased walking. Some metro areas are taking steps to make their cities pedestrian-friendly, either by upgrading neighborhoods with sidewalks and crosswalks or changing the rules for building developments. Lots of people walk in Rochester, N.Y. And enough people commute by bicycle that city buses are equipped with bike racks. But "the suburbs are built without sidewalks and without adequate shoulders on the roads," says Bill Nojay, chairman of the regional transportation authority. Last year, the region spent $5 million to upgrade walking and biking trails that connect the 19 towns in the county surrounding Rochester. 'Shocked into it' Fewer people walk to work in Atlanta and Charlotte than in any other large metro areas, according to Census data. But both cities are trying to make walking easier. They want to focus development around public transit and spend money on sidewalks. In Atlanta, poor air quality from traffic congestion forced the issue. The region could not spend federal transportation funds on new highways until it came up with a plan to improve air quality. "The only projects we could build were the small projects geared toward the pedestrian," says Tom Weyandt of the Atlanta Regional Commission, the metro area's planning agency. "So in a sense, we were sort of shocked into it." The region is spending $175 million to build 385 miles of sidewalks by 2005. That's a small slice of the region's 16,000 miles of roads and highways. But $350 million more over 10 years will go to transportation projects tied to the development of higher-density, mixed-use areas. Those will be mostly pedestrian improvements, Weyandt says. In Charlotte, fewer people walk to work than any other metro area of more than 1 million people. The city also made the top 10 "fattest cities" list in the February issue of Men's Fitness magazine. But a master plan adopted by the city in 1998 calls for development to be clustered along light-rail and rapid-bus lines to encourage people to walk to public transit. The city now requires new subdivisions to have sidewalks and few cul-de-sacs. Also, the city is hiring a "pedestrian coordinator" to work with developers. Voters approved a $10 million bond issue in November to build sidewalks in places that never had them. Less than half of Charlotte's 2,800 miles of streets have sidewalks on one or both sides. Most of the motivation for these changes has been to cut down on traffic and pollution. "The community health aspect of it is one that's just emerging as a topic," says Danny Pleasant, deputy director of transportation for Charlotte. Public health vs. the good life Many people, of course, get physical exercise regardless of where they live. And for good or ill, a suburban house in a bedroom community is to many people the American dream. "A large part of what some people call sprawl is what other people call affordable housing, jobs, highways that go somewhere and get you there," says Daniel Fox, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a health policy research foundation based in New York. Builders of suburban neighborhoods and office parks often view a walkable development as expensive to construct, hard to get past local planning agencies and difficult to finance, says Clayton Traylor of the National Association of Home Builders. Also, the main component of walkable neighborhoods is density, or the number of people per square mile — but density is what many homebuyers are trying to get away from. "It's just our own definition of what the good life includes, which is a couple of cars and a house on the cul-de-sac," says Kraft of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "The good life means you can be a couch potato." That may mean Americans don't want to walk regardless of what public health experts urge. "Population health is what the population says it is," Fox says. "Why can't Americans change their values? Why can't everyone in Texas, instead of going to high school football games, spend their Friday nights exercising? Well, that's the way it is, folks." Even so, those pushing for walkable developments hope that a public health approach will be more palatable than talking about smart growth and sprawl. "Too many people just don't care at all about design or sprawl," says Adrienne Schmitz of the Urban Land Institute, based in Washington, D.C. "But when you start talking health, it's a real hot button."
- PLACEMAKING: PUBLIC MARKETS BECOME VIBRANT PUBLIC SPACES WHILE ALSO ACHIEVING BROADER SOCIAL IMPACTS – FROM COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, TO HEALTH AND NUTRITION, TO PRESERVING FAMILY FARMS -- PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES WEBSITE: WWW.PPS.ORG