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| Communites Designed For Health |
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What determines the design of communities, and how does design affect public health? A complex question with an even more complex explanation. Let’s take the last part first.
There is ominous data on deteriorating public health indicators, as well as ever increasing and convincing documentation about the relationship between community design and health. [See www.activelivingbydesign.org . Also see: Creating A Healthy Environment; The Impact of the Built Environment on Public Health at www.sprawlwatch.org>] The availability of close to home and work exercise opportunities in pleasant surroundings is a key factor for improving public health. Likewise, the ability to substitute physical for sedentary activities, such as bicycling for driving, is also a factor. These and other lifestyle decisions are directly influenced by the design of the surrounding landscape. Community design, on the other hand, results from the cumulative effect of hundreds of decisions. Local government planning can establish a vision of some preferred future condition. Policies can indicate how such vision might be realized. Ordinances can require that some things are done in a manner that is consistent with the vision. Nevertheless, there is no assurance that these and many other incremental decisions will result in communities designed for health. As a practical matter, there are as many opportunities to fail as to succeed. How the landscape is used is also influenced by public infrastructure decisions. Transportation systems slice and dice the countryside, compartmentalizing land into smaller tracts. Road design can isolate people and limit transportation choices, or accommodate multiple transportation alternatives. Sewer and water systems are integrated across the landscape and increase the potential density that can otherwise occur through the use of wells and septic tanks. Greenway systems typically follow riparian (stream) corridors, and therefore will stretch into all nooks and crannies of communities where they are completed. Of these four elements of public infrastructure that may influence growth patterns and functions, only greenways have immediate and direct opportunities to provide positive public health effects. [See http://www.conservationfund.org/pdf/greeninfrastructure.pdf] The current challenge is the newness of the concept that community design can determine individual and public health. Governments have the responsibility to protect the public health, safety, and welfare; but they have never approached it at the individual scale through community design. So, there is no foundation of examples, precedents, and case law to support decision making. Further, past decisions have created infrastructure and land use patterns that may be inconsistent with the new concept; as well as difficult, expensive, or impossible to modify. So what are communities to do? (1) Do Not Procrastinate. Begin review of the concepts and accompanying research, and contrast it against existing plans, policies, and ordinances. Propose amendments to facilitate better community health. (2) Get Bang For The Buck. Invest in enhanced and increased greenway system creation first. This offers immediate and direct opportunities for positive health effects; plus the other multiple community benefits that result from greenway corridors. (3) Incrementally Transition Existing Infrastructure. Focus on transportation systems, but also begin to retrofit/refine sewer and water systems to integrate health related opportunities into these three types of public spaces. Will this happen soon? Increasing national attention on public health determination will help, but alone it is unlikely to be enough. Local elected officials respond to local citizens and the issues elevated by them. Thus, the people, organizations, agencies, and their coalitions that participate will effect where communities make positive changes in how and what community design occurs, and where health benefits may result. |
Greenways meet an ever growing need, a need to leave the hectic city (if only for a moment) and to experience earth beneath your feet and fresh air in your lungs – to feel life and to feel alive.
— VICTORIA LOGUE
— VICTORIA LOGUE
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