Today, I am cross-posting a column I wrote for Crossroads, the blog for RenewLV, a Smart Growth advocacy organization in the Lehigh Valley. Check out their website if you are interested:
Almost 50 years ago, Jane Jacobs made the following diagnosis:
“Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.”
The diagnosis is as true today as it was then, but there are other issues in the “city ecology” (as she called it) that have come to light since the early 1960s, one of which is the health of the city’s inhabitants. This link between city design and human health is not exactly an obvious one, but it is one that is growing in recognition as the obesity crisis worsens. In 1950, 30% of Americans were overweight or obese. 50 years later, the CDC reported that the percentage of overweight or obese Americans had risen to 64.5%. Click on the following link to see a fantastic graphic that shows these drastic changes by state from 1985 until 2008 (http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html).
According to Dr. Jeffry Weiss, this massive weight gain cannot be attributed too heavily to genetics (genes do not evolve that quickly), and it cannot be attributed to lack of nutrition knowledge, since, during the same 50 year period, the amount of nutrition information made publicly available doubled every 7 years. Clearly, there are larger forces at work than those dealing with the body and knowledge of individuals. Food economics are biased toward getting more food for less money. Portion sizes at restaurants and packaged foods have ballooned between 50% and 400% in the last 40 years (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute). Our work and recreation activities have become more sedentary with the continued loss of physical labor and rise of the technology economy, as well as the proliferation of televisions, computers, and video games. And our cities have de-intensified densities and segregated land-uses, resulting in increasing dependence on the use of automobiles to get around.
But we have a tendency to forget or ignore this final, and perhaps most important, reason for obesity, perhaps because most really just don’t see it until it is presented to them; and we do a poor job of getting the word out. An Atlanta, GA resident, featured in a video promoting the next Congress for The New Urbanism conference, expressed just such a problem: “I never saw the connection: how community design can affect your health” (http://www.cnu.org/cnu18). This person was definitely not alone in his lack of awareness, but there are plenty of people – influential people – who are not so ignorant. So why are there not more public campaigns geared toward influencing consumer housing decisions toward more compact and mixed-use urban areas? Why do we continue to encourage suburban sprawl through lopsided mortgage subsidies, unbalanced tax structures, and new highway and road funding? How can public health departments address this issue in a meaningful and effective way?
A new bi-county Lehigh Valley Health Department would be a terrific start to addressing the our local obesity problem. At present, a campaign hoping to really make a difference would be difficult to achieve because it would lack significant funding due to the geographical size of its service area. A joint department would also serve as a model for regional governance of land-use, transportation, and tax-sharing, the absence of which has been a significant reason why suburban sprawl remains unchecked and obesity has increased exponentially.
What are some other ways in which we can begin to help people make the connection between community design and health? What partnerships could a regional health department in the Lehigh Valley enter into to ensure the greatest effectiveness of its campaigns? I encourage you to comment with your ideas on the Crossroads blog or on my personal blog, Bethlehem By Foot.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Limits of Sustainability
I spent a nice long weekend with my cousins near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the de facto center of the Amish world. Having never before experienced anything of the sort, I was fascinated by their chosen style of life: partially because it is so foreign to a good portion of the rest of America, but also because, in a lot of ways, it is exactly what the rest of America needs to emulate. They pool their resources for the good of the community, help their own who have fallen on tough times, pay cash for everything, and they have a long (and recently publicly displayed) history of forgiving completely in response to being horribly wronged. These are all wonderful things, and if I were authoring a different type of blog I would certainly do these qualities more justice. But what I want to commend them for is the way they think about their relationship with their environments. In fact, this way of thinking may be so important that it lies at the root of the other qualities that I mentioned above.
When I think of the most basic difference between the Amish and the rest of Americans, I cannot help but think that the great disparities boil down to the fact that the Amish have set limitations and boundaries on themselves and have recognized those boundaries as good, while the rest of us often fail to recognize any limitations whatsoever. Take, for instance, our opposing transportation preferences. The Amish choices of transportation are limited to walking, biking, and riding in horse-drawn carriages. From what I saw this past weekend, they make ample use of all three of these modes. For the rest of America, the choices are much wider, and seem to be growing and getting faster by the decade. We can still walk and bike and ride horses (though the carriages have gone by the wayside), but we can also attach a motor to the bike or scooter, step onto a Segway, ride a bus or train, drive our own personal high-speed vehicle, or (very soon, hopefully) sit in a bullet train that goes 200 miles per hour. None of these, mind you, are inherently bad, and, in fact, some of them are a vital part of a sustainable city, yet we have to consider what the impacts are of such variety, speed, and general “no boundaries” outlook on ourselves, our cities, and our world.
An Amish community, by choice, must confine itself to a fairly small geographical area. The work that a family and a community takes on must be limited to what they can physically handle with their own bodies. The products that they consume must be kept within the bounds of what they can really afford. The by-products of one portion of life must by the sustenance for another. Thus, they have no use for wastefulness or excess in any form, including landfills, fossil fuels, agricultural chemical inputs, soil nitrogen replenishments, payday lending, credit cards, mortgage-backed securities, state budget disagreements, and especially not suburban sprawl. We, on the other hand, are slaves to all of these things, because we don’t know when to say no.
What would it mean to recognize limits? Would cities exist without these limits? I’m sure they would, though probably in much different forms than what we currently have. Limited cities would be more walkable and equitable, just as unlimited cities have become car-dependent and discriminatory. David Orr, a professor of environmental studies, makes a strong case that we cannot live in healthy environments, or be healthy ourselves, as long as we do not recognize the boundaries that exist. And this is precisely the point: the boundaries exist, whether we acknowledge them or not. There is a limit to which life and community can sustain itself, and if that limit is exceeded, systems will begin to fail. Orr argues that in order to recognize this, we must be taught to think in systems or ecologies (in which one part is a component as well as a product of many other related parts); and in order to recognize that we must think in systems, we have to recognize that there are natural limits to the actions that we can take in order to maintain sustainability. Until we accomplish this unlikely feat, we are unlikely to solve our environmental, social, or economic problems.
When I think of the most basic difference between the Amish and the rest of Americans, I cannot help but think that the great disparities boil down to the fact that the Amish have set limitations and boundaries on themselves and have recognized those boundaries as good, while the rest of us often fail to recognize any limitations whatsoever. Take, for instance, our opposing transportation preferences. The Amish choices of transportation are limited to walking, biking, and riding in horse-drawn carriages. From what I saw this past weekend, they make ample use of all three of these modes. For the rest of America, the choices are much wider, and seem to be growing and getting faster by the decade. We can still walk and bike and ride horses (though the carriages have gone by the wayside), but we can also attach a motor to the bike or scooter, step onto a Segway, ride a bus or train, drive our own personal high-speed vehicle, or (very soon, hopefully) sit in a bullet train that goes 200 miles per hour. None of these, mind you, are inherently bad, and, in fact, some of them are a vital part of a sustainable city, yet we have to consider what the impacts are of such variety, speed, and general “no boundaries” outlook on ourselves, our cities, and our world.
An Amish community, by choice, must confine itself to a fairly small geographical area. The work that a family and a community takes on must be limited to what they can physically handle with their own bodies. The products that they consume must be kept within the bounds of what they can really afford. The by-products of one portion of life must by the sustenance for another. Thus, they have no use for wastefulness or excess in any form, including landfills, fossil fuels, agricultural chemical inputs, soil nitrogen replenishments, payday lending, credit cards, mortgage-backed securities, state budget disagreements, and especially not suburban sprawl. We, on the other hand, are slaves to all of these things, because we don’t know when to say no.
What would it mean to recognize limits? Would cities exist without these limits? I’m sure they would, though probably in much different forms than what we currently have. Limited cities would be more walkable and equitable, just as unlimited cities have become car-dependent and discriminatory. David Orr, a professor of environmental studies, makes a strong case that we cannot live in healthy environments, or be healthy ourselves, as long as we do not recognize the boundaries that exist. And this is precisely the point: the boundaries exist, whether we acknowledge them or not. There is a limit to which life and community can sustain itself, and if that limit is exceeded, systems will begin to fail. Orr argues that in order to recognize this, we must be taught to think in systems or ecologies (in which one part is a component as well as a product of many other related parts); and in order to recognize that we must think in systems, we have to recognize that there are natural limits to the actions that we can take in order to maintain sustainability. Until we accomplish this unlikely feat, we are unlikely to solve our environmental, social, or economic problems.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Paradox of Prosperous Suburbs
In the previous post, I briefly mentioned the relationship between cities and their suburbs as one of, essentially, predator and prey. More specifically, I made the claim that suburbs suck the life and the money out of cities. There are several reasons why this is so. The most important reason is that the people that move out to the suburbs are a group of people that are more likely to have money and influence, are more likely to know people that have money and influence, and are more likely to feel as if their voice matters when dealing with policy and planning issues. Consequently, this group, though they don’t outnumber city folk, votes at much higher rates, has a penchant for fighting growth and development that are not in their perceived best interest (“Not in my backyard!”), and produces a great demand for suburban economic development that would otherwise occur in the city. Suburbs drain cities of economic development.
A second reason why suburbs drain cities is because of the way city taxes that support infrastructure are collected and distributed. Since cities already have their infrastructure, such as sewers and streets, in place, the cost for maintaining it is minimal, and the people utilizing the infrastructure are, in general, more than paying for it; and although suburban dweller taxes are also funding city infrastructure, it is at a very low rate, and they are likely to use that infrastructure to travel to work. As suburbs continue to pop up, however, new infrastructure must be built to support those areas at a cost that is far beyond the maintenance of already existing infrastructure. Guess who funds a good majority of those costs? Sure, suburban dwellers pay taxes, and a good portion of those taxes supports their municipalities, but this is as it should be since those people are the users of that infrastructure. But a good portion of city-dweller taxes (in fact, probably a greater portion of a person’s annual income, based on per capita incomes in center cities being generally lower than those of suburbs) also support the suburban infrastructure that they hardly ever or never use. Suburbs drain cities of their tax funding for basic services and require city dwellers to pay for services not even rendered to them.
A final reason why suburbs drain cities has to do with the means of transporting suburbanites to their work places, the majority of which are either in the city or nearer to the city than the suburb from which workers are traveling from. Public transit is inherently inefficient in these suburban areas because of lack of density (as well as other reasons), and other alternative modes are not possible, so that leaves expressways; and we have plenty of those to speak of. But expressways in and of themselves are not necessarily bad. When done right, they provide a decent option for traveling quickly within a region. The main problem is that they are hardly ever done right. Freeways were never meant to be constructed through the hearts of cities, as they have been; they were originally intended to exist on the edges of cities. When entire downtown city neighborhoods were demolished to make way for expressways so that residents of the suburbs could reach their places of work more quickly, those parts of the cities were quickly and quietly destroyed. And since a city is a sum (or more like a sum of squares) of its parts, when one part languishes, the rest suffer as well.
So, there are three good reasons to reach the conclusion that in order for suburbs to flourish, cities must, in turn, fail. This couldn’t be more of a true assessment, but there is an unexpected twist to it: suburbs that border failing or failed cities, though they appear to be strong for a little while, all eventually fail as well. The suburbs of Phoenix, Detroit, and Los Angeles, just to name a few, have learned this lesson well. In order to get the best quality of life from those metropolitan areas, one must keep buying homes further and further away from the ever-more-failing main cities. So the paradox is this: suburbs cannot thrive without the failure of cities, yet they cannot continue to thrive with those failed cities either. The only way to fix the problem is to purposely invest most of the region’s resources into the cities, and the prosperity of the cities will actually spill over into the suburbs, at least those close enough to be beneficiaries of the economic and cultural success. For the system to work properly, we must accept that our suburbs will never be as prosperous as our cities can be; though, I suspect, this is not something that most of us are willing to accept.
A second reason why suburbs drain cities is because of the way city taxes that support infrastructure are collected and distributed. Since cities already have their infrastructure, such as sewers and streets, in place, the cost for maintaining it is minimal, and the people utilizing the infrastructure are, in general, more than paying for it; and although suburban dweller taxes are also funding city infrastructure, it is at a very low rate, and they are likely to use that infrastructure to travel to work. As suburbs continue to pop up, however, new infrastructure must be built to support those areas at a cost that is far beyond the maintenance of already existing infrastructure. Guess who funds a good majority of those costs? Sure, suburban dwellers pay taxes, and a good portion of those taxes supports their municipalities, but this is as it should be since those people are the users of that infrastructure. But a good portion of city-dweller taxes (in fact, probably a greater portion of a person’s annual income, based on per capita incomes in center cities being generally lower than those of suburbs) also support the suburban infrastructure that they hardly ever or never use. Suburbs drain cities of their tax funding for basic services and require city dwellers to pay for services not even rendered to them.
A final reason why suburbs drain cities has to do with the means of transporting suburbanites to their work places, the majority of which are either in the city or nearer to the city than the suburb from which workers are traveling from. Public transit is inherently inefficient in these suburban areas because of lack of density (as well as other reasons), and other alternative modes are not possible, so that leaves expressways; and we have plenty of those to speak of. But expressways in and of themselves are not necessarily bad. When done right, they provide a decent option for traveling quickly within a region. The main problem is that they are hardly ever done right. Freeways were never meant to be constructed through the hearts of cities, as they have been; they were originally intended to exist on the edges of cities. When entire downtown city neighborhoods were demolished to make way for expressways so that residents of the suburbs could reach their places of work more quickly, those parts of the cities were quickly and quietly destroyed. And since a city is a sum (or more like a sum of squares) of its parts, when one part languishes, the rest suffer as well.
So, there are three good reasons to reach the conclusion that in order for suburbs to flourish, cities must, in turn, fail. This couldn’t be more of a true assessment, but there is an unexpected twist to it: suburbs that border failing or failed cities, though they appear to be strong for a little while, all eventually fail as well. The suburbs of Phoenix, Detroit, and Los Angeles, just to name a few, have learned this lesson well. In order to get the best quality of life from those metropolitan areas, one must keep buying homes further and further away from the ever-more-failing main cities. So the paradox is this: suburbs cannot thrive without the failure of cities, yet they cannot continue to thrive with those failed cities either. The only way to fix the problem is to purposely invest most of the region’s resources into the cities, and the prosperity of the cities will actually spill over into the suburbs, at least those close enough to be beneficiaries of the economic and cultural success. For the system to work properly, we must accept that our suburbs will never be as prosperous as our cities can be; though, I suspect, this is not something that most of us are willing to accept.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Mixed-Uses: The Anatomy of a City
Since I’m reading the incomparable Jane Jacobs, whose lay-person’s analysis of the way cities work 50 years ago is recognized as the single most important reason why we planners and urban thinkers today are cleaning up the messes of the planners and urban thinkers of yesterday (and, actually, today as well), it makes sense for me to address one of the four most important ingredients to a successful city: the mixing of land-uses. For those of you who don’t speak Planner, mixed land-uses refers to zoning codes that allow a variety of building uses in a single area. For example, many old city centers and small downtowns are rich with two- or three-story buildings in which commercial shops, such as restaurants and retail stores, attract people on the bottom floors while offices and residential living spaces occupy the top floors. This is an example of vertical mixing. Horizontal mixing is also possible and can be just as effective. This often occurs in old inner-ring (just outside of the center city) suburban neighborhoods which contain single-family or multi-family detached homes right next to shops, offices, restaurants, and other commercial and business uses.
Bethlehem has a great variety of vertical and horizontal mixed-use neighborhoods. Both downtowns (north and south) have a good selection of vertical mixed-use areas of restored old buildings that are charming, attractive, and (most importantly) still functional. West Bethlehem and the eastern portion of the Southside present excellent (though not perfect) examples of horizontal mixing, with residential units separated from but within easy walking distance to daily needs and entertainment. These types of developments stand in stark contrast to most modern city designs, which have a penchant for isolating residential areas from commercial areas, and separating both of those from office areas. What we get from such segregated uses are bedroom communities, strip malls, office parks, and a stagnant local economy that increasingly depends on (yet sucks the life out of) nearby central cities.
Mixing uses, however, does not automatically determine a successful neighborhood. Jacobs points out that most older cities are full of mixed-use communities, but most of them have spectacularly failed as lively and vibrant places. The key to a successful mixed-use neighborhood (indeed, any neighborhood) is its ability to be in a constant state of dynamic use. Take, for instance, West Bethlehem’s Broad Street (west of 8th Avenue). Although a very nice area, this part of the city is beginning to lag. Residents attribute this downward trend to “riff-raff” moving in, which couldn’t be a more prejudiced and incorrect assessment. According to Jacobs, the reason West Bethlehem is lagging is because its mix (which gives it an edge over most modern neighborhoods) is not optimal. First, very few of businesses operate out of buildings that are designed to allow the employees and business-owners to keep an eye on what’s going on outside. There are some, such as Denny’s Barber Shop, run out of a retrofitted old house, but they are significantly lacking. Second, even if there were more “eyes on the street”, so to speak, the actual street is too wide to allow much life in the area anyway. In order for a neighborhood or district to have life, pedestrians must be able to safely and easily cross from one side of the street to the other (see 4th Street South Bethlehem and Main Street North Bethlehem for good examples of this). Third, there are no restaurants or grocery stores. This is a very important absence because it means that those who work in the area must go somewhere else to eat around lunchtime and after work. So, even if there is life in the mornings and afternoons as people are going to work and others are patronizing the businesses, lunch hours and evenings are dead. Finally, as a tag-on to the last sentence, there is nothing in West Bethlehem to sustain life after 5pm. Shops close, workers go home, and bars, clubs, and restaurants are not there to attract anyone else.
When an ineffective mix of land-uses is present, two things begin to happen. The most important occurrence is a decline in safety and a rise in “incivilities.” When the neighborhood cannot sustain life and people are not able to keep an eye on what’s going on, bad things tend to happen. Even something as small as graffiti can play with people’s perceptions of their own security. While I have not felt unsafe in West Bethlehem, neighbors that I have talked to who have lived here for years say they can see it going downhill. Along with perceptions of insecurity goes economic vitality. Without a good, effective mix of activities (5 hair-cutters are too many for such a short distance), and without a crossable road, West Bethlehem will struggle to compete with the more lively, interesting, and effective mixed-use downtown, where there is life going on almost 24/7.
Does anyone have a different assessment as to why many cities and neighborhoods fail to thrive? Can anyone convince me that the great Jane Jacobs missed something?
Bethlehem has a great variety of vertical and horizontal mixed-use neighborhoods. Both downtowns (north and south) have a good selection of vertical mixed-use areas of restored old buildings that are charming, attractive, and (most importantly) still functional. West Bethlehem and the eastern portion of the Southside present excellent (though not perfect) examples of horizontal mixing, with residential units separated from but within easy walking distance to daily needs and entertainment. These types of developments stand in stark contrast to most modern city designs, which have a penchant for isolating residential areas from commercial areas, and separating both of those from office areas. What we get from such segregated uses are bedroom communities, strip malls, office parks, and a stagnant local economy that increasingly depends on (yet sucks the life out of) nearby central cities.
Mixing uses, however, does not automatically determine a successful neighborhood. Jacobs points out that most older cities are full of mixed-use communities, but most of them have spectacularly failed as lively and vibrant places. The key to a successful mixed-use neighborhood (indeed, any neighborhood) is its ability to be in a constant state of dynamic use. Take, for instance, West Bethlehem’s Broad Street (west of 8th Avenue). Although a very nice area, this part of the city is beginning to lag. Residents attribute this downward trend to “riff-raff” moving in, which couldn’t be a more prejudiced and incorrect assessment. According to Jacobs, the reason West Bethlehem is lagging is because its mix (which gives it an edge over most modern neighborhoods) is not optimal. First, very few of businesses operate out of buildings that are designed to allow the employees and business-owners to keep an eye on what’s going on outside. There are some, such as Denny’s Barber Shop, run out of a retrofitted old house, but they are significantly lacking. Second, even if there were more “eyes on the street”, so to speak, the actual street is too wide to allow much life in the area anyway. In order for a neighborhood or district to have life, pedestrians must be able to safely and easily cross from one side of the street to the other (see 4th Street South Bethlehem and Main Street North Bethlehem for good examples of this). Third, there are no restaurants or grocery stores. This is a very important absence because it means that those who work in the area must go somewhere else to eat around lunchtime and after work. So, even if there is life in the mornings and afternoons as people are going to work and others are patronizing the businesses, lunch hours and evenings are dead. Finally, as a tag-on to the last sentence, there is nothing in West Bethlehem to sustain life after 5pm. Shops close, workers go home, and bars, clubs, and restaurants are not there to attract anyone else.
When an ineffective mix of land-uses is present, two things begin to happen. The most important occurrence is a decline in safety and a rise in “incivilities.” When the neighborhood cannot sustain life and people are not able to keep an eye on what’s going on, bad things tend to happen. Even something as small as graffiti can play with people’s perceptions of their own security. While I have not felt unsafe in West Bethlehem, neighbors that I have talked to who have lived here for years say they can see it going downhill. Along with perceptions of insecurity goes economic vitality. Without a good, effective mix of activities (5 hair-cutters are too many for such a short distance), and without a crossable road, West Bethlehem will struggle to compete with the more lively, interesting, and effective mixed-use downtown, where there is life going on almost 24/7.
Does anyone have a different assessment as to why many cities and neighborhoods fail to thrive? Can anyone convince me that the great Jane Jacobs missed something?
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