Roadside Wire
Frank: Your car is killing you
- Published on Tuesday, 15 June 2010 20:36
This story comes from the Austin Chronicle as the latest Congress for New Urbanism closed out its latest convention in May.
Our Bodies, Our Cars: The links between urban design and public health
By Katherine Gregor
“Driving makes you fat.”
That blunt assertion, by keynote speaker Lawrence Frank, captured the nut of the argument at New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places, the 18th national conference of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Held in Atlanta May 19 – 22, CNU 18 was co-organized with the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both organizations address public health through the design of the built environment, as well as human-powered transportation. National experts spoke to about 1,300 attendees – including a dozen or so from Aus tin – about how walkable, bikable compact communities encourage healthy lifestyles, where physical activity is part of everyday life. Participants considered how compact traditional neighborhoods and communities, where residents can walk to a corner store and have only a short commute (e.g., the kind of places where most presuburbia Americans lived), can reduce obesity, diabetes, asthma, cancer, and national health care costs.