Frank: Your car is killing you

Published Date

Written by Randy Garbin

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.

Denny

Written by Chuck Flood

With over 1500 restaurants in the US and a dozen other unfortunate counties, his signs are everywhere - towering over freeway off-ramps, lining downto...

Written on 05 February 2012
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Highway 99 - (A Window to the West's Recent History)

Written by Al Sollinger

Highway 99, was the main north–south highway of "The West" until 1964. Beginning in Calexico, California at the Baja California, Mexico and U.S. sou...

Written on 03 February 2012
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This Old Building

Written by Teri Dunn Chace

Here in Upstate New York, there are a lot of (potentially) beautiful old Main Streets, lined mostly or completely with handsome old brick buildings fr...

Written on 02 February 2012
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Draper Mountain Wayside, US 11 S of Pulaski VA

Written by Tom Hoffman

Here are two views of another of Virginia's "Waysides," which once served motorists the way "rest areas" do now on the interstates. Ho...

Written on 28 January 2012
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"The Artist" and "The Theatre"

Written by Sue Clarendon

“The Artist” is a charming movie, deserving of all the Golden Globes awards it received, and then some. (Watching that otherwise uninspired awar...

Written on 23 January 2012
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