Living Car Free - Does Urban Sprawl Make People Fat?

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070120/bob9.asp

What does everyone think about the article/studies? (Read the article, don't just comment on my thread's title)

the crux of the discussion:

Frank proposes that sprawl discourages physical activity, but some researchers suggest that people who don't care to exercise choose suburban life....University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that "a lot of people out there don't like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look."

Im not sure I agree with the article at all. Im 40 years old, grew up in the US, and still live here. My entire life growing up I was basically taught by example that hard physical work and jobs which required physical labor were to be avoided at all costs. This is in all facets of our lives, it literally is everywhere. Prettymuch all choices have that underlying goal, from place to live to how you get there to the jobs one chooses. Avoid exercise basically, avoid doing anything that requires time, patience, and hard work(physical work). Our entire society and system we live in reflects this I think anyway. The price for those choices is right in front of our faces.

I live in an older part of the city with a grid system and mixed development. I rarely see another adult walk or bike anywhere.

I wouls agree with this. I grew up on the sprawling west coast of Florida where everything you want to get to is at least a 10-15 minute drive. I think an environment that is more organized for local travel by foot and bike makes a difference, though it is ultimately up to the individual.

OK, here's my thought:

I don't think urban sprawl can be blamed because "distance" changes over generations. For example, twenty years ago, walking 15-20 blocks to get around New York was considered a normal walking distance. No one i know thought that to be a big deal. Today, without any change in the size of a block, I'd say 70% of the people I know (including youths) would complain and some refuse to walk that distance.

So you could design a city that had "short" distances between everything today and i guarantee in 20-30 years people will be complaining, "3 blocks away?! Forget it, I'll just call for delivery."

(EDIT: Oh and this is an extreme example but, today, many people would consider a 4 hour drive to be a long, arduous trip. It wasn't that long ago that people expected to take a few days to get from boston to New York. You cannot plan for people's likely increasing impatience/sloth -- unless you can figure out how to make contractable cities. ;))

You're dealing with correlational data, so it's going to be impossible to conclude that sprawl "causes" sloth, or vice versa. But I have a good answer for myself. I keep a log of physical activity. When I lived carfree on the outskirts of a small town about 20 miles from the city and work (sprawl conditions), I exercisd for an average 25 minutes a day. When I moved to the city, about 4 miles from work (non-sprawl condition, also carfree), my exercise increased to an average of 65 minutes/day. This is because I walk or ride to work, which would have been impossible in the sprawl condition.

Some people love execise and will do it no matter what. Many of us lack the time or will to go out of our way to exercise as much as we should. For us, incorporaing exrcis into our daily routine is the best possible solution, and that is best done in a more densely populated area.

There's a lot of fat people in my city (Philadelphia), so you can't blame it all on sprawl. You might be able to blame it on cheesesteaks though...



I don't think urban sprawl can be blamed because "distance" changes over generations. For example, twenty years ago, walking 15-20 blocks to get around New York was considered a normal walking distance. No one i know thought that to be a big deal. Today, without any change in the size of a block, I'd say 70% of the people I know (including youths) would complain and some refuse to walk that distance.


Do you still live in New York or do you witness this behavior somewhere else? Just today I suggested walking from Olde City to University City (about 30 blocks) instead of taking the subway, and my co-workers, who live in the 'burbs, agreed to walk with me. From this incredibly large sample, I conclude that people who live or spend a lot of time in a city still walk a lot. :)

I guess it's part culture, part design. I live in a nice little part of Little Rock known as Pleasant Valley. Within a few blocks I have a Post Office, several banks, a movie theater, a hotel, drug stores, Radio Shack, video stores, a big box discounter, two grocery stores(one natural foods) quite a few restaurants and not just chains, but independent French, Japanese, Mexican, Indian as well. Quite a few other stores as well and running rivers with fish and animals surrounded by greenbelts.

All are easy to walk to. But do people? Not many. There is a convenience store 1/2 block from me. As I left to walk to it, a car was warming up in the parking lot of my apartment. I saw the car again when I arrived at the store. As I left the store, the car was pulling out of the parking lot, and when I got back to the apartment, the driver was getting out of the car. Not a whole lot of time was saved, and you could hear his power steering squeeling the entire time.

I would certainly agree. Urban sprawl places needed services in some quadrant away from residential areas. Few Amerians will walk more than two maybe three blocks. In traditional large cities, congestion made it easiest to walk to needed services. Not the case in the suburbs.

Just plain laziness causes fat people. From my house it's 3 miles to the nearest convience store, five to the nearest town. 3-10+ to places I like to hunt and fish. Along with a job that is always outdoors, and on an easy day is somewhat physically demanding, one of several bikes is my primary transportation.

All are easy to walk to. But do people? Not many. There is a convenience store 1/2 block from me. As I left to walk to it, a car was warming up in the parking lot of my apartment. I saw the car again when I arrived at the store. As I left the store, the car was pulling out of the parking lot, and when I got back to the apartment, the driver was getting out of the car. Not a whole lot of time was saved, and you could hear his power steering squeeling the entire time.
Funny story! This is the sort of thing you'd expect to read in a book like "An Explanation of the Fall of the Roman Empire." End of the book would read like this, "Eventually breathing was considered too much effort, so the whole population expired."

Depends if sprawl has a bus.

If I remember right NYC = 20blocks a mile.
Here I have to walk/bike through 50 rows of cars to get to the food store!
Before that I have to bike/walk past a drive thru resturant.
People are eating to much! Duh!

Just plain laziness causes fat people.

Eating too much causes fat people, not laziness. In fact some of the hardest working people I know are fat. In fact it was this hard working attitude that got them fat in the first place. They would leave early for work, skipping breakfast, work through lunch, keep working late and then pig out at dinner because they were famished. Do that for a few years and voila you are fat! Also people use food to cope. Some use exercise. Some use alcohol. Some people use a nice big meal.

End of the book would read like this, "Eventually breathing was considered too much effort, so the whole population expired."

That was part of the storyline of the movie "Serenity (http://www.serenitymovie.com/)". Humans were terraforming all the planets and on one planet they added some chemicals to keep people from becoming too aggressive. It went out of control. Most of the people became so passive that they eventually stopped eating and breathing, but a small portion of population mutated to become hyper-aggressive savages. Serenity is also the only science fiction movie that I can recall that had bicycles in it. Actually they looked like Worksman industrial trikes but the principal was there.

$10 a gallon gasoline will cure all of this. Just wait, oh, until 2012 or 2015.

And they complain about being fat, and about the gas prices, and about traffic congestion. ARGHHH

http://www.iags.org/n1030034.htm
$10 a gallon gasoline will cure all of this. Just wait, oh, until 2012 or 2015.
The hidden cosat of gas is already at 5 a gallon!http://www.iags.org/n1030034.htm

It's easy to say everyone should live in a tight dense area just because you can do it, but that isn't for everyone. For instance if you're elderly and need to nap during the day, you probably wouldn't like living somewhere where you can hear every noise your neighbor makes, you'd prefer a house with a bigger lot.

One of my main goals in life is to afford a house with a huge lot, with the house in the middle of it and at least about 200 feet between the house and the end of my property in every direction, so that if I have noisy neighbors I can't hear them when I'm in my house.

And they complain about being fat, and about the gas prices, and about traffic congestion. ARGHHH
Why is it so hard for people to see the connections here? The solution seems so simple to us, but most people just don't get it. . . yet.

Why is it so hard for people to see the connections here? The solution seems so simple to us, but most people just don't get it. . . yet.

Why?? It's always hard to see what you don't want to see. Really, there's an awful lot of people living in the burbs that are going to see having to start riding a bike, when they can't afford gas anymore, as one heck of a big step down in their lifestyle. I guess for a lot of them riding a bike just isn't all that much fun.

There's a lot of fat people in my city (Philadelphia), so you can't blame it all on sprawl. You might be able to blame it on cheesesteaks though...



Do you still live in New York or do you witness this behavior somewhere else? Just today I suggested walking from Olde City to University City (about 30 blocks) instead of taking the subway, and my co-workers, who live in the 'burbs, agreed to walk with me. From this incredibly large sample, I conclude that people who live or spend a lot of time in a city still walk a lot. :)

How long'd that take you? Last time I remember walking from roughly 21st/Walnut to 2nd/Chestnut it was about a 40-45 min. walk. Wasn't really in a hurry, but just a leisurely pace. But UC to Old City? that's about 1.10 or so......it'd be a nice walk on a nice crisp fall day...

How long'd that take you? Last time I remember walking from roughly 21st/Walnut to 2nd/Chestnut it was about a 40-45 min. walk. Wasn't really in a hurry, but just a leisurely pace. But UC to Old City? that's about 1.10 or so......it'd be a nice walk on a nice crisp fall day...

I don't remember exactly, but it was less than an hour. Walking always seems so slow to me, compared to biking, but it wasn't bad. Are you sure it took you that long? That's about 2 minutes per block, which seems slow to me, even for a leisurely pace.

Using a car to go from one place in the city to somewhere else in this city is just a waste of time. This weekend I met some friends at a restaurant in South Philly. I live in Logan Square, and it took me about 20 minutes to bike there. One group of friends drove from Old City and it took them about 20 minutes to get there. But then, it took over half an hour for everyone to find a parking spot, and some had to park as far away as 7 blocks. I just locked my bike to a street sign in front of the restaurant.

$10 a gallon gasoline will cure all of this. Just wait, oh, until 2012 or 2015.
At one time, I would have agreed but I can remember agreeing when people said that $1.00 per gallon gasoline would cure all this. I have bought a house for less than some people pay for a space in a parking condo.

It's the same with smoking. How many smokers today swore they would quit before they'd pay $3.00 for a pack of smokes?

I don't understand the behavioral psychology behind this but it seems that a negative economic motivator (plus positive ones such as employer-sponsored public transit incentives) does not cause people to stop doing what they want to do. It seems they prefer to keep up the behavior and have less money for other things.

edit: I don't own a car but I drive once or twice a week. Maybe one day I'll have the speed and endurance to bike to the southern extreme of the urban transit district; or maybe public transit will come back to my area. Before the automobile became the only way to travel, this place had two rail lines and a bus line.

Im not sure I agree with the article at all. Im 40 years old, grew up in the US, and still live here. My entire life growing up I was basically taught by example that hard physical work and jobs which required physical labor were to be avoided at all costs. This is in all facets of our lives, it literally is everywhere. Prettymuch all choices have that underlying goal, from place to live to how you get there to the jobs one chooses. Avoid exercise basically, avoid doing anything that requires time, patience, and hard work(physical work). Our entire society and system we live in reflects this I think anyway. The price for those choices is right in front of our faces.

It's a basic contradiction of our culture. "Hard work" is a value always officially touted, but on the other hand there is also the message that we should avoid hard work at all costs & that this is a major goal of life.

Why is it so hard for people to see the connections here? The solution seems so simple to us, but most people just don't get it. . . yet.

Even easy solutions require education. Billions are being spent on motor vehicle ads, not ads for public transit. The ruling elites see it as in their interests not to propagate solutions to these problems - it would cut into their profits.

Capitalism is fundamentally about maximizing profits to the exclusion of other values, which means the detriment of the common good. We see this in our system of transportation & many other areas.

Capitalism can never be reformed because profit maximization is basic to it. Even the most benign employer will fire workers if his/her profits dip too low.

We might envision a socio-economic system based on human values instead of on the tyranny of wealth: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." - Karl Marx

We might envision a socio-economic system based on human values instead of on the tyranny of wealth: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." - Karl Marx

It works in an intentional community, such as a commune, kibbutz, etc. but I don't know of a real success story in which it has worked in government. Sweden's "middle way" might be a better model for a Socialism that works. After this de-regulation frenzy has spent itself out, maybe the people of the USA will be ready for a middle way in which a regulated Capitalism could work.

No. ****ty eating and lack of exercise makes you fat. Urban sprawl makes you fat as much as living in a cabin in the woods makes you fat.

this reminded me of a Frontline documentary about the fattening of America...they had this great diagram from the CDC that traced the obesity of America over a 20 year period to the present (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm). the fact that adults would tend to skip exercise most of the time is not suprising...what was eye opening is the weight gain of children today, there are some school that have all but done away with phys ed for example...this is why this country is in for a real health care problem in the coming years..the planning and layout of up and coming cities today doesn't help at all, they are built for cars and for parked cars

I think fat people make urban sprawl.

No doubt. I work with some folks who walk from their front door to their car and from their car to their
desk chairs where they park butt for the day. Then that long walk back to the car and back to the front door. Whew! They must put in a hard 50 yards of walking in a day!
To give them credit, they probably get some exercise--maybe walking to the vending machine. ;)

Judgeing strickly by what I'm myself am likely to do if I live in a highrise I would likely be using the elevator for anything above the second floor espeicialy if I say just got back from work or I just got back from the grocery hauling a load of food. No more benefit there than walking out the front door. As for getting to anyplace further than a mile I'm likely going to take the bus not walk. And I think I''m pretty much average on those points, I am carlees now and I bike most everywhere. I agree also that urban areas need to be looked at closely for future development. But those large urban areas the mega cities have to get there energy and water from somewhere and it's usually from distant locals and the cost of those things reflect that. Rural and even suburban areas can if the effort and will where there become mostly self-sufficent in both those areas. I can't see a Mega city becoming selfsuficient in those areas. I think this study needs to look a bit deeper.