On Saturday I attended TransForm‘s Annual Summit in Oakland. During the day there were many different seminars to attend, and I’m going to write a bit about each one. For me, the most enjoyable one was titled “Planning Tools for Healthier Communities”. Honestly, it really wasn’t what I expected, but it opened my eyes to a new aspect of the planning and design fields, and that’s what this blog is all about!
When I saw the term ‘healthy’ next to ‘planning’, I thought it was one of our fun colorful words used to describe a well functioning design. In fact, it was strictly about improving the mental and physical well-being of a city’s inhabitants. The seminar featured three speakers; Robert Ogilvie from Public Health Law & Policy, Bob Prentice from Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, and Chris Schildt from TransForm. Mr. Prentice opened the discussion by talking about the simple fact that health care doesn’t account for the difference in life expectancies between the US and other countries. We rank 30th (or 45th) in the world, right below Bosnia. Even with all of our fantastic technology, something is going wrong. The theory is that after genetics, violence and money are taken out of the picture, environment accounts for about 80% of that disparity. This is illustrated rather clearly by the life expectancies in San Francisco. The difference between Rincon Hill and the Bayview regions is 14 years of life.
In terms of precedent, Mr. Prentice cited that health was a large part of planning early on with the advent of zoning and sewers. Since then, healthcare has ignored large parts of the environment. Now we’re beginning to see more and more studies showing the effect of your neighborhood on your well-being. Things such as the Food-Environment (availability of fresh goods), designing for walk-ability, and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).
For me, these issues go straight to the heart of urban design. A well planned neighborhood or building contributes much more than we give it credit for. We can even help lengthen lives while aiding the economy and providing needing housing and services.
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KrisBelucci on 06.01.2009
I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.
Admin on 06.01.2009
If you like it, please link back here!