San Jose Mercury News

Posted on Fri, Jun. 06, 2003

By NORA MACALUSO

Knight Ridder Newspapers

When architect David Dixon first made the case for building a pedestrian-friendly development in Cambridge, Mass. - mixing houses, stores, offices, restaurants and apartment buildings - the neighborhood went on the warpath.

Local residents called for a moratorium on the project and Dixon heard all the usual arguments: The new community would result in more traffic, crowded streets and sterile buildings towering overhead. It took three years of meetings, presentations and debate to win over skeptical townsfolk, but the East Cambridge project is now under "active development," according to Dixon.

These days, Dixon and his allies in the "smart growth" movement have some new ammunition to move things along: America's weight problem.

For decades, environmentalists, walking and biking advocates and neighborhood activists have been trying with small success to stop urban sprawl and encourage planners to think "fewer cars, more walking." But now physicians and scientists also are turning their attention toward developing communities to advance the cause of "active living" - daily physical movement, the easier and more natural, the better.

The Centers for Disease Control are working on establishing a link between urban sprawl and obesity, concentrating on related diseases like diabetes and heart problems.

With emerging health data making the call for smart planning more effective, the money will follow, advocates say. It's happened before, they point out, with the environmental movement and the fight against Big Tobacco.

In each case, momentum builds "when public health steps in and they suddenly make it all relevant to every human being," says Dr. James Emery, a researcher at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health, Health Behavior and Health Education. "This could be one of the single biggest breakthroughs," said Emery, a former CDC researcher, "if we can make this link."

And it's one that could, literally, hit Americans where they live. The bigger question now, experts agree, is: Can Americans be convinced to park their cars and take a walk?

That's the way it used to be, says fitness enthusiast Bill Wilkinson, executive director of the National Center for Bicycling and Walking. When he was growing up in 1950s-era Princeton, N.J., he was free to walk, play and ride his bike around the block with little worry.

Now, he says, the neighborhood is surrounded by cul-de-sac subdivisions, traffic is heavier, and stores and other businesses have moved away. "My mother and father still live in that house," Wilkinson said. "Can they go out and walk around the block? There is no block."

That's because, since the end of World War II, Americans' focus - and that of community planners and developers - has been on the car culture.

The trend has begun to shift in recent years, as traffic congestion and urban sprawl have led more planners and transportation advocates to push for communities with more open public spaces. At the same time, drivers want to put the brakes on traffic and hours-long commutes, and time- and fitness-conscious baby boomers are seeking ways to make exercise part of everyday life.

But the idea of building communities designed to shake Americans loose from their cars has been slow to catch on, as developers balk at tackling projects that take longer to get approval and to show profits. Suburbanites also are reluctant to allow apartments and close-by commercial ventures - considered keys to the success of any walkable community - into neighborhoods of single-family homes.

"The zoning laws in most places make it either illegal or very difficult to build a smart community," said Joel Hirshhorn, director of natural resources policy studies at the National Governors Association, a Washington-based group that represents the nation's 50 governors.

Public-health advocates think they're in a position to change some minds.

"We're just beginning to get mobilized," said Russ Lopez, a researcher at Boston University's School of Public Health who is studying the sprawl-obesity link. "We're trying to get the word out that land use and built environment affect health."

To do that, the public-health community is going back to school.

"Conferences in public health have shifted in the last five years," according to Emery. Sessions on environmental and policy change are common, he said, and instead of relegating health behavior courses to the classroom, "they're learning how to mobilize communities, how to become advocates for better planning."

Emery, a frequent speaker at such conferences, says he coaches colleagues to speak an essentially different language, one that will appeal to the engineering minds of planners' and developers'. The jargon and complex processes involved in planning can make it "intimidating for public-health professionals to go to meetings and be effective," he said.

What they're hoping to translate to planners is "walkability."

"The ideal community for walking is the place that is compact," says Dan Burden, director of the advocacy group Walkable Communities Inc. "It's got great public space and allows a lot of people to know a lot of people. The key is mixed use."

Burden estimates some 15 percent of American neighborhoods are trying to figure out ways to restore sidewalks, walking and biking trails, and other amenities that might turn drivers into walkers.

In the meantime, new communities are being developed across the country with the same goal in mind. Hirschhorn estimates there are nearly 200 such neighborhoods either already built or under construction. While they haven't been around long enough to make definitive links between lifestyle and fitness, early results are encouraging.

Chapel Hill, N.C., is home to one of these "New Urbanist" communities. Southern Village, a development that broke ground seven years ago, is designed to appeal to affluent homebuyers who want a small-town feel with all of the amenities of a modern downtown. And buyers are willing to pay more for those extras. Southern Village cost about 10 percent to 15 percent more to build than a "conventional" development to cover extra streets, trees, sidewalks and alleyways, according to Jim Earnhardt, vice president of Bryan Properties, a Southern Village developer.

Of its 312 acres, 90 are used for common space. Townhouses, condominiums and single-family homes are built in varying sizes and styles, set close to the streets and feature porches to encourage conversation among neighbors. Streets have sidewalks, and are laid out in a grid pattern to encourage residents to walk to their destinations, which could include the community's "corner store" or movie theater. Parks and bike trails abound, and there's a school within walking distance of children's homes.

"I find myself walking to the movies, the grocery, the dry cleaners," said resident Brenda McAdams Motsinger, who also heads the health promotion branch of North Carolina's Health and Human Services Department. As the development matures and more businesses move in, "it's going to be much more enjoyable," she said.

Southern Village bills itself as the top-selling neighborhood in the area, and few of its properties are on the market. Yet most people don't move there with walking on their minds, according to one resident who's also an advocate for active living.

The neighborhood is popular because "it's different" from the typical subdivision, and because new neighborhoods in the densely populated Research Triangle area are hard to find, says Rich Killingsworth, director of Active Living by Design, a University of North Carolina-based program that promotes ways to incorporate exercise into daily life. Active Living by Design is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Even here, "the prevalence of walking and biking for making trips is still fairly low," Killingsworth said. Suburbanites used to getting in the car for every trip actually need to be taught how to use their new neighborhood, he said.

Developments like Southern Village are still fairly new - the oldest ones were started 10 to 15 years ago - and need to be given time to work, said Killingsworth. "It's good design, but poor education," he said. "Three generations of children grew up lacking those types of amenities. They only know one way to get from Point A to Point B, and that's with a car."

Southern Village's commercial area is still under development, though a few businesses are open. Marilyn Butler, manager of the grocery co-op, Weaver Street Market, says she's doing a brisk business, and traffic is likely to pick up even more when the downtown is completely occupied.

Killingsworth is quick to stress these communities are not "the saving grace for walkability in the United States."

A bigger problem is figuring out how to get existing neighborhoods fixed. More and wider sidewalks, safe crosswalks and attractive lighting are just a few things that make a community conducive to walking. Low-income neighborhoods, in particular, are plagued by crime, bad sidewalks and limited access to shopping and entertainment.

"We really want to do more of addressing disparities," said Motsinger, who is also a researcher with the National Cancer Institute.

It may be hard to find a better example of how disparity can be addressed than the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska, where a unique effort could be a turning point for rural areas. Using shrewdly invested gaming profits, the tribe is planning to transform its desolate landscape, building a 48-acre residential and commercial community designed specifically to turn the health tide on the Native American reservation. Construction is scheduled to begin this year.

"We're starting with a blank slate," said Judi Meyer, executive director of Ho-Chunk Inc., the development arm of the tribe's nonprofit organization. "The few places that have implemented this walkable idea are in an urban setting. They've never really done it in a rural area."

Native Americans have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and alcoholism than the population as a whole, Meyer said, and Ho-Chunk hopes to use its community as a model for other tribes around the country.

With efforts as diverse as this taking hold across the country, smart-growth advocates say they're optimistic change will come, but slowly. "It's taken us 50 years to really screw up our neighborhoods," Wilkinson said. "This is not an overnight fix."