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ACTIVE Design
What if you lived in a community where a trip to the gym and a few laps at the pool were only a short walk away?
By Markian Hawryluk / The Bulletin
Published: July 30. 2009 4:00AM PSTDespite news last week that the rise in childhood obesity may have plateaued, a significant portion of America remains overweight. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two out of three U.S. adults and one in five U.S. children are overweight or obese.
Over the past decade, as researchers have tried to drill down into the causes of the obesity epidemic, they have become increasingly aware of a link between the design of a community and the health of its residents. Studies have shown that the way streets are laid out, the ease of biking and walking, and the distances between housing and businesses can all affect whether a person might spend more of the day on foot or bike or sitting in a car. And that could mean the difference between putting on extra pounds — and all the health consequences that go along with it — or maintaining a healthy weight.
“There are two different approaches to community design, one of which promotes physical activity and one of which does not,” said Dr. Howard Frumpkin, the director of the National Center for Environmental Health. “That’s really important. We know that we are becoming a more sedentary and more overweight society, and routine physical activity can help with that.”
Urban sprawl
The rise in obesity may be attributable to a variety of factors that have led Americans to eat more and move less.
But there’s a growing body of evidence, including both rigorous studies and anecdotal support, that the way cities have grown over the past 50 to 60 years is contributing to unhealthy lifestyles. It’s a pattern of growth known as urban sprawl, in which people live on large tracts of land, located far from workplaces, recreation and schools, requiring them to drive pretty much everywhere they need to go.
In 2003, a CDC study for the first time showed that people who lived in counties that had a higher degree of sprawl were more likely to be overweight and have high blood pressure. People living in the counties with the highest levels of sprawl were on average 6 pounds heavier than people living in the most compact counties.
Starting in the 1950s, more residential developments began featuring cul-de-sacs, dead-end roads that were thought to reduce traffic on neighborhood streets. But such patterns often meant residents had to drive longer distances to get to major arterial streets than in traditional grid-type city street patterns.
“Just thinking about it, you see the absurdity of it,” said Brian Shetterly, manager of long-range planning for the city of Bend. “You wind up having a destination that could be a quarter-mile away, and you have to drive three miles from a cul-de-sac to get there.”
Such designs also congregate traffic to a few major arterial streets, increasing traffic and congestion. It made those roads less safe for human-powered traffic and left drivers with longer commutes.
On the other hand, research has shown that when it is possible to walk comfortably from housing to businesses, offices or other destinations, more people choose to do so.
In Bend, as across the country, such findings have led to a return to what’s known as healthy community design, in which land use and transportation planning includes how development might impact whether people live an active lifestyle.
“In terms of land use planning, we try to encourage the development of what we call complete neighborhoods,” Shetterly said. “So that in close proximity, you’ve got housing and jobs and shopping and schools and parks. So the opportunity will be there for people who live in those areas to get to those services or employment sites by means other than hopping in the car. It’s the proximity that does that.”
Shetterly said the city has taken a conscious step to reduce lot sizes, creating higher-density neighborhoods that cut down on distances. They’ve also changed their approach to zoning, allowing for more mixed-use developments that put shops and restaurants within walking distance of where people live. “NorthWest Crossing is probably the best example of that,” Shetterly said.
A new model
Ten years ago, the developers of NorthWest Crossing, Brooks Resources and Tennant Family LP, proposed to the city to take the land that was zoned primarily for residential housing to create a high-density, mixed-use community. The plan envisioned businesses, schools, parks and homes in a region connected by trails and walkways that would invite people to be more active.
“We’ve seen it,” said David Ford, general manager of West Bend Property Co., the partnership formed to build NorthWest Crossing. “The residents don’t need to get in their car to just go to the store or a restaurant or exercise. They can walk or ride from their home and have easy access to those day-to-day amenities.”
Ford said the developers took a gamble that people would embrace the concept.“I think initially we were unsure about how the market would accept the density,” he said. “We now kind of refer to a lot that’s over 6,000 square feet as a pretty good-sized lot. Eight, nine years ago, that was considered a paltry sized lot.”
The timing has allowed NorthWest Crossing to get the critical mass needed for the development to gain a foothold before the real estate market crashed. It’s become one of the more desired neighborhoods in the region and continues to sell new houses.
The Bridges, a new Pahlisch Homes development in south Bend, has taken a similar approach. The developers have gone to great lengths to promote an active lifestyle through the design of the community.
“I think the idea was that we’re not just in the market of building streets and houses,” said Cory Bittner, one of the developers of the project. “It’s incorporating the healthy lifestyle in the neighborhood. We feel like we have a responsibility to the community to create a place where people can stay active and not necessarily have to drive to go to the gym or drive to go swimming.”
The development boasts a swimming pool and clubhouse, as well as an indoor fitness facility with a full-court gym. Residents pay a homeowners fee that provides them use of those facilities. Outside of schools, there are only a couple of indoor gymnasiums available for public use.
The community also includes a system of trails on which residents can walk or bike.
“The streets were designed in line with the paths,” Bittner said. “If you want to walk from one end of the community to the clubhouse, it minimizes how much street walking you have to do. Most of the time, walking there will be on paths.”
It’s the first time Pahlisch Homes has built such a fitness facility, but Bittner said the developer tries to incorporate healthy design concepts when it can. When Pahlisch purchased the Lava Ridge neighborhood, the developer converted two empty lots into a pool and park.
Redevelopment
While many new developments are now incorporating healthy design concepts, it’s much harder to retrofit older communities. Studies suggest that older, less affluent communities have higher rates of obesity.
Shetterly said the city has tried to find ways to redevelop existing areas or to add at least some components of high-density, mixed-use neighborhoods.
“We’ll take a neighborhood that is partially developed or mostly vacant, and maybe in need of some redevelopment, and create — with the land owners and the neighborhood — a master plan for redevelopment of that area,” he said.
City planners will allow, for example, small commercial developments within existing residential neighborhoods.
“When you have a neighborhood that’s zoned for purely single-family houses, someone can take up to a half acre of land zoned for residential and develop small-scale, neighborhood-oriented commercial uses: A mom and pop grocery, a dry cleaner, something like that,” he said.
Shetterly said the benefits to such approaches are many, including energy efficiency and reduced traffic. But promoting the health of residents is a primary goal.
“It’s more than a side-effect,” he said. “As the research indicates, urban design influences the level of people’s activity. The more we can do to encourage that, the better off we are.”
Parks and schools
Doing more means considering healthy lifestyles in all parts of city and transportation planning, one of the recommendations of a state task force on obesity prevention earlier this year. Bend Park & Recreation District tries to ensure residents have access to parks and trails within a convenient walking distance and to create a network of trails within the city. While Central Oregon has no shortage of active recreational opportunities, Bruce Ronning, the director of planning and development for the park district, said that’s often not enough to keep people active on a daily basis.
“All of us drive up to the lakes or out to mountain bike on the weekends, but we want to get to some of those recreational opportunities right out the door,” he said. “Even though we have that wealth of opportunity on the federal lands, there’s no less urgency in Bend that we provide those close to home inconvenient opportunities.”
The park district makes a concerted effort to make parks accessible to kids. That means placing parks where kids can easily and safely get to them. The park district has divided the city into 37 neighborhood park service areas, bounded by major streets and other barriers to access.
“We want to locate parks within those 37 areas so that people, particularly kids, don’t have to cross major transportation barriers to get to that park,” he said.
The park district currently has 30 parks and more than 90 miles of trails. District officials are hoping to double the number of parks, add larger parks with sports fields in each of the quadrants and possibly satellite indoor facilities so residents won’t have to drive to Juniper Swim & Fitness Center for indoor athletics.
In many suburban areas, school districts have chosen to build larger schools on the outskirts of neighborhoods, forcing kids to travel by bus or car. And many parents are reluctant to allow children to walk to school on their own for safety reasons.
Bend-La Pine Schools is now focusing on placing schools in close proximity to where children live as well as ensuring safe routes to those schools. Studies show that even when land is cheaper on the outskirts, lower transportation costs for schools located closer in outweigh the savings.
“Sometimes we hit that mark spot on, when we can build an Ensworth Elementary School right in the middle of an existing neighborhood,” said John Rexford, who oversees siting decisions for the school district. “I think that would be our very best recent example.”
Other times, the district must anticipate how a community will grow around the school.
“High Lakes Elementary ended up being right in the middle of NorthWest Crossing. When we broke ground on High Lakes, that was the only thing out there. We were criticized because it seemed like it was on the edge of town,” he said. “Now you’d be hard-pressed to see it unless you saw the sign on Mt. Washington as you drove by.”
When the placement works, more kids will ride or bike to school. A study in 2003 found that while only 10 percent of all students walked or biked to school, 28 percent of kids living within a mile of their school walked or biked. Currently in Bend-La Pine Schools, more than 60 percent of students ride the bus, with even higher rates in elementary schools.
“Ensworth, if you go there on a fall and spring day,” Rexfordsaid, “it’s just swarmed by bikers and walkers.”
Healthy lifestyle advocates locally have been working to help encourage kids to walk or bike to school, and to convince parents to let them. Commute Options recently received its third grant for a Safe Routes to School program that teaches kids how to safely travel to school by bike or on foot. Commute Options brings bikes and helmets to school to teach kids how to ride safely. They’ve also organized walking school buses, in which parents or volunteers walk a route to school with kids joining them along the way.
“We want to be safe and get kids out of their house and walking to school rather than being driven by the parent,” Jeff Monson of Commute Options said. “It makes it more fun. They joke around with their friends. And it’s promoted by the school so they’re motivated.”
Some of the grant funding has also gone toward building sidewalks and crosswalks, installing traffic signs and lights, and to pay for other infrastructure projects needed to promote safe travel.
“Right now there’s much more interest in combining the efforts of health and transportation,” Monson said. “I started seeing transportation presentations that showed the increase in obesity over the last five to 10 years. We were just beginning to tie in how many of our kids were being driven to school.”
Controversy remains
Critics of healthy design concepts argue that there’s no proof changing the design of a neighborhood will get sedentary people off the couch. Indeed, some studies suggest that healthy people choose active lifestyles and urban communities while sedentary people opt for more suburban areas.
According to the Deschutes County Health Department, 61 percent of Deschutes County adults meet CDC recommendations for 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five days a week. It’s clear that rate reflects at least in part all the outdoor recreation enthusiasts that have moved to Central Oregon for an active lifestyle.
A recent survey from the Trust for Public Land asked residents what they liked most about living in Deschutes County. The most commonly cited reasons dealt with the natural environment, including outdoor recreation, open spaces and natural beauty. Some 85 percent of respondents said they use outdoor recreation facilities three or more times per week.
“We have a population here that’s very outdoor-oriented and active. Nevertheless, if you go to the mall or Costco, you’ll see it’s not everybody that’s thin and active,” the park district’s Ronning said. “It’s not that we don’t have a problem. We do. And we’d like to see some of those people who aren’t as active and encourage them to be more active, too.”
Markian Hawryluk can be reached at 541-617-7814 or at mhawryluk@bendbulletin.com.
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