Tag: urban planning

Re-Using Land to Meet City’s Changing Needs

  • Don Mikulic with the Illinois Geological survey hunts for the fossilized brachiopods and snails available in the quarry. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Some of America’s grandest city parks were built when urban areas still had room to grow. But today, older cities wanting new parks face shortages of space, money, or both. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one major city’s development of a park … from below ground
level:

Transcript

Some of America’s grandest city parks were built when urban areas still had room to grow. But today, older cities wanting new parks face shortages of space, money, or both. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one major city’s development of a park from below ground level:


At first blush, an old quarry site doesn’t seem to be a good candidate for a new city park, especially this one.


For the past fifteen years, the city of Chicago has used this quarry as a landfill. The site, called Stearns Quarry, lies off the beaten track, in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, more than two miles southwest of downtown.


Right now it’s kind of ugly. Tractors are patting down a mound of debris and dirt that’s piled up thirty-feet above the nearby street.


(Sound of trucks)


I find the project manager, Claudine Malik inside the site’s construction trailer. She’s hovering over a map of what the park might look like by next year.


“It’s a twenty-seven acre site. It’s roughly a square and if you think of it as broken up into about four separate areas, that helps you map it out mentally. As you come in, there’s an athletic field, It goes down to a pond, which will be stocked for fishing. The majority of the section is a sledding mound. And along the back wall, which is a long preserved quarry wall, is a series of wetland cells that lead down into the pond.”


That’s a lot of different uses to cram into the site’s 27 acres. It’s hard to imagine a stone quarry turned into a landfill and then turned into a city park. To get a better idea of how it will be transformed, Malik and her team take me on a ride around the site.


(Sound of truck starting)


The plan puts every inch of ground to use because there aren’t many chances to put new parks in the city. Malik says rising land values in Chicago make even small land purchases pricey. And everybody seems to have ideas for the park.


Local residents, the state of Illinois and the city gave designers a tall order to fill. Since they’re all putting money into the five million-dollar project, everybody gets something they want.


Soon we spot Don Mikolic, a scientist with Illinois’ Geological Survey. He’s checking the quarry walls before the park’s complete.


(Sound of tapping)


“There’s part of a snail right there.”


Turns out, the quarry’s produced some of the best aquatic fossils in the Midwest.


“In fact you can probably find specimens from this specific quarry sitting in some of the biggest museums around the world.”


And some of the limestone exposed by quarrying will be left for park visitors to view. These walls offer more than just natural history though. Stearns Quarry is part of the region’s architectural history too. The quarry opened in 1833, a few years before Chicago became a city. Its limestone strengthened Chicago harbor and can be found in historic Midwestern churches.


Malik says the site’s history will find its way into the design as well. Just another thing for the planners to work into the park. Which makes you wonder, what’s driving a park to be all these things at once? To get some perspective, I head to the offices of the American Planning Association.


The APA is a professional organization for urban planners. Megan Lewis researches parks for the APA. Lewis says parks like Stearns Quarry face bigger challenges than the grand old parks designed in the 19th century.


“Now, you can’t really approach park planning especially in a city in the same way, because you don’t have the luxury of having all of that land available to you. So you sort of have to see what is there that can become a park and what do we do with it?”


Lewis says the mix of recreation, open space, even history, has a lot to do with the demands from so many competing interests. To see how thing have changed, she gives the example of Frederick Law Olmsted. He’s most famous for developing New York’s Central Park, a hundred and fifty years ago.


“The planning was sort of done in isolation. He would come up with his grand idea and he maybe only had a few people involved. But I think that now, so many people are empowered to say, This is what I want this place to be like, that planning doesn’t really happen in isolation anymore. Which is good, because you want it to be a democratic process.”


(Sound of quarry)


Back at Stearns Quarry, you can see just how those demands are being incorporated. Meeting all those different needs in a relatively small area with a relatively small budget is played out in each square foot.


This new use of the site is again reflecting the city’s needs. The little piece of land has evolved as the city has evolved. First it provided stone for building the city. Then it was a dumping ground. And now it’s a break from the asphalt and concrete, a place to play and rest in a bit of nature.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Moviemaker Lampoons Sprawl

  • Characters in the upcoming film Barn Red. Ernest Borgnine plays a farmer, who's struggling to keep his 240-acre fruit farm in the face of development pressures.

People worried about land-use issues usually don’t laugh about them. But a Michigan filmmaker has made a romantic comedy about development pressures on America’s farmland. Director Rich Brauer hopes the humor of his movie “Barn Red” will make the issue more accessible for the general public. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

People worried about land-use issues usually don’t laugh about them. But a
Michigan filmmaker has made a romantic comedy about development pressures
on America’s farmland. Director Rich Brauer hopes the humor of his movie
“Barn Red” will make the issue more accessible for the general public. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:


You might call Micheal Bollini puzzled at the beginning of the movie, “Barn
Red.”


The old fruit farmer played by actor Ernest Borgnine is a picture of rugged self-
reliance. But he’s bewildered by the pressure he’s under to get out of farming.


“Did you ever get that feeling that you’re going too fast and you pass a police car
and he’s got his radar at you. That’s how I feel when they talk about selling the
farm and everything. It gives me butterflies in my stomach. Terrible.”


Bollini can’t comprehend developer Paul Haight, played by actor Wayne David
Parker. In their first meeting, Haight tells Bollini he figures Bollini has to sell his
farm. Haight wants to build a subdivision there called Oak Wind. In a
conversation with his assistant, Haight calls Bollini’s 240- acre family farm a
bonanza.


HAIGHT: “So you go in here, drive up this way, turn here and your home.”


ASSISTANT: “Oak Winds is a good name. Bollini has a ton of oaks up there.”


HAIGHT: “Actually we’ll cut those down and plant this… it’s a
juniperous…something. They grow faster and there’s no leaves, no messy yards,
no leaves to clean up. So they’re perfect, no lousy squirrels.”


He goes onto say they’ll plant purple loosestrife for ground cover in Oak Wind.
Purple loosestrife is an invasive species that chokes out other the naturally
occurring plants.


Haight can’t figure out why loosestrife is so cheap.


A lot of the humor in “Barn Red” lampoons characters with their own lack of
understanding.


Bollini, the farmer, doesn’t open letters from the IRS that say he owes hundreds
of thousand of dollars in estate taxes.


Haight, The developer, gets poison ivy while trespassing on Bollini’s property.


In this scene a woman notices him scratching himself.


WOMAN: “Look’s like a pretty nasty rash you got there.”


HAIGHT: “I don’t know what the heck it is. I’m doing all I can not to scratch it,
but it seems to be spreading.”


WOMAN: “Looks like poison ivy to me. Good thing you put that pink stuff on
it.”


HAIGHT: “Oh, yeah, I sure hope it clears it up. I don’t know where I could have
gotten it at.”


The Filmmaker, Rich Brauer, says he made his movie entertaining so people will
pay attention to an issue he cares about.


Brauer lives in a rural part of northern Michigan. The region is under as much
development pressure as just about any place in the Midwest.


And Brauer’s been involved with land-use issues for years. He says he didn’t
have to invent the antics of the developer from scratch. He just had to tell about
some of the things he’s seen.


“I’ve seen these guys and I thought they were kidding. But they weren’t. Therein
lies comedy. So all I did…I just sort of created a character that echoed what I
had experienced in real life…This isn’t just completely off of a blank sheet of
paper…I was inspired by reality.”


The developer isn’t the butt of every joke.


In one scene the township clerk gets out their master plan to show to a friend of
Bollinis. She tells how it cost the township 150 thousand dollars and then the
plan just sat on the shelf for last five years.


People unfamiliar with planning and zoning might miss the sarcasm here.


But Larry Mawby didn’t. Mawby owns a vineyard in the township where “Barn
Red” was filmed. He’s been involved in local government there for twenty years.
Mawby says the county put together a state-of-the-art master plan in the mid-90s.
Mawby says people came from other parts of the state to see what they had done.


“That master plan has been totally and completely ignored. The Board of
Commissioners doesn’t pay attention to that master plan at all. Where they’re
citing the jail is contrary to their master plan. None of their facilities questions
have they ever looked at that master plan or paid attention to it. It’s like, what’s
the point here?”


The point of laughing about it in a movie may be to get everybody to lighten up.


Glenn Chown is the executive director of the Grand Traverse Regional Land
Conservancy.


Brauer consulted with Chown while writing the script for his movie.


Chown thinks the levity of “Barn Red” will help the image of environmentalists.


“Sometimes we can be accused of being all gloom and doom. And the sky is
falling and it’s all falling apart and we’re all doomed. And I think we need to
lighten up a little bit. If we do lighten up a little bit, we’ll reach people more
effectively.


But… the film ends with a little gloom and doom.


Between the end of the movie and the credits a figure from the American
Farmland Trust appears on the screen. It says America loses more than 1.2
million acres of farmland to sprawl each year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

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Cities Look to Golf Courses to Raise Money

Throughout the region, financially-strapped cities and counties are looking for ways to generate revenue. One idea – converting publicly owned park land into golf courses. Environmentalists hate the idea. But at least some government officials say a golf course is a way to make money and ease the burden on taxpayers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Stucky reports on a battle over whether to turn part of a hardwood forest near Lake Superior into a golf course:

Transcript

Throughout the Great Lakes region, financially strapped cities and counties are looking for ways
to generate revenue. One idea, converting publicly owned park land into golf courses.
Environmentalists hate the idea. But at least some government officials say a golf course is a way
to make money and ease the burden on taxpayers. Mary Stucky reports on a battle over whether
to turn part of a hardwood forest near Lake Superior into a golf course:


(natural sound)


On a cold winter day, the air is still and quiet on Spirit Mountain, on the western side of Duluth,
Minnesota, a town on Lake Superior. There is a chalet and downhill ski area on one side of the
mountain, but for the most part, the forest is undeveloped.


“We’ll just walk up here a bit so you can see into the forest a bit more.”


Nancy Nelson is a local environmentalist who’s horrified at the thought of a golf course here.


“So, if the golf course were to be built that would all be clear cut and turned into turf grass.”


Spirit Mountain is owned by the city of Duluth. It has a unique mixture of ecosystems. There are
wetlands and small streams. Wildflowers cover the ground in the spring and there is old growth
forest including sugar maple, yellow birch and red oak. Outgoing Duluth Mayor Gary Doty
thinks the golf course is a good idea. The course would have taken 250 acres of the 2 thousand
acre forest.


“I saw this as a responsible activity with safeguards put in place to prevent problems with water
run-off and wetlands and trees and all those kinds of things.”


The Mayor says it would have been an environmentally responsible project. Environmentalist
Nancy Nelson disagrees.


“Once you clear cut an area it all starts over. It takes hundreds of years, at least, to get to the
stage that this forest is at. I just don’t think it’s a fair tradeoff to destroy something that’s taken
that long to develop just so we can build a golf course.”


But experts say building golf courses in natural areas is tempting for cash-strapped cities and
counties throughout the Great Lakes region. Brett Hulsey works with the Sierra Club to fight
plans for golf courses on government park land.


“Across the Great Lakes we see golf courses threatening our national parks, local parks, wetlands
and forests. They destroy habitat for wild animals, fish and wildlife. They increase
run off pollution and they also close off access to public areas.”


Hulsey says trees are cut down, lawn chemicals are used and to even walk through the area you
have to pay greens fees. The Sierra Club website keeps track of places where parkland is
threatened by golf course development.


But as for the course on Spirit Mountain, Mayor Doty says it’s been stopped, at least for now,
stopped by what Doty calls extreme environmentalists who blindly oppose development.


“I don’t think we should take every tree down and build parking lots and hotels and
condominiums every place in town. But I looked at what was good for the community. And
what was good for the community was to develop an environmentally sound golf course and it
still leaves a lot of wooded lands that people would be able to enjoy outside of using the golf
course.


But environmentalists say the world doesn’t need a another golf course. They say, there are too
many now. Since the Spirit Mountain course was first proposed 9 years ago, the popularity of
golf has waned, according to the Sierra Club’s Brett Hulsey, with the supply of golf courses now
outstripping demand.


“We’re seeing a lot of golf courses struggling. The bloom is definitely off the golf course rose
and local governments should take a real hard look at whether this is the best way for them to
raise local money.


And so some experts say that in the future, the battle over turning park land into golf courses
might be won by environmentalists by default.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Stucky.

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Enviros Have High Hopes for New Prime Minister

Environmentalists are giving Canada’s new prime minister strong marks for his plans for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Canadian environmentalists are giving Canada’s new prime minister strong marks for his plans
for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Environmental groups see promise in the plans laid out by Canadian prime minister Paul Martin.
Martin has pledged an investment in new technology to meet Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto
Protocol. And he’s put a new emphasis on funding for cities.


Elizabeth May is Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada. She says a new deal for cities
could be a good deal for the environment.


“We hope to see better funding for mass transportation, better and smarter urban planning to
urban sprawl, reinvestments in a number of things that we really feel are environmental priorities,
but are seen through the lens of municipalities.”


Paul Martin has strong ties in the business community. May expects he’ll have a good rapport
with environmentalists, as well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

City Battles Sprawl With Greenbelt

Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb unplanned growth:

Transcript

Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its
surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first
locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. Sprawl often occurs when developers pave over
farmland and other natural resources to create strip malls and subdivisions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb urban sprawl:


Voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan gave the nod to a 30 year tax to preserve roughly 8,000 acres of land. It’s
one of the first measures in the Great Lakes states to set up a major regional funding plan for curbing
growth. Sprawl is prominent in the area and Ann Arbor and its surrounding townships will share the
preservation costs. The proposal will allow the city to purchase easements on land. That will prohibit the
land’s future development and preserve it.


Elizabeth Humphrey is the director of the Growth Management Leadership Alliance in Washington, D.C.
She says citizens are fed up with seeing houses overtake park lands. So anti-sprawl initiatives, like Ann
Arbor’s, are gaining popularity among all political parties.


“I think the loss of open space is the one thing that we all see as the big threat of sprawl. It’s tangible.
You can see it in the field you used to play in when you grew up. It disappears and that’s visceral. And I
think that appeals to everybody who’s really concerned about how we’re growing.”


Humphrey says that Ann Arbor’s program is a good approach, since it focuses on regional development.
And while scenic areas like Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon have greenbelts in place, the
Midwest generally hasn’t followed. But that could all change now, according to Mike Garfield. He’s
director of The Ecology Center, which spearheaded the plan.


“I think that what we did Tuesday in Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor township could lead to a wave of new
conservation easement programs and farmland programs around Michigan and throughout the Great
Lakes Region.”

Garfield says his group’s win showed it was possible to successfully trounce a formidable opponent: the
homebuilders. Homebuilders feared the plan would limit housing choices. They spent a quarter of a
million dollars to fight it. Garfield’s hopeful that this victory will help preserve Ann Arbor’s high quality
of life and its vital downtown. In a mere ten minutes, he’s able to walk to work without fighting traffic.
And he thinks the ‘yes’ vote indicated that Ann Arbor residents value that kind of living. But Garfield
realizes not everyone in Ann Arbor agrees with him.


“And of course there were some people in town who are not developers and home builders who opposed
it because it was a tax or because they believed some of the arguments or they didn’t trust city hall or
something like that.”


Niki Wardner is one of those people. She lives in a ranch on an acre of land overlooking a public golf
course in Ann Arbor’s wooded residential section. A handful of vote no signs are perched against her
door. Wardner lobbied heavily with other citizens against the Ann Arbor plan. She thinks 30 years is
way too long for a tax.


“They’re going to bond this issue, this proposal, i.e., take a mortgage out. We can never change it.
There’s no accountability. How do we know 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, what’s going on with
it?”


Wardner’s concerned that this plan was rushed to the ballot without details on how it would work and
what kind of land will be purchased. She thinks something needs to be done about sprawl. But she’s not
sure this is the solution. And she also thinks residents won’t agree to the increased development that will
likely occur downtown and where she lives.”


“Personally, you know, I bought my piece of property because I live on a park and you know, we all like
trees and green space and I don’t think anyone wants townhouses or condos or a five story building in
their backyard.”


And building more homes downtown is a central part of the plan. Doug Kelbaugh is Dean of The
University of Michigan’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He says that to avoid sprawling
out, more people need to live in the city’s center.


“There aren’t enough people living downtown. It’s the living downtown, the downtown residential
development, that will do the most to decrease sprawl, decrease the number of commute trips, decrease
the length of commute trips, increase the walkability, increase the livability and the urbanity of Ann
Arbor lifestyles.”

Kelbaugh says if that denser development occurs, that means houses will have to be built on smaller lots.
That could curb housing price spikes by adding to housing supply. He said that if carried out responsibly,
Ann Arbor’s plan could be a small, but important first step in attacking sprawl.


“As long as gasoline is so cheap and farmland is so cheap, we will tend to have sprawl in America. This
is a major model that’s prevailed in America for 50 or 60 years, if not a little longer and it’s going to take
a little while to turn it around. But this is a significant beginning.”


Other towns are looking to preserve green space just like Ann Arbor’s doing. They’ll be closely watching
to see if it works.


For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.

Related Links

Reviving Inner Cities and Slowing Sprawl


Many large and midsize cities in the Great Lakes region are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to revitalizing the city center and preventing unfettered development in the surrounding suburbs. There is one place, however, where a progressive mayor has turned a once deserted downtown into a lively place, full of urban amenities and street life. At the same time, he’s teamed up with nearby villages and townships to slow down the widening circle of unplanned development around the city. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Millich reports:

Transcript

Many large and midsize cities in the Great Lakes region
are fighting an uphill battle when to comes to revitalizing the city
center and preventing unfettered development in the surrounding
suburbs. There is one place, however, where a progressive
mayor has turned a once deserted downtown into a lively place, full of urban amenities and street
life. At the same time, he’s teamed up with nearby villages and townships to slow down the
widening circle of unplanned development around the city. Gretchen Millich of the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium reports:


On the list of the most sprawling cities in the United
States, Grand Rapids, Michigan is right in the middle. Over the
last 10 years, the metropolitan area has seen a huge increase in
roads, subdivisions, shopping malls and industrial parks.


But Grand Rapids and neighboring villages and townships
started planning years ago to rescue the city from the problems
that accompany sprawl. And that planning is starting to pay off.


A key factor in Grand Rapids’ success has been the
mayor, John Logie. He’s retiring this year after 12 years in
office. Logie has lived in Grand Rapids for most of his life. He
recalls how the city looked when he returned after serving in the
Navy.


“When I came back to Grand Rapids in the late 60’s, I could have taken my bowling ball in any
downtown street at 5:18 PM and hurled it down the sidewalk as hard as I could, secure in the
knowledge I’d never break an ankle, because nobody was there.”


Logie realized then that his beloved city would not survive unless something was done to revitalize
the downtown and encourage people to live there. In the 1970’s, he helped
write a state law that allowed local governments to set up historic districts. Grand Rapids now has
five historic neighborhoods, including Heritage Hill, where Logie lives in a
Queen Anne style home.


“And also I had read Jane Jacobs book years ago, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”
and she talks in there about the need to preserve what you’ve got. And
the need to find adaptive re-use when a buggy whip manufacturing company goes out of business
because the automobile has replaced the horse-drawn carriage. There’s a building there that needs
new life.”


To that end, Logie helped write another state law setting up Renaissance zones in inner cities where
businesses and residents could get substantial tax breaks for re-using old
buildings. Grand Rapids now has seven Renaissance districts. The city also changed the zoning on
several old warehouses and industrial buildings to encourage what Logie
calls “layer cakes” – retails stores, restaurants, offices and apartments – all in the same building.
Some of the old furniture factories have been renovated, including the Burkey and Gay building –
built in the late 1800’s. Burkey and Gay went out of business in the 1950’s.


“It had been sitting cold iron for 50 years. And now it’s all back to life. Two-hundred sixty middle
of the road apartments, and some offices.


“We got tired of the quiet life and wanted a little diversity.”


Connie Thompson and her husband Jim used to live in a
new suburb north of Grand Rapids. About a year and a half
ago, they moved into an apartment in the Burkey Gay building.


“We like the downtown city feel, which is really fun. We can walk to a bakery, we can walk to
shopping.”


“Grand Rapids has almost got kind of a European feel to it. There’s a couple of little side walk
cafes – during the summer – it doesn’t work too well in the winter. But, yeah, we
like it. I think we’re more city people than the country people we tried to be for a while there.”


But it wasn’t enough just to work within the city limits. Grand Rapids Mayor John Logie knew he
had to work with planners in the surrounding suburbs to promote better land-use
policies. He convinced local officials in 47 different jurisdictions to set limits on how far their
communities would grow around Grand Rapids.


“We invited each of them to draw a line somewhere in the middle of their real estate. And you
decide where that line should go. And then we’ll create a formula together that you’re going to
encourage future growth inside that line and discourage it out until you get to a certain level of
density – at which point you can move the line.”


Logie says the growth boundaries have kept the population closer to the inner city, cutting down on
long commutes, pollution and preserving at least some of the farmland
around the metropolitan area.


As he prepares to step down as mayor at the end of the year, Logie says he’s proud of what he’s
accomplished. He says it’s not rocket science – just common sense about what
makes a city a good place to live.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Gretchen Millich.

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Study: Urban Planners Should Include Nature

A recent study indicates people are more likely to feel satisfied with their lives when they feel connected to nature. But urban planners often don’t take that need into account. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A recent study indicates people are more likely to feel
satisfied with their lives when they feel connected to nature.
But urban planners often don’t take that need into account. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:


You’ve might’ve guessed that crawling along on a crowded highway, or working
all day in a stuffy office can be bad for your mental health. A new study confirms that.


Stephen Kaplan co-authored the study in the American Journal of Public
Health. Kaplan says urban design that limits contact with nature can make
people feel tired and irritable.


“Planners are typically educated in the economic mold, and from that point
of view, people want to achieve as much financial input as possible, they
want to get places in the fastest way as possible. We’ve done studies that
show that people much prefer a route that isn’t the fastest if it gives them
a chance to experience nature along the way.”


Kaplan says if planners are to design livable communities, they need to keep
nature in mind.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Sprawling Cities, Sprawling Waistlines

  • Many sidewalks end abruptly and go nowhere. Health experts are saying sprawling urban areas need to be designed so that sidewalks and bike paths are connected to community destinations. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Public health officials are calling for changes in how we design communities. They say poorly designed development contributes to higher obesity rates, the early onset of diabetes, and other health problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Public health officials are calling for changes in how we design communities. They
say poorly
designed development contributes to higher obesity rates, the early onset of
diabetes, and other
health problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


For the past few decades most suburban developments have been about convenience.
Shopping
should be just a short drive away…. parks, just a short drive away… school just a
short drive
away. Four-lane highways have replaced two lane streets to relieve congestion. If
you’re in a
car, other than dealing with the headaches of traffic, getting places isn’t that bad.


But… if you’re on a bike… or walking… crossing those multi-lane roads at busy
intersections is
daunting for adults… let alone children. And often, sidewalks are built, but
sometimes they just
end. A lot of times, sidewalks in a sprawling area never really go anywhere. So,
people don’t
ride their bicycles or walk to destinations. It’s just not convenient… and
sometimes it’s
downright hazardous.


Ellen Bassett is with the Urban and Regional Planning Program at Michigan State
University.


“Because we’re building things further and further apart without connectivity that
doesn’t avail
people to walk or to use their bicycles; they have to drive everywhere. We’re
creating
environments where people exercise less, are less and less active.”


And the result has contributed to a decline in the overall fitness of Americans.
That’s most
evident in children. Kids today are fatter. The rate of obesity is up. Early onset
of diabetes is up.
Part of that is due to kids watching too much television… sitting around playing
computer
games… and so on. But… not being able to ride a bike to school… or being able to
walk to the
park to play soccer… contributes to health problems because kids don’t get enough
exercise in
their daily routines.


Richard Killingsworth is the director of Active Living by Design. The program works
to
incorporate physical activity into everyday lives through the way we design
communities.
Killingsworth says somewhere along the line we came to accept that it made sense to
stop
walking places and instead drive to the health club.


“Now we’ve embraced the notion that we drive to destinations to do physical activity
as opposed
to having it as a part of our everyday lifestyle. So, we’ve essentially built an
environment that
accommodates something that is not physically active and accommodates one mode of
transportation, that’s the automobile.”


Killingsworth consults with urban designers, encouraging them to think about more
than whether
it’s a convenient drive… but to think about whether a neighborhood is designed to
make it a
convenient walk to school… or the park.


“We’ve built upon the notion that the car is king and it should be the only way and
unfortunately
we cannot sustain that for much longer. We need to look at other viable modes and as
we build, if
we build more compactly, a viable mode and a more efficient mode clearly would be
walking or
bicycling.”


And, increasingly, urban planners are being urged by physical fitness experts to
think about
public health. They say making sure there’s a network of sidewalks and bike paths
that actually
connect the community’s destinations is worth the cost.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She’s taken an active interest in land use planning. She says it’s cheaper to design
communities
that encourage physical activity than it is for society to pay the health care costs
caused by too
little exercise. She argues she’s not asking for that much.


“That children have sidewalks that are buffered between the road with a row of trees
and grass,
that the parks are connected to the schools and to homes and that people could walk
to get a
gallon of milk if they chose to or to go down and visit their neighbor at the local
coffee shop and
they wouldn’t have to get into their automobile for a quarter-of-a-mile trip.”


Wilkerson says health care costs are skyrocketing. Designing communities that
encourage
walking or bicycling are investments in prevention of the health problems caused by
too little
exercise. She adds the health care costs of poorly designed areas is just the
beginning.


“And then you’ve got pollution costs from automobile emission. It goes on and on in
terms of,
you know, the savings if we get people out walking or biking — cleaner air. If you
put all of those
together, I mean there’s just — it’s a phenomenal case to make.”


Advocates of incorporating more sidewalks, bike paths, and safer intersections into
new
developments says local governments should also look at existing suburbs too… to see
if those
neighborhoods can’t be retro-fitted to include a few sidewalks and safe crossings
that can connect
shopping, schools, and parks to homes. That way the walk of the day can be a little
farther than
just from the front door to the car in the driveway.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

SPRAWLING CITIES, SPRAWLING WAISTLINES (Short Version)

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise such as biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban
development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise
such as
biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Not nearly as many kids ride their bikes to school today as kids did a generation
ago. That’s
because sprawling areas – complete with four lane roads – are designed for cars. not
for bikes.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She says fitness experts say there are advantages to building neighborhoods more
friendly to
bicyclists and pedestrians.


“Carpooling your child everywhere you go is a hard life to have if your child could
walk to their
soccer game while the other child walks to piano practice and you stay home and
start to cook a
healthy dinner or you have a chance to go ride your bike.”


The experts say the way neighborhoods are designed now could be contributing to health
problems in kids such as obesity, the early onset of diabetes, and asthma that might
be aggravated
by auto emissions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

The Right to Sprawl

Governments are trying to figure out the best way to deal with urban sprawl. Legislators and planners are considering all kinds of approaches to manage the growth of cities, but some say government really has no business trying to stop the market forces that are driving the rapid growth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the deeper debate between property rights and land use protection:

Transcript

Governments are trying to figure out the best way to deal with urban sprawl. Legislators and
planners are considering all kinds of approaches to manage the growth of cities. But, some say
government really has no business trying to stop the market forces that are driving the rapid
growth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the deeper debate
between property rights and land use protection:


Through the public process, states that are grappling with urban sprawl end up hearing from everyone involved. While the media and environmental groups tend to look at the
problems of congestion and loss of green space and farmland due to the rapid growth at the edges
of cities, others see the growth as driven by what people want – it’s natural growth, even organic. In
fact, many property owners, builders and developers, see government interference as “un-
American,” as testimony from this public hearing in Michigan shows.


“As an American, I strongly believe in our citizens’ rights to pursue life, liberty and property.”
“Centralized planning did not work in Russia, Cuba, North Korea or anywhere else they’ve
attempted it.” “Are we gonna mandate where they’re going to live? Is this gonna be America?”
“The land should be controlled by the individual who has paid for the land and pays the taxes on the land and should be able to do with that property what he wants to do.” “Our Constitution tells
us about the preservation of private property rights.”


There’s something deeply rooted in the American cultural ethic that bonds people to the land – or
more precisely – to their land. It might be leftovers of the concept of Manifest Destiny where,
in the words of one essayist, land ownership was associated with wealth and tied to self-
sufficiency, political power, and independent “self-rule.” This seems to be especially true of
people who live in rural areas, or are only a generation or two removed from the farm.


Amy Liu is with the think-tank, the ‘Brookings Institution.’ She says when states start looking at
growth management techniques, commonly called “Smart Growth,” landowners and builders
become suspicious.


“There is a belief that the government needs to get out of the way of the market. And so the idea
of having government intervene in the real estate market and consumer choice is considered un-
American.”


And property rights advocates quickly become dogmatic about their beliefs and resist any kind of
restrictions on use of land.


In the same way, some environmentalists consider sprawl to merely be a matter of greedy
developers and builders wanting to make money no matter what the cost to the environment,
green space, or farmland. They sometimes ignore the fact that consumer demand for larger lots
and larger houses, as well as convenient shopping, is much of the driving force behind urban
sprawl.


Liu says many on each side of the urban sprawl debate are inflexible.


“You know, I think that there are definitely reasons why the environmentalists can be extreme
and why the property rights advocates can be extreme.”


And generally, the two sides are talking right past each other.


Ann Woiwode is with the environmental group, the Sierra Club. She says the opponents of
“Smart Growth” say they don’t want government interference, but she says they don’t talk that
way when they’re in need of roads, fire protection, good schools, and other government services.
Woiwode says “Smart Growth” doesn’t mean unreasonable restrictions.


“I’m not trying to take anybody’s rights away and I don’t think that’s the appropriate approach.
What in any society part of being a society is that we collectively decide how we’re going to
make decisions that affect the entirety of the community.”


And while Woiwode and other environmentalists are in favor of making sure green space is
preserved, most of them acknowledge that growth is inevitable. They say they just want to make
sure it’s the right kind of growth.


Amy Liu at the Brookings Institution says not every growth management plan makes sense.
Some of them only look at benefiting the environment and ignore market forces, the desire that
many people have for a bit of land and a home to call their own.


“There are certainly growth management policies that don’t work, that strictly limit development-
growth boundaries and are therefore anti-growth. I think the growth management policies, the
Smart Growth policies that do work are those that really do try to anticipate and accommodate
growth in a metropolitan area in a way that is going to promote economic development, that is
fiscally sustainable, that is environmentally sustainable, and that actually allows low-income
working families and middle-class and upper-income families to enjoy that growth.”


And finding that balance in a world where politics and competing interests sometimes muddy the
best intentions will be the real trick, as states try to define what “Smart Growth” will mean for
people pursuing the American dream of owning their own home.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.