Growing focus on health should aid New Urbanism

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is supporting a program to ‘change the mindset of the whole country.’ The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s campaign to reform Americans’ unhealthy way of life is growing into an impressively well- financed effort — one that should help New Urbanism in at least two important ways. The Princeton-based foundation in the past couple of years has made increased physical activity a key goal, supporting the endeavor with grants that may eventually total $70 million or more. That’s roughly three times as much money as the foundation was known to be allocating to active living and community design programs just a year ago. The grants are being used to launch a comprehensive attack on Americans’ sedentary habits and on the ways in which physical activity has been “engineered out of daily life,” in the words of public health expert Rich Killingsworth. The foundation has recognized that the nation’s health-care system is a bottomless pit that can devour ever larger sums of money and still not solve the fundamental problem — the failure of nearly three-quarters of the nation’s population to engage in at least 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week. Excess weight, diabetes, and other problems associated with too little activity have become rampant in the past 30 years. To overcome Americans’ physical idleness, the foundation is pouring resources into a series of programs that will tackle the problem on many different fronts. One means of fighting obesity and inactivity will consist of persuading policy experts and government decision makers to advocate community design and planning that encourages physical activity. That’s probably the most obvious way in which the foundation will aid New Urbanism — by increasing the support that politicians and institutional leaders are willing to give to design strategies that result in more walking and exercise. A second way in which New Urbanism will benefit is by gaining insights into how new urban communities can actually deliver on their promise of a more active way of life. “New urban communities often harbor suburbanites who don’t know how to change their behavior,” says Killingsworth, program manager of Active Living by Design, a $16.5 million program started by the foundation. “They’re still driving to their destinations.” Though new urban communities are premised on the idea that people will frequently make a five-minute walk from their homes to parks, shops, cafés, and other gathering places, many residents have yet “to follow that vision,” Killingsworth says. A former staff member of the National Centers for Disease Control, Killingsworth says a deliberate decision was made to base Active Living by Design in Southern Village, a new urban community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “We can take people on a walk and show them the sidewalk design, the tree canopy space,” Killingsworth says. At the same time, the program can “observe whether people’s behavior changes” in a new urban environment. One idea being talked about is that before residents’ activity levels will increase, there must be a concerted marketing program encouraging people to make physical activity, such as walking to local destinations, part of their daily routines. If people actually become more active and healthy, that can be used to help sell new urban developments. Killingsworth notes that the Stapleton community in Denver “is working to market health; they’re working with physicians and the University of Colorado Health Center.” Underwriting the Prescription Active Living intends to award grants of up to $200,000 apiece (stretched over five years) to 25 interdisciplinary, community-oriented partnerships. “The partnerships will develop and implement strategies in their communities that will increase opportunities for and remove barriers to physical activity,” according to the call for proposals posted on the web site at www.activelivingbydesign.org. Nonprofit organizations can team up with developers, architects, planners, and others to submit proposals, which are due by January 31. Many advocates of New Urbanism, including Bob Chapman, Stephanie Bothwell, Will Fleissig, and Dan Burden, attended a Nov. 3-4 forum in Boulder, Colorado, in which the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation laid out its ambitions. Chapman, a North Carolina developer, was enormously impressed by the level of organization and by the number of high-powered people, many of whom have not been associated with New Urbanism. “The sense of the whole thing was that they were doing everything they could to start a new movement,” Chapman says. “They’re trying to think of a way to change the mindset of the whole country. They have very clear performance standards they’re trying to come up with.” Active Living, affiliated with the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, aims to get projects under way in specific communities and in certain populations, such as African-Americans and American Indians — two groups with high rates of obesity and health problems. The $12.5 million research side of the foundation’s campaign is Active Living Policy and Environmental Studies (ALPES), headed by Dr. James Sallis at San Diego State University. ALPES will foster academic research aimed at understanding the relationships among policy issues, natural and built environments, and levels of physical activity. The research, it is hoped, will guide decisions about policies that affect active living. Other organizations receiving funds from the foundation are Active for Life, which encourages behavioral change among people aged 50 and up; Leadership for Active Living, which works with the National Governors Association, the Local Government Commission, and the International City/County Management Association; and the Active Living Technical Resource Center, which helps with technical matters such as specifications for building setbacks, benches, curb bulb-outs, and other design matters.