Sprawl May Harm Health, Study Finds

Sprawl May Harm Health, Study Finds (washingtonpost.com)

Oh boy, the saving grace of this article is it's reality driven conclusion. I am staunchly anti-sprawl, but this study has so many holes in it it makes me sick. Sprawl seems, to me, to be another symptom of some human attitude and needs to be added to the list of ailments that afflict these people. Even at a basic capitalist level, sprawl is a symptom... an effect... not a cause. Right from the start I was wondering how long the people surveyed had lived in their current location. For example, my aunt moved to suburban Balitmore because of existing health problems. Additionally, the old myth that the suburbs alienate people and make then unsociable has got to be re-examined. Something is driving people to these suburbs in increasing numbers... surely they aren't rushing to have their gregarious tendencies crushed in anonymity. I think there is a distinct human drive to be anonymous. People want to be left alone. They work all day, all week and when five o'clock or friday rolls around... they want to escape. They want to snuggle up in their little nests and not have to deal with alien influences. They don't want telemarketters calling, they don't want door to door people coming by, they don't want to leave the house or yard... It's a decompression zone. American workers are very efficient at work. We have very high productivity here in the US and it's driven by our work ethic. When we're at work we give it our all. Long hours, short vacations, overtime. It takes its toll on us. So naturally when people leave their jobs, they want time to themselves. They WANT to drive 20 minutes away and seclude themselves.

Now another problem with this study is its failure to look at the work status of its surveyees. My dad, while not technically living in "suburbia" have lived outside of Baltimore since I was a small child. He worked very hard his whole life in the high stress investment business and developed heart and circulaiton problems but since his retirement these problems have decreased but his home is the same. Can we blame his health problems on his car-centric home situation or on his chair-centric/high-stress 35 year career?

Additionally, can we say for certain that the sprawl is to blame for poor air quality, or is it simply the lack of adequate vegitation to clean the air? Air quality inside urban areas is noticeably lower than in the suburbs to anyone. Unless the study is proposing the entire 350,000,000 population moves to rural areas (effectively boosting the alienation/isolation phenomenon) then I don't understand the point. New suburbs need years to re-establish significant tree growth. You don't just wave a wand and get trees.

Then there's the question of what a suburb is. There are lots of suburbs and lots of types or suburbs. In my experience, most suburbs are outside the municiple area of the associated city. So what are these people studying when they talk about Atlanta or Washington DC? I'm very familiar with Baltimore, and I know that the majority suburbs there are not even in Baltimore City. They are in Howard County, Baltimroe County, Carrol County, Prince George County, etc. By contrast, a city like Lexington, KY has an urban county government which makes the whole county a city... horse farms and all. Are we talking about gated communities? The typical cul de sac neighborhood, is not really a typically "poor" neighborhood, so which ones are hit hardest? and are they really sprawling suburbs?

Junk Science is too weak of a term for this study... it's rabidly irresponsible. Grasping at straws is more like it. The only thing this study should tell you is that more study is needed. And study done by people who do not have a predisposition against suburbanites. The problem is life. The sprawl and the health problems are results. My favorite part of this article is the note that the long held opinion that the suburbs are contributing to mental illness in their inhabitants, does not seem to show up. Which bolsters my opinion that the isolation and seclusion of the suburb is solving some mental stress for its inhabitants... not contributing to it.