Built Environment 101

Despite calls to exercise more and eat healthier—which many have heard, as the running and aerobics crazes show—obesity rates in the United States have tripled over the last 30 years. Obesity rates among children have also tripled, with rising rates of adult-onset disease like Type II diabetes being diagnosed in children as young as 7 years old.  Poor and underserved populations are disproportionately affected.

These frightening statistics have led public health leaders like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to target community design as one of the culprits, and have sought to make changes in policy and in the way we build. 

So now we hear new words slung around, words generally reserved for city planners and engineers, like “built environment,” “environmental change,” “connectivity,” “complete streets,” and “food deserts.” But what do these words mean?

The built environment is made up of all the stuff we build to meet our needs: roads, sidewalks, sewer rights-of-way, buildings, parking lots, and all that kind of thing.

 As I’ve said before, since World War II, the patterns of the built environment have favored automobiles travel, with interstates, wide roads with no sidewalks, and buildings set back from the street behind massive parking lots designed to hold Black Friday traffic. 

We’re seeing examples of environmental change in cities around the world as we try to retrofit the built environment to allow for pedestrians, bicyclists, and mass-transit users safe passage. We’ve added sidewalks, reduced the number and width of travel lanes, and increased the mileage of bike lanes. In many areas, renovations of defunct shopping areas have included more pedestrian friendly designs to create the types of neighborhoods many of our planners grew up in.

These renovations and additions have the goal of making our communities more connected.  Connectivity is the degree to which the amenities of a city are accessible by foot, bicycle, and mass transit. Can you walk to school? Can you get to a grocer by bike? Is there more than one exit from a subdivision? Many studies show that if a neighborhood has sidewalks, more people will walk.  Many of these changes are based on the “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” idea, but research and evidence shows that these changes result in a healthier community.

But roadway renovations are not always immediate. In that case, a Complete Streets policy, in which the body that owns the road makes a commitment to include sidewalks, bike lanes and transit stops in all new road way development and in any major renovations. This type of policy allows for changes in administration and staff without losing the commitment. The South Carolina Department of Transportation, the City and the County of Spartanburg all have resolved to build complete streets.

While physical activity is one element of the obesity problem, eating is the other. Many communities are becoming aware of a dynamic of the built environment called food deserts. A food desert is a neighborhood where unhealthy food options, like fast food restaurants and convenience stores, significantly outnumber healthy food options.  When that ratio exceeds 5-1, we call that a food desert.  The City of Spartanburg’s ratio is 8.5 to 1. In other words, for every grocery store or year-round produce store, there are 8.5 fast food restaurants and convenience stores. If you put eight plates of cookies and one plate of carrots out at a party, which one will folks fill up on?

The food desert problem is complicated with free market capitalism, private property rights and “this economic climate.” But many cities, counties, and states are using incentives to attract new grocery stores and other fresh food outlets, and are working with existing convenience stores to offer more healthy options.