As Americans Age, They Feel The Effects of Sprawl
by Andrew Posner, Rhode Island, USA on 12. 4.07
America's baby boomers were born when sprawl and the move away from public transit were just taking off, and during their lives those trends have taken on a life of their own, becoming defining characteristics of the American cultural and physical landscape. But as a recent USA Today article points out, "as the oldest of the nation's 79 million baby boomers turn 61 this year, the specter of aging and its consequences loom large." The consequence of aging to which the article is specifically referring is the fact that "21% of Americans over the age of 65 don't drive," meaning that the very system created during their lives now threatens to greatly limit the mobility of the boomer generation as they move into retirement.
We've covered many of the environmental effects of sprawl before, but for the elderly, a lack of transportation options equates to dependency, isolation and loneliness. While climate change and other environmental issues loom unavoidably large, one of the problems has been that it is hard to put a human face on them. But all of us have parents, grandparents, relatives or friends that will suffer as a result of how we have chosen to design and build our cities. What we need to do a better job of is connecting quality of life to land-use and climate change, so that people will feel inspired to take action because action means better cities, jobs and products for them.
Via: ::USA Today
See Also: ::The Problems With Green Sprawl, ::Radiant City: A Documentary about Suburban Sprawl, ::Interview: Don Schmitt on Sprawl, ::Los Angeles on the Verge of Nation's Best Mass Transit?, ::US Cities Make You Fat, and ::The Long Emergency: a Long Review
Several of my friends' boomer parents have already sold the family homes and opted for a more compact life in the city. While this may have the unfortunate effect of driving up urban housing prices, it will also have the significant effect of making young families feel safer in urban neighbourhoods. Among my friends, most of whom were urban in their twenties, and just now starting their families, the perception of security is a very important consideration. Many are regretfully moving to the sub-and exurbs for this reason.
Ultimately we need to learn to build more compactly, whether it's in new communities or densifying older suburban ones. There's only so much growth that the urban cetnres can bear without becoming unpleasant. We need to lose our fear of density, and learn that "community" and "sprawl" are mutually exclusive. I think this is slowly happening.
I wrote my local newspaper about this issue just a few months ago. I was trying to get the rebuild of the 35W bridge that fell down to include space for light rail so the baby boomers would have options in Minneapolis (where I live). I was pretty blunt that people in my generation are already squeezed between work and child care that driving parents around for doctors appointments would be the breaking point and that other countries like Japan the elderly travel about quite a lot on their own, especially in the rural areas.
Frustratingly enough they didn't publish my letter. I wonder why the very people in office are not funding the things that will take care of them in their old age.
The good news. My neighborhood associatation lobbied heavily for light rail and space will be included for "future expansion" of light rail across the river. Whatever that means.
Smiles :)
I recently took a Greyhound bus for the first time in more than a decade, and was surprised by how many seniors were on it. I expect our new city bus service to expand also.
Was reading this article in my feed reader and saw an ad in the bottom--if you're gonna put ads in the RSS feed, can you at least give us the whole article? This would be especially nice when I'm reading treehugger on my phone--this site takes forever to load via phone.