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The real estate diet: New study reveals those in older neighbourhoods exercise more
National Post
Wed 24 Jul 2002 - Arts & Life - AL1 / Front
Brad Evenson
When he abandoned the suburb of Pointe-Claire for downtown Montreal, Mike Gosselin looked forward to dining in chic restaurants and seeing more films. But at 223 pounds, the divorce counsellor worried about gaining weight. Instead, after two years, his waistline has shrunk from 38 inches to 34. Not only does he need new trousers, he needs new shoes.
"The old ones are worn out," laughs Gosselin.
"Nowadays, I walk everywhere. Everything is so close. I'm even thinking about selling my car."
Gosselin is discovering what advocates of the so-called "New Urbanism" have been preaching since the early 1980s: Suburbs are unhealthy. And as North America confronts an epidemic of obesity, medical researchers are beginning to agree.
A study of 17,000 adults published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine says people who live in houses at least 27 years old are considerably more likely than residents of newer homes to walk a mile or more at least 20 times a month.
"Neighbourhoods containing older homes in urban areas are more likely to have sidewalks, have denser interconnected networks of streets and often display a mix of business and residential uses," says epidemiologist David Berrigan of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
Berrigan set out to measure how people's neighbourhoods affected how much they exercised. However, conducting such a study would mean interviewing thousands of people and cost millions of scarce research dollars.
But in a lucky coincidence, Berrigan and his colleague Richard Troiano found a "hidden gem" in a national health survey of Americans that had already been completed.
"The survey had a question about the age of people's residences," says Berrigan. "We think it had something to do with lead. Older homes are more likely to have lead paint in them."
When the researchers compared exercise with the age of dwelling, they found that 64% of respondents who lived in houses built before 1974 were the most active.
"It's obviously not a feature of the house itself," says Berrigan. "The house doesn't make you walk more or less. It's the neighbourhood that the house is embedded in."
He said most of these older houses are in denser and more diverse neighbourhoods, not in sprawling suburbs where people tend to drive automobiles wherever they're going.
"If it's too far away to anything, people won't have destinations so people won't walk anywhere because it takes too long," says Berrigan.
"If you can only walk around the neighbourhood, some people will walk for exercise. But if there are stores, shops, cafes, post offices, school and workplaces in a neighbourhood, that encourages walking, in part for exercise and part for the business of everyday life."
The unsolved question, says Berrigan, is whether people walk more because their neighbourhood is walkable, or whether people move to neighbourhoods where it is pleasant to walk.
Fierce critics of the suburbs such as James Howard Kunstler, author of the 1994 best-seller The Geography of Nowhere, do not find the study's conclusions surprising.
"The fact that so many people are not living in walkable communities has tremendous implications that go far beyond simple health questions like are you getting enough cardiovascular exercise," he says.
"There are terrible social implications, cultural implications and all the issues that arise out of the destruction of local economic and community networks that allowed people to feel they were part of an organism called a community."
Kunstler praises the New Urbanism, a growing movement of architects, planners and developers that embraces a return to traditional neighbourhood patterns. These compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods began to disappear with the ascendancy of the automobile after the Second World War. Today, hundreds of new towns, villages and neighbourhoods based on the New Urbanism are planned or under construction across North America. Examples include a community in Markham, Ont., called Cornell, Calgary's McKenzie Town and Murray's Corner in Langley, B.C.
The defining characteristics of these new neighbourhoods include a town centre, with most dwellings no farther than 600 metres away, a mixture of nearby shops and offices, a school within walking distance and many small playgrounds. Streets are narrow and parking tends to be behind buildings.
By contrast, most suburbs have no defined core, wide streets and acres of parking in strip malls that are hostile to foot traffic.
Kunstler says in some cases, dead shopping malls are being transformed into traditional town squares to revive communities, but ultimately, he thinks the suburban model is doomed.
"Probably the unhappy truth about the situation is that, in my opinion ... there's a lot about the suburbs that's going to be unsalvageable," he says.
"When the cheap petroleum age is over, none of this s--- is going to work. It's all going to be obsolete."
ILLUSTRATION:: : Black & White Photo: Nick Didlick, National Post / VANCOUVER'S KITSILANO NEIGHBOURHOOD: "The house doesn't make you walk more or less. It's the neighbourhood the house is embedded in."
SOURCE National Post
The real estate diet: New study reveals those in older neighbourhoods exercise more
National Post
Wed 24 Jul 2002 - Arts & Life - AL1 / Front
Brad Evenson
When he abandoned the suburb of Pointe-Claire for downtown Montreal, Mike Gosselin looked forward to dining in chic restaurants and seeing more films. But at 223 pounds, the divorce counsellor worried about gaining weight. Instead, after two years, his waistline has shrunk from 38 inches to 34. Not only does he need new trousers, he needs new shoes.
"The old ones are worn out," laughs Gosselin.
"Nowadays, I walk everywhere. Everything is so close. I'm even thinking about selling my car."
Gosselin is discovering what advocates of the so-called "New Urbanism" have been preaching since the early 1980s: Suburbs are unhealthy. And as North America confronts an epidemic of obesity, medical researchers are beginning to agree.
A study of 17,000 adults published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine says people who live in houses at least 27 years old are considerably more likely than residents of newer homes to walk a mile or more at least 20 times a month.
"Neighbourhoods containing older homes in urban areas are more likely to have sidewalks, have denser interconnected networks of streets and often display a mix of business and residential uses," says epidemiologist David Berrigan of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
Berrigan set out to measure how people's neighbourhoods affected how much they exercised. However, conducting such a study would mean interviewing thousands of people and cost millions of scarce research dollars.
But in a lucky coincidence, Berrigan and his colleague Richard Troiano found a "hidden gem" in a national health survey of Americans that had already been completed.
"The survey had a question about the age of people's residences," says Berrigan. "We think it had something to do with lead. Older homes are more likely to have lead paint in them."
When the researchers compared exercise with the age of dwelling, they found that 64% of respondents who lived in houses built before 1974 were the most active.
"It's obviously not a feature of the house itself," says Berrigan. "The house doesn't make you walk more or less. It's the neighbourhood that the house is embedded in."
He said most of these older houses are in denser and more diverse neighbourhoods, not in sprawling suburbs where people tend to drive automobiles wherever they're going.
"If it's too far away to anything, people won't have destinations so people won't walk anywhere because it takes too long," says Berrigan.
"If you can only walk around the neighbourhood, some people will walk for exercise. But if there are stores, shops, cafes, post offices, school and workplaces in a neighbourhood, that encourages walking, in part for exercise and part for the business of everyday life."
The unsolved question, says Berrigan, is whether people walk more because their neighbourhood is walkable, or whether people move to neighbourhoods where it is pleasant to walk.
Fierce critics of the suburbs such as James Howard Kunstler, author of the 1994 best-seller The Geography of Nowhere, do not find the study's conclusions surprising.
"The fact that so many people are not living in walkable communities has tremendous implications that go far beyond simple health questions like are you getting enough cardiovascular exercise," he says.
"There are terrible social implications, cultural implications and all the issues that arise out of the destruction of local economic and community networks that allowed people to feel they were part of an organism called a community."
Kunstler praises the New Urbanism, a growing movement of architects, planners and developers that embraces a return to traditional neighbourhood patterns. These compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods began to disappear with the ascendancy of the automobile after the Second World War. Today, hundreds of new towns, villages and neighbourhoods based on the New Urbanism are planned or under construction across North America. Examples include a community in Markham, Ont., called Cornell, Calgary's McKenzie Town and Murray's Corner in Langley, B.C.
The defining characteristics of these new neighbourhoods include a town centre, with most dwellings no farther than 600 metres away, a mixture of nearby shops and offices, a school within walking distance and many small playgrounds. Streets are narrow and parking tends to be behind buildings.
By contrast, most suburbs have no defined core, wide streets and acres of parking in strip malls that are hostile to foot traffic.
Kunstler says in some cases, dead shopping malls are being transformed into traditional town squares to revive communities, but ultimately, he thinks the suburban model is doomed.
"Probably the unhappy truth about the situation is that, in my opinion ... there's a lot about the suburbs that's going to be unsalvageable," he says.
"When the cheap petroleum age is over, none of this s--- is going to work. It's all going to be obsolete."
ILLUSTRATION:: : Black & White Photo: Nick Didlick, National Post / VANCOUVER'S KITSILANO NEIGHBOURHOOD: "The house doesn't make you walk more or less. It's the neighbourhood the house is embedded in."
SOURCE National Post
