It is surprising how design can affect your health. Disorganized closets can drive you crazy. Improper plumbing can make you sick. Toxic building materials containing carcinogens can shorten your life. Radon can creep into and improperly sealed or vented basement.
So what about suburban creep? True monotony can be mind numbing in cookie cutter communities with row after row of similar homes on uniform lots. But, can the suburbs cause a disease? An article from TreeHugger.com links the burbs to diabetes. See article "How Neighborhood Design Can Make Us Sick"
Walkability is the term that is bantered around. Having a favorite destination within ten minutes walk can promote activity. But is walkability enough? Is exercise the only thing missing from from the suburbs? What can more do to help the sick suburbs.
What is the solution? A community the encourages walking, bicycling and activity. Stores, fitness opportunities, greenspace, workplaces, places of worship and community parks all with in walking distance promote physical activity. It also give the neighborhood a sense of place and belonging.
Is a civil engineer and some stock plans all you need to plan a community? Sadly the standard approach is falling short of a physically health and socially active community. It takes home designers, architects, landscape architects and urban/suburban planners to make a community thrive.
Look for a community in which each home has an identity. There are destination places nearby. Well design parks, walks and nature. A network within and to the city transportation existing amenities.
A thought to ponder from the prose Meditation XVII
So what about suburban creep? True monotony can be mind numbing in cookie cutter communities with row after row of similar homes on uniform lots. But, can the suburbs cause a disease? An article from TreeHugger.com links the burbs to diabetes. See article "How Neighborhood Design Can Make Us Sick"
Walkability is the term that is bantered around. Having a favorite destination within ten minutes walk can promote activity. But is walkability enough? Is exercise the only thing missing from from the suburbs? What can more do to help the sick suburbs.
What is the solution? A community the encourages walking, bicycling and activity. Stores, fitness opportunities, greenspace, workplaces, places of worship and community parks all with in walking distance promote physical activity. It also give the neighborhood a sense of place and belonging.
Is a civil engineer and some stock plans all you need to plan a community? Sadly the standard approach is falling short of a physically health and socially active community. It takes home designers, architects, landscape architects and urban/suburban planners to make a community thrive.
Look for a community in which each home has an identity. There are destination places nearby. Well design parks, walks and nature. A network within and to the city transportation existing amenities.
A thought to ponder from the prose Meditation XVII
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. -English writer John Donne, 1624
Comments
Post a Comment