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As I discussed last time, the planning profession had a role in facilitating mid-20th century suburban, auto-oriented development. As it turns out, we now know the extent of the damage this has caused over the past 70 years, and its longer lasting negative impact on the human, environmental and fiscal health of our communities.

The dominant suburban form of development became strip malls along wide boulevards with few crossing streets, isolated office parks and single-family housing subdivisions (most without sidewalks) 鈥� all accessed by freeways and built exclusively for the automobile. Planners enabled all this with single-use zoning. Unlike previous development forms, development that separated housing from commercial, employment and service uses made it very difficult 鈥� sometimes actually impossible 鈥� for people to walk or take transit to work or school, or complete everyday errands. As a result, almost everyone drove everywhere.

From a human health standpoint, this has been a disaster. As extensively documented in multiple health studies (such as 鈥淯rban Sprawl and Public Health,鈥� for example), the simple fact that most people walked much less has been a major contributing factor in the significant increases in obesity, diabetes and heart and lung diseases over the past 70 years. It has also led to a huge increase in traffic deaths and injuries, and made it difficult to maintain a sense of community as new highway construction divided communities and created significant barriers to everyday human interaction. This has been especially true for communities of color because they were frequently in the places most impacted by new freeways and widened roadways. This in turn resulted in significant mental and emotional stress for these areas already challenged by poverty and discriminatory housing practices.

Next time I鈥檒l discuss the environmental impacts of sprawl, and its long-term consequences.