News and Press

Participation
Are you interested in participating in the study? We are recruiting new participants! Visit the participant's site for details and eligibility criteria.

The five study areas have been identified
The following five areas will be the focus of our study (click on each area for more details):

1) Bethesda / Chevy Chase study zone (urban)
2) Forest Glen study zone (urban)
3) Four Corners study zone (suburban)
4) Layhill / Aspen Hill study zone (suburban)
5) Olney study zone (exurban)

Press

ESRI Newsletter - the study is featured in a discussion about the use of mobile GIS technology in neighborhood-level projects. Read the ESRI Newsletter (see pg. 3-4 for article).

Could Where You Live Make You Fatter?
Coverage of the study by WUSA 9 - read the story or watch the video.

Ozone Alert
As the North Carolina Division of Air Quality began its annual ozone-monitoring season, host Frank Stasio led a discussion on the state of air pollution in North Carolina.

Daniel Rodríguez, assistant professor of City and Regional Planning at UNC-CH, was a guest on WUNC's State of Things radio program (FM 91.5 WUNC). Other guests included: David Ferren, attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center; Rebecca Yarbrough, program director for Sustainable Environment for Quality of Life of Charlotte and Joel Schwartz, adjunct scholar of the John Locke Foundation. Listen to the broadcast (59:00)

Alternatives to sprawl: New urbanism taking to streets
City and county planners like the high property values; residents like the convenience
By Keith Rushing, www.dailypress.com

"...They (architects and developers) are trying to bring back an urban America-bringing together some of the suburban elements we like," Rodriguez said, adding that the homes in these communities will often have larger rooms and plenty of green space.  Although they are an effort to create an urban environment, these new communities are generally built in more suburban areas where large plots of land are available.  In the past five years, the number of new urbanist projects nationwide has increased at least 20 percent each year, Rodriguez said.

In many cases, communities have altered zoning laws to allow for higher-density development and stores and offices in the same area.  Rodriguez said more than 40 states now have development plans or codes that promote these neighborhoods.  Because the communities encourage walking, they're believed to have a lower impact on roads and traffic and demand fewer road-widening projects and retention ponds.

"The bar is lowered because the impact is lower," Rodriguez said.

Cities and counties tend to like new urbanism because the developments attract upscale residents, raising the value of housing.  "They have appreciated faster, which means they've been in short supply," Rodriguez said.   "Prices shoot up."  The high property values have a downside, however.  The communities tend to lack economic and racial diversity, which is one of the goals of the new urbanism movement, Rodriguez said.

"I think you're going to find that there's a major gap between what proponents of new urbanism would like it to do and what they actually do," he said.  "They tend to be upscale developments of predominantly white residents." 

To combat that problem, lawmakers have to create solutions that will create more economic and racial diversity when these communities are being built, Rodriguez said.   Read the complete article (html)

UNC, Maryland researchers study impact of neighborhood development on physical activity, obesity

Researchers from city planning and public health are conducting a three-year study focused on possible links between urban and suburban sprawl and the rise in U.S. obesity rates...
Read the entire UNC Press Release (html)

Made for Action
Story by Neil Caudle, endeavors

For generations, the American dream has been luring us out to the suburbs -- to a gadget-packed house on a big, roomy lot with a couple of late-model cars in the drive.  Safe from the dirt, din, and crime of big cities, the suburbs would be good for us, we thought...
Read the complete article (html)

Tracking Effects of Suburban Life on Health - by Timothy B. Wheeler, Sun Reporter

... By keeping track of their every waking movement over a typical week, Yancosek and dozens of other Montgomery County residents are helping researchers with a sprawling question: Is suburbia harmful to your health?

Results from this study of Montgomery residents won't be compiled and published for a year or two. But previous research suggests that suburbanites have reason to worry.

Studies have found that people living in spread-out suburban communities tend to weigh more than city residents and to suffer more from chronic health problems including arthritis, asthma, obesity and headaches.

Critics of the nation's ever-expanding suburbs have been quick to cite such health studies as another compelling reason to build more compact, pedestrian-oriented communities. Research projects and conferences devoted to improving people's health by changing their "built environment" have become a cottage industry, fueled by a steady stream of grants from foundations and government.

Some researchers caution that the evidence is a little too thin to warrant counting cul-de-sacs and strip malls as major culprits in the nationwide epidemic of obesity among adults and children.

A team of researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park and from the University of North Carolina has set up the Montgomery County study to see whether they can pinpoint features in the workplace and at home that get some people moving while turning others into couch potatoes.

"The whole point is to try to understand what types of environments really support physical activity," says Kelly J. Clifton, an assistant research professor at UM's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education in College Park.

Toward that end, the roughly 80 Montgomery residents who have been recruited have kept detailed diaries of their activities at work and leisure for a week. They also have worn pedometer-like devices that recorded their movements, whether walking, dancing or just fidgeting in a chair.

The research team hopes to gather data on 400 residents living in five areas of the county. The areas were chosen because they cover a range of neighborhood characteristics, from townhouses near a Metro stop in Silver Spring to the more spread-out, car-oriented housing of Olney.

The three-year study is underwritten by a $473,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is financing a series of studies aiming to promote "active living."

"We're hoping that the knowledge gained will provide a basis for changing the way our neighborhoods are planned," Daniel Rodriguez, a UNC planning professor and the study's principal investigator, said in a statement ... (read entire article here)

Contact information:
P.I. - Daniel Rodriguez
Webmaster - Jennifer Valentine