Fight Global Warming: Ditch Your Keys and TIe Up Your Shoes
Does your neighborhood influence your driving habits?
A University of California at Davis study has found that neighborhoods boasting corner stores, restaurants, coffee shops, hardware stores and other small businesses inadvertently encourage residents to run their errands by foot, rather then by car. About 87 percent of respondents that live less than .5 miles from a grocery store said that they chose to walk instead of drive about six times a month. In contrast, about a third or respondents from less walk-friendly neighborhoods said they walked to complete a single errand in a month's time.
When you add it all up, people living withing walking distance of stores end up driving 42 percent fewer miles than their car-dependent counterparts. Grist points out the importance of this reduction on a global scale. If more people lived in walk-friendly neighborhoods, they would drive fewer miles, and thus, reduce carbon emissions.
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Good in so many ways.
Considering that most of the world doesn't currently live like Americans, with American style malls and big box stores being the primary areas of commerce in many cities and most towns at this point, I'm not sure of the importance of this change on a global scale. For example, Europeans already drive much less than Americans. Although there are some big box stores, it is much more common for people to run their errands on foot as most European cities are walkable and gas is very expensive. That being said, the ideas behind New Urbanism (which if you think about it is actually "Ancient Urbanism"; towns and cities have been built for walking for millenia) should definitely drive the re-development and new development in the US. Not only are walkable neighborhoods better for our physical health, but in getting out of the car and walking around the neighborhood, we interact directly with the people living closest to us, our neighbors, which strengthens our sense of community. As an added bonus, mixed use developments (or re-developments) will improve local economies by providing economic opportunities for people who will open, run, and be employed by these small businesses. I would go so far as to say that since driving fewer miles is one of the most simple ways to cut back our carbon emissions, it is important that we aim for the development of cities and towns to be more walkable - just as they were developed through the 1980's and 90's to encourage driving - though in doing so we must be smart also about our (re-)use of resources.
Of course, we will also need to figure out ways to make our food and product distribution networks as energy efficient as possible - but that is perhaps another topic.
A good idea in theory...
I definately agree that walk-friendly neighborhoods are a good idea. They not only benefit the environment but also provide stimulation for small businesses. Not to mention the added health benefit of exercise that so many Americans lack. But realistically they are not very functional. I grew up in the suburbs of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US, and, unfortunately, the way cities are designed and the demands of the lives of most of the people in the middle class are not confined to a small radius. Not to say walking or biking to the store isn't possible, I did when I was home over the summer but I'm not a mother with three kids trying to drive them to soccer practice and only have time to go to the store during a one-hour window on Tuesdays. Utimately, I think the way cities are designed is to fit our lifestyles and although driving to big box stores has certain negatives, their convience and lower prices are more of an imediate benefit when you have a hectic lifestyle. And, whereas I think the construction of new cities or towns should be designed in way so that they are walk-friendly, reconfiguiring already existing cities would definately cost more and probably have a greater negative effect on the environment overall.
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