Sprawl is good for you
: A new “study” argues that suburban sprawl is bad for your health.
What a hock of hooey. It appears to be another of those coincidence-of-statistics “studies” that confirm somebody’s desires for the truth.
They found that people in the suburbs complain of more ailments. Could it be that people in the suburbs are more likely to have health insurance and they can afford to complain of ailments more often? Could it be that people in the suburbs have jobs that are stressful and, in fact, their homes are what make life better for them? Could it be that the jobs and competition in bigger, more crowded, more central locations are frequently more stressful than the jobs in out-of-the-way places? Could it be that people in the suburbs grow old out there and get sick more often than young yuppies? I think it could.
Here’s the Washington Post report on the “study.”
The real problem I have with this is that “sprawl” is such a dirty word. Hey, yesterday’s “sprawl” is today’s “preservation” project. The house you’re living in was sprawl when it’s built but now that you’re in it, it’s not sprawl — but the new one going in next door is.
My town is wasting millions buying land by the Interstate that no one should want to build on — and if they wanted to build, who’d care? — in the name of “open space” and its moral opposite, “sprawl.” It’s a waste of good land and good money and doesn’t really serve the interests against “sprawl” because it only forces people to move farther and farther away from their jobs and communities.
“Sprawl” is a boogyman for the age.
