"Designing Healthy Communities: Raising Healthy Kids"

Pat wrote:
Bike paths don't cut into profits, as Bill B suggested.
Talked to a developer lately?
If a developer
thought that they would be used and highly valued, they would be
everywhere because people would want to pay for them.
They take space away from where they could cram more houses.
Don't blame the
developers, giving people what they want is how developers make a
living.
Not the local developers. We had some old growth trees that were like
landmarks and even they were cut down to make room for one more house.
Greed rules developers minds.
If no one wants them, then there's no advantage to building
them.
Schools and a park were proposed but never built, just the houses and
now the people who bought houses have their kids going to an extremely
crowded school with no park to play in.

If you want to do social engineering to get back into some
overly-romanticed time and place where you grew up, then ban satelite
dishes, cable TV, and air conditioning to force the kids outside. But
remember, that when you were growing up, your parents and grandparents
were complaining because you were out playing baseball when they were
milking cows when they were your age.

Not my grandparents.

If you want to blame anything for kids staying inside, blame air
conditioning. It has probably had the biggest impact on the country of
anything, ever. Without it, CA, NV, AZ, TX and FL would all be
drastically different than they are now. And without it, kids would be
outside playing instead of inside and comfortable.

I couldn't stand to stay in, and never missed the air conditioning
because I never had it in the 50's. All I remember is my exploits, not
sweating.

But life is what it is and there's not much we can do to change it.
You are right, kids don't ride as much as they used to. And I agree it
is sad. But I don't think bike trails would make much of a difference.
If kids want to ride their bikes, they can still use the street. But
kids congesting the street isn't the problem -- the problem is kids are
NOT congesting the street -- they are indoors. That's the real problem
for you to fight.

Another change from the 50's is that now we have twice as many people in
this country and your kids are more than twice as likely to get hit due
to the overcrowding.

(FYI: 2 kids. 13 and 10. Both VERY active in organized sports but
who don't do too much "unorganized" sports. And yes, I think the lack
of spontanaity is somehow bad, but at least they're active. And I do
know a bit about kids and sports).

Here's a thought for all of you planners. Maybe stop fighting the
problem and look for other ways to address it. Why not working to join
developers with sports leagues to allow/encourage the leagues to go
door-to-door and recruit kids for teams. Stop thinking of developers
as the enemy and think of ways to make them allies. If you can give
them a reason to do something, they will do it. They are very
predictable about that. And I bet you could even talk most of them
into sponsoring a team or two (they want to market to the kids
parents). I guess I am saying, stop focusing on the supply of
recreational stuff and instead focus on the demand for it. Create
demand and the supply will follow.

I know this will be controversial and many of you will want to flame
me. Okay, if that helps you, go ahead. But I do real estate
development and I know how developers think. We are a predictable
group of people. Planners can increase costs through regulation and
require lots of things we don't want to do -- or you can encourage the
demand for it and we will gladly do it without being asked because
people will see it as an amenity.

Not me, I am going to watch television. 8PM, dark, rain, no bike day.
Bill Baka

I'm thinking of retiring in one of those Earthships. That's those
"energy independent" homes that they're making out of car tires with
packed sand. Their home is in Taos, NM. I'm even thinking of moving
either there or Santa Fe.

They have entire communities of Earthships, and I like the idea of
living in this kind of "aware" neighborhood. I think that the kind of
people who live in these communities will probably be very
bike-friendly.
Jim Gagnepain
http://home.comcast.net/~oil_free_and_happy/