The Planetizen News Brief - 11/1/07

• Artist: Planetizen
• Title: Planetizen Podcast - 2007-11-01 - The Planetizen News Brief
• Album: Planetizen Podcast
• Year: 2007
• Length: 4:20 minutes (4.02 MB)
• Format: Stereo 22kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

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Full Transcript

As the population grows nationwide and the country’s available land for urban development dwindles, more and more people are saying “not in my backyard.” A recent poll by Saint Consulting Group shows that 78% of Americans are opposed to any new development within their communities. More than one-quarter of the 1,000 people surveyed also reported that they had actually been a part of some activist action to oppose a new project in their neighborhood. CNN reports that even though most people are opposed to any new projects, those most likely to be approved are developments like grocery stores and single-family homes. Those least likely to be approved are landfills, quarries, and Wal-Marts.

Meanwhile, another type of development having trouble getting past a NIMBY-minded public may be a bit surprising. The New York Times reports that many so-called Smart Growth mixed use projects are stumbling in Long Island as they are unable to achieve the public support necessary for approval. But it is not the quote Smart aspects of the developments that are holding them back, it’s the fact that the projects are being proposed on such a big scale. With proposals including hundreds of new condos and hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail and office space, many residents and city officials on Long Island are worried that their existing infrastructure won’t be able to handle the flood of people that would be sure to follow these developments. Cities across the island, however, are still clamoring for new development, but until the developers can scale their projects down to a more fitting size the public won’t be on their side.

And finally, American’s have a well-known reputation worldwide for being fat and lazy. This fact may be hard to dispute, but it has for years been merely a stereotype and overgeneralization that condemns an entire nation -- until now. A list was recently released of the most sedentary cities in America, redistributing the shame to specific cities and their people. Forbes Magazine put together this list by collecting data on TV viewing habits, rates of physical inactivity, and the body mass index of residents in the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas. Their findings show that the country’s laziest city is Memphis, Tennessee, followed by New Orleans, Las Vegas and Detroit. Poor access to grocery stores and public parks, sprawling development, and high concentrations of fast food restaurants are some of the most notable characteristics of the cities on this list, and, not coincidentally, some of the characteristics that make a city recognizably American.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

A Nation Of NIMBYs?

Be Small To Be Smart

The Most Sedentary Cities In America