New Urbanism: The Prescription For Obesity?

"A handful of similar communities have been sprouting up slowly across the nation in the first tentative attempts to counter the sprawl of strip malls, cul-de-sacs and subdivisions without sidewalks that force people to drive everywhere, which -- along with junk food and super-sizing -- is believed to be a major reason that Americans are getting so fat.

So far, many of the 'walkable' attributes of new neighborhoods such as King Farm have been unanticipated consequences of decisions that developers made largely to satisfy housing density requirements or to make their projects more marketable. But the nation's obesity crisis has spurred a new movement to purposefully build communities and retrofit existing ones to make it more natural for people to be physically active."

Thanks to Richard Layman