A Prescription For Good Urban Planning?

James Rojas, a transportation planner in Los Angeles and founder of the Latino Urban Forum, offers remarks as a follow up to the recent Built Environment and Health conference.

"The urban planning profession is an outgrowth of the 19th century city reform movement to solve the urban ills experienced by the phenomenal growth of cities like New York, London and Paris. The creation of sanitation systems, zoning and Central Park as part of the early parks movement were considered health remedies for urban inhabitants. Somewhere along the line planning and health parted ways."

"Today our urban form and health problems are much more expensive, complicated and critical to solve than they were in the 19th century. We are faced with the obesity epidemic, failing health system and global warming partly due to bad urban form. Unlike the urban ills of the 19th century which were solved by building infrastructure and creating zoning codes, today's problem focus on changing people behavior patterns. Planners and doctors must realign themselves in order to build sustainable cities and address our health problems."