No matter where you live in Las Vegas, it’s likely the only way you get from your home to anywhere else is by car.
Your home may also be enclosed in one of the fiefdom’s we call gated communities. Plus, there is a high probability that you barely know your neighbors.
That way of living isn’t what a smart-growth advocate would call a “healthy community.”
One of those smart-growth advocates, Dr. Richard Jackson, is a professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA, author of a book Designing Healthy Communities, and a keynote speaker at a meeting of the American Institute of Architects Las Vegas Wednesday.
Jackson said a healthy community would look more like the communities our grandparents or great grandparents lived in: small, walkable communities centered on a town square.
He told KNPR’s State of Nevada that the lack of walkability is contributing to health problems around the country.
“People aren’t using their bodies to go about their lives, and it’s having an effect on their bodies, their families and their happiness,” Jackson said.
Jackson said communities are being created without easy access to fresh fruit and vegetables and without the ability to walk off any extra calories. Obesity, diabetes, and depression are just some of the conditions and illnesses he blames on the poor way communities are built.
He said when society started concentrating on cars it forgot how to build good cities.
Las Vegas architect Ed Vance agrees.
“We, unfortunately, have built most of our built environment around the car,” Vance said.
He believes the way Summerlin was built is an example of how neighborhood planning can be done better. The village concept used in the master-planned community encourages more walking and less car use.
The dean of UNLV’s Community Health Sciences department, Shawn Gerstenberger, said ease of use is the key.
“One of the things that is incumbent upon us is to make the healthy choice the easy choice,“ Gerstenberger said.
He said it should be more difficult for people to get behind the wheel to drive somewhere than it is to walk somewhere.
Gerstenberger believes Las Vegas has opportunities to improve housing, access to important health resources and walkability all with the goal to improve health.
All three guests agree generational changes will fuel the change in how communities are built. Millennials aren’t as interested as past generations in using their cars to get everywhere. They’re more interested in being near the excitement of cultural, shopping and entertainment centers, which is why many are moving back into urban centers.
In addition, many baby boomers want to live where they won’t need a car, realizing as they age they’re likely to lose their driving privileges.
For healthy community advocates, it is time Las Vegas and the rest of the country focuses on not just how to move people around but how to get people moving.
“You can create environments that will isolate people or you can create environments that entice people to be active,” Jackson said.
Dr. Richard Jackson, environmental health advocate; Ed Vance, architect; Shawn Gerstenberger, dean, UNLV School of Community Health Sciences