According to this article, living in post-1950's tract housing designed for automobiles and shopping malls makes people fatter than living in close knit older neighborhoods with sidewalks and local merchants.
As I think back to my childhood in the late forties I have to agree. As a kid I rode my bike to the store for my mom regularly and she walked the mile or so round trip to the market 1-2 times a week. There were also mobile vendors for dairy products, fish, fruits and vegetables and bakery goods - not to mention ice cream trucks. We never went shopping in the car. School was also within walking/bike riding range except in really bad weather.
Then in the fifties we moved to a housing tract. The market and shopping district was four miles away. The street vendors were no more - the population density and lack of stay-at-home moms apparently couldn't support them (every couple was in the same age range as my parents, as compared to the muli-generational pattern where we'd lived).). Grocery shopping became a weekend activity done by car. And we got school buses to take us to school.
Now there's a new demographic wrinkle. With the proliferation of fast food chains and lack of neighborhood markets home cooking has diminished, At least one city, here, is considering a ban on further fast food chains in poorer areaa, apparently hoping to trigger more sit down restaurants and supermarkets to move in. Exactly how this is supposed to happen if the populace has neither time or money for better nutrition seems obscure.
As I think back to my childhood in the late forties I have to agree. As a kid I rode my bike to the store for my mom regularly and she walked the mile or so round trip to the market 1-2 times a week. There were also mobile vendors for dairy products, fish, fruits and vegetables and bakery goods - not to mention ice cream trucks. We never went shopping in the car. School was also within walking/bike riding range except in really bad weather.
Then in the fifties we moved to a housing tract. The market and shopping district was four miles away. The street vendors were no more - the population density and lack of stay-at-home moms apparently couldn't support them (every couple was in the same age range as my parents, as compared to the muli-generational pattern where we'd lived).). Grocery shopping became a weekend activity done by car. And we got school buses to take us to school.
Now there's a new demographic wrinkle. With the proliferation of fast food chains and lack of neighborhood markets home cooking has diminished, At least one city, here, is considering a ban on further fast food chains in poorer areaa, apparently hoping to trigger more sit down restaurants and supermarkets to move in. Exactly how this is supposed to happen if the populace has neither time or money for better nutrition seems obscure.
