A DIFFERENT SHADE OF GREEN L o w ell “ R u sty ” Pritchard
Walking to Justice
ers, bikers, cars, and public transport, pedestrian fatalities are high and rising. And there’s a racial disparity in the experience of death by car: Ethnic minorities and recent immigrants are more likely to be traveling on foot, and because they are trying to navigate environments What’s the greatest threat to our planet? that exclude walkers, they are many times That’s the question that animates the more likely to be killed by cars than are short film Built to Last, which won top white citizens. honors from the Congress for New Trying to live life without a car in Urbanism last summer. You’ll have to an environment built mainly for autowatch it at CNU.org/node/2853 to find mobiles has profound effects on one’s the answer. sense of social inclusion. The indignity But here’s a hint: It has to do with of being a pedestrian is felt regularly by how we build our cities. We have for the poor and by ethnic minorities and several generations built our most sig- is felt only occasionally by affluent elites nificant places on the cheap: homes, (who may encounter traffic on foot only office buildings, churches, libraries, and while waiting for a car repair and lookthe infrastructure that connects them— ing for a coffee shop). I know mothers in all built on the low bid. The chief driv- my own neighborhood whose engageing forces governing the character of our ment with the outside world comes to cities has been cheap energy and cheap a near halt when they give birth— ideas. instead of trying to battle traffic withCheap energy has primarily revealed out sidewalks and safe crosswalks while itself in our transportation system, pushing a stroller, they retreat to a world which evolved around low-price gaso- of television, cell phones, and indoor line. Cheap ideas have been revealed in living. our corporate neglect of healthy design The effect of the built environment and healthy places. City planners, zon- on our bodies is not just felt through ing officials, county commissioners all violent encounters with cars. Because over the nation have allowed a landscape we have created so many unwalkable, to evolve in which they don’t expect unlivable communities, Americans of anyone to walk anywhere, ever. all ages have grown heavier by degrees Living our lives in the automobile in the last 40 years. We are trained by has profound effects on our psyche and the diet and exercise industries to think our political behavior, but the main of the obesity epidemic as the result of impacts (literally) are on our bodies.The individual gluttony or sloth or to excuse leading cause of death for Americans it as a genetic predisposition. But between the ages of 1 and 24 is car America’s obesity problem will not be crashes. Automobiles, as a cause of death, cured by diet or gym membership: The have leapfrogged over every other source real problem is a lack of healthy enviof child mortality, including birth defects, ronments that promote routine physical other kinds of accidents, cancer, and activity — walking as a way of life. homicide. The body politic has also been Danger from automobiles can’t be harmed by our penchant for building escaped simply by avoiding cars. Because environments for cars instead of people. planners rarely “complete the street” by A study last year (VolunteeringIn creating a transportation infrastructure America.gov) from the Corporation for that works for walkers, moms with stroll- National and Community Service shows PRISM 2010
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that in places where commuting times are burdensome, volunteerism takes a hit. There is only so much time in the day — after fighting traffic for hours, one is little inclined to head back out to sort clothes or cook food at the rescue mission. What is more worrying is the suggestion that long hours spent commuting works a change on our psyche. While you might think all those solitary hours in the car would make you crave social interaction, in fact the opposite appears to be true. According to the volunteering study, “driving back and forth to work alone provides few opportunities to engage others and to build positive social network.”And when people don’t spend time interacting with others, they begin to lose both the knack and desire for community-mindedness (part of what scientists have described as social capital). I don’t know if that’s true, but I can’t help feeling a little disinclined to “love my neighbor as myself ” after spending time on Atlanta’s downtown connector. Sociologist Robert Putnam calculates that for every additional 10 minutes of commute time in the car, there is a 10 percent decline in social capital. Not many of us living in the matrix can simply give up our cars. But faithful communities serving the poor are beginning to ask questions about our responsibility not just to green our lives and our houses but also to create healthy places that foster community and justice, beachheads of livability and vitality that can begin to spread across the city landscape. Flourish has created a list of resources (see bit.ly/27K6WY) to learn more about the built environment and what churches can do to make a difference. n A natural resource economist, Lowell “Rusty” Pritchard is editor of ESA’s Creation Care online community.