I noticed with interest the wire story "Sprawling suburbs may help fuel obesity." (No...really?) This comes out of a major study edited by the CDC. According to this study: Americans who live in sprawl tend to be heavier than those who live in more compact areas (by as much as six pounds), partially because their neighborhoods are built without sidewalks, are much more likely to drive to their destination even if it's under two miles, and those who do walk or bike are more likely to be run over. Americans were also compared to Europeans, who have integrated foot and bike paths into their cities, and found that as a whole, Europeans tend to be thinner and more healthy because they make less car trips (33 percent of Europeans walked or biked to a destination, compared with less than 10 percent of Americans).
I was surprised to learn that one of the most sprawling counties in the country was Clinton county, which is my city's neighbor to the north. I knew there were quite a few people moving up there, I just didn't realize how many. For some reason people really seem to like DeWitt (one of the fastest growing areas which developers can't seem to pave over fast enough). Honestly, you'd never catch me dead there.
I grew up in a fairly remote area. I hated it. It was excruciatingly boring. When I turned 18, I left for college and the city, and never looked back. I can't imagine living in the suburbs. There's nothing good about living in the suburbs. At least with in the city, stores and entertainment are close by. Out in "podunk" as I've heard it called, you have your privacy as you're isolated. In the suburbs, you have neither. The other thing that has always bothered me about suburbs (and sprawl) is that people say that they "want to move out to a nice area" but if they and ten other schmucks move out there, and the developer paves over the trees that used to be there, just how nice is the area now?
10:57:16 PM 
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