If there’s one public health problem that has virtually no prospect of being magically cured, it is obesity, whose spread around the world has reached epidemic proportions. For years, urban planners have argued that increasing suburban sprawl deserves at least some of the blame, particularly in the United States.

But the sad truth is that even in the heart of the country’s biggest, densest cities, obesity has become an increasingly major problem. Which leads to one conclusion: There is something fundamentally wrong with modern culture that’s making getting heavy all too easy.

Architects and urbanists think there must be a design solution to this problem, and for the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the answer may be more urban parks. But does a bit of vegetation a few blocks from your apartment really cut down on weight gain?

Last month, ASLA held a conference on Capitol Hill in Washington during which it promoted the passage of House bill HR 3734, which would allow the federal government to distribute grants to cities interested in investing in urban parks. The Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act, whose primary sponsor is New Jersey Congressman Albio Sires, would give the Department of Housing and Urban Development the authority to help urban neighborhoods build and improve green spaces and other recreational facilities to connect children to nature and physical activity.

Overweight children lack adequate recreational opportunities and often are in need of better places to move about, which are limited by the urban gridiron. States and municipalities, suffering under the growing strain of falling tax returns, are cutting parks budgets and limiting the hours of recreation centers — which is the exact wrong approach if we want to encourage people to get out and move. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Though the federal government historically has had limited involvement in sponsoring community parks — they’re generally seen as a local matter — the truth is that they’re public infrastructure, just like the roads and electricity grids to which Washington contributes billions of dollars each year.

Parks have other advantages, most notably in the field of urban improvement. At the ASLA conference last month, Georgia Institute of Technology Professor Joe Hughes argued that homes less than one thousand feet from a park are worth 11% more than those further away. “Parks are critical drivers of economic development,” he suggested.

Unfortunately, ASLA’s priority bill is stuck in committee, unlikely to make its way out in the wake of President Obama’s call to suspend budget increases for executive departments. The legislation currently lacks any sponsor in the Senate, which must approve any bill for it to become a law. As such, the fact is that a new government program that doesn’t address some sort of fundamental need is unlikely to find necessary funding or support soon.

Yet people who live in urban environments can take some small comfort in the fact that living in a walkable community may indeed be enough to erase at least some of the weight gain currently plaguing the country’s inhabitants. Kids who live in rural areas are more likely to be overweight than their urban counterparts. And for clear reasons: Country-dwellers — despite being surrounded by acres of nature — are less physically active and less likely to participate in after-school sports.

Thus the presence of mere open space isn’t enough to keep people in good shape — children can’t be expected to frolic in a giant field simply because it’s there. Integrated into a livable city, however, well-designed parks can play an important role in helping to make peoples’ lifestyles more and more active.

Image above: Children in Ma On Shan Park, from Flickr user hkaicheung2222

Tags: Obesity, Urban Parks