It has become more than obvious already going into the 21st century that America faces a national problem—a consumption problem, a security problem, and a health problem. We consume more than any other country, spend more than any other country, and so on. 40 years ago, Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in the presidential election, giving Americans that which they didn’t want to hear: we have a problem. The following message from Jimmy Carter’s (1978) speech can explain how our desires and confidence are actually causing our crisis. We had to much optimism as a result of our modernity which was unrealistically utopian (Kunstler, geography 60). . Americans feel we will continue living this lifestyle because growth is necessary, so consumption is completely acceptable and justified. We have been so complacent however, that we chose to ignore Carter’s message even over the last 30 years as our oil situation became dire. We are still convinced that our economic growth is the path to success, but in reality, what Carter says we should have done decades ago when we had ample time, is what the World Energy Outlook warns us to do now: “I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I’m proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense—I tell you it is an act of patriotism" (Carter).
We were warned when we still had some leeway to make changes in our infrastructure and health care systems, to name some examples, but as a result of waiting so long, we must spend more to fix the problem. Just as in the ecological world, pollution cleanup costs more than pollution prevention, building more unsustainable infrastructure instead of retrofitting right away will increase the costs by four-fold. Our waiting too long over the last half century has also affected health costs. Obesity is considered a nationally ranked issue, and it is without doubt majorly caused by suburban lifestyle. Various studies have shown that city dwellers are more physical fit than suburb dwellers. While the U.S. spends more than any other country on healthcare (16% of our GDP in 2007), we still face huge statistics in mental and physical health problems. Our national health measured by life expectancy and infant mortality lags behind other developed countries.
This generation’s parents will be the first in American history to outlive their children because of children now facing Type 2 diabetes (which used to be seen in adults only) and other diseases linked to obesity. Type 2 diabetes could be prevented by lowering calorie intake and burning more calories through walking. Americans could have looked at the cause of the problem, a car-addicted society, in which walking to school, biking around the neighborhood, and small portions are not common activities. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention found that “a quarter of all trips taken by Americans are under a mile, but 75 percent of those trips are done by car," compared to 54% of trips done by bike or walking in Italy, and 49% in Sweden, where average temperatures are much lower and there is less sunlight year round. In America, this percentage is down to 10%. Another interesting trend is that "only one-third of children who live less than a mile from school now walk to school."
Another study administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that obesity in adults from 1985- 2009 increased dramatically, with all, but one state in the United States having at least a 20% obesity rate. This makes complete sense considering that about 115 million workers used a car, truck, or van and almost 100 million drove alone as their method of transportation in 2000, more than in 1990 (U.S. Census Bureau UCLA School of Public Health). As a result we face shocking statistics like just only a quarter of California’s fifth graders being able to pass the annual fitness tests). The National Institute of Mental Health found major depressive disorder to be the highest disability for fifteen to forty-four year-olds in the United States, and of course, the “second most prescribed group of medications in the country is antidepressants.” Graph trends shown in Designing Healthy Communities hint at the close correlation between methods of commuting, obesity rates, and mental health problems are all connected. Building more and more outward sprawl creates negative environments. In suburbia, commuting has become stressful and social isolation and anxiety has increased among residents. A country that is so open to new ideas and different cultures and ethnicities should not build so that people lose contact with each other and lose touch with the larger world. Oddly enough, instead of putting more effort into disease prevention, we pay for the poor health which comes as a result, and it becomes a compounding problem. Jimmy Carter also criticized the fact that we have left our future generations with the problem instead of taking care of it immediately.
The other national problem is of course related to our foreign policy. The “Founding Fathers” would not be proud of the fact that we’ve turned the desire for individualism and independence into dependence on the automobile and Middle Eastern oil. We thought we were representing our country through our life style, when we were all along making all Americans and Americans to be born more vulnerable to 21st century changes. The International Energy Agency announced that in order to prevent our global temperature from rising two degrees, “all new infrastructure built from 2017 onwards would have to be completely emissions-free.” We must retrofit our infrastructure within five years or at least begin this transformation now (Van der Hoeven).
The hidden costs of suburbia and our lifestyle can be measured, especially “in terms of money spent building and maintaining roads and paying for traffic police, courts, accidents insurance” and of course pollution, public health, and global warming (Kunstler, geography 118). However other costs are not exactly quantifiable. The costs to our time and place are enormous. Considering that if you drive an hour a day, you spend seven weeks a year in your car, it is frightening how much time we also waste planning trips (Kunstler, Geography 118). Teens waste precious time negotiating on who will drive, and mothers sacrifice parts of their day chauffeuring the children around as well. But the sense of place we have lost as a whole has afflicted all Americans living in sprawl cities and towns. The sacrifice of place affects our national happiness and societal emotional health. We become so desperate that we build suburban-type buildings to replace necessary civic centers for interaction. Shopping malls, which “represent a sudden hunger for public life” have been built and adorned to remind us that there’s something left of urban life.
All one has to do to realize that the United States has a huge problem is look at the way our cities and towns are built. While great cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco are compact, provide their citizens with convenient public transit options, and living spaces are much smaller, the majority of American cities have infrastructure and architecture better suited by suburban sprawl. New cities like Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Houston span for miles and miles with only houses and highways in sight. Density in these places is small. The cities waste plenty of resources covering such a large expanse of ground which once could have been covered vegetation. Sprawl cities use up much more land, therefore leading to natural habitat loss. Groundwater cannot be replenished because pavement covers the ground. Cities must then import their water which requires energy and carbon dioxide emissions through trucking. The per capita consumption rate goes up not only because citizens must constantly fill up their gas tanks to drive to and from everywhere they need to go, but because there is not much to do but buy and buy more. On the other hand, “urbanites use less energy and emit less carbon dioxide per household than their suburban counterparts do because they live in closer quarters and use public transportation,” and this is one just one way of showing how suburbs cannot be labeled ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’. If we consider peak-oil, as James Howard Kunstler, an urban expert and social critic on issues of American culture ignoring public spaces, will tell us to not only look at suburbs, but also at our great cities.
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