Ensuring Environmental Health in Postindustrial Cities Workshop Summary (2003) / Chapter Skim
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6. Community - Past, Present, and Future
6. Community - Past, Present, and Future
Pages 36-46
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From page 36... ...
In addition to satisfying economic, environmental, and social concerns, it's important that communities be conducive to individuals' good-health practices. Redevelopment plans and land-use strategies must consciously incorporate features for "active living" for example, by providing numerous opportunities for exercise and an environment that's attractive for that purpose.
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From page 37... ...
Whether the sidewalks, the architecture, the green spaces are pleasant is very important to walking and physical activity." She cited the work of her doctoral student Wendy King, who investigated walking habits of a cohort of postmenopausal women as functions of their neighborhood environments. The results, some of which are shown in Figure 6-1, indicate that the number of locations within walking distance from the home had
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From page 38... ...
Some 35 percent of the new-housing market would live in communities like this, which makes these sites worth pursuing." Schneider is managing general partner of Summerset at Frick Park a redeveloped slag site in Pittsburgh previously called Nine Mile Run and he noted the irony that such former industrial locations, perennially thought to present serious environmental problems, can actually offer healthful, high-quality living for their residents or users. For one thing, a 230-acre parcel like Nine Mile Run, not often found in most cities, presents intriguing possibilities.
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From page 39... ...
Schneider cited multiple levels of uncoordinated, redundant review for Summerset at Frick Park that he alleged made the project far more complex than it needed to be: "We had our own environmental experts. Our lenders had their own environmental experts.
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From page 40... ...
According to Henry Falk, assistant administrator of ATSDR, the Superfund program focuses on hazardous-waste contamination and how sites can be remediated, while the brownfields program deals largely with moving sites toward redevelopment, or redeveloping sites that were contaminated in one way or another but not to a degree that they'd be considered Superfund sites. The Superfund program created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, generally referred to as the "Superfund law" was prompted by the events at Love Canal.
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From page 41... ...
After condominiums were built on the Grant Street site in Hoboken, New Jersey a building once used for the production of electric vapor lamps residents started seeing drops of mercury on their oven ranges and tabletops. Subsequent medical investigations found high levels of mercury in their bodies, which led to a public health advisory and medical intervention for residents provided by Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
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From page 42... ...
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE According to EPA, "Environmental justice is achieved when everyone, regardless of race, culture, or income, enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work."
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From page 43... ...
The program recognizes that many environmental issues cannot be adequately addressed without the combined resources of federal, state, and local government, along with capacity building at the community level, Haynes said. In that way, long-term solutions can be developed through a bottom-up approach that "involves community folks in making good decisions." An example of such a process, he suggested, is his own Hosanna House, a nonprofit that took over an abandoned 1916-vintage school building rife with environmental problems such as lead and asbestos.
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From page 44... ...
Among the more vulnerable i.e., the youngest occupants some of these agents are known to cause physical and learning disabilities, developmental delays in fine and gross motor skills, and recent research by Dr. Herbert Needleman from the University of Pittsburgh suggests that with even low levels of lead exposure, our children may develop behavioral issues such as ADHD (attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder)
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From page 45... ...
It works within communities to educate residents, in part by nurturing local champions and neighborhood stewards, on the prevention of lead poisoning. "Our CLEARCorps program is currently focusing its educational efforts in partnership with local early childhood development centers and parents," said Roth, "in an effort to express a simple concept: with engaged educators and parents who understand the link between health and a child's ability to learn, and a home free of developmentally devastating hazards, our children have a better chance of success in life." The American Respiratory Alliance of southwestern Pennsylvania is partnering for the first time ever with an environmental organization in an effort to answer the following questions: (1)
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From page 46... ...
46 ENSURING ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH IN POSTINDUSTRIAL CITIES "This approach is exciting because it's expanding the traditional medical management approach of asthma into comprehensive approach that includes an environmental perspective of the home," Roth said. Still, she cited areas for further expansion, such as the advocacy of health standards both for the home itself and the products that enter it, and the mobilization of already-served families to help form parent-action groups and communicate the problem (and solutions)
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