Panel: Designing for Health in Affordable Housing
By Bill Millard
Some observations at this session (links between subpar housing and poor health, risks affecting the rent-burdened), familiar to veterans of FitCity 1-9, were important enough to repeat as the series’ scope and audience expand. Moderator Yianice Hernandez and the Center for Active Design’s (CAD) Joanna Frank traced a century of shifting economic and epidemiologic patterns, with chronic diseases replacing infectious diseases as chief causes of death; conditions such as obesity and diabetes now account for over 83% of the nation’s $1.4 trillion health expenses. The U.S. is on track to have an 86% obese or overweight populace by 2030; “sitting,” Frank noted, is “the new smoking.” Rent burdens nationwide are also already severe: one in four tenants spends half their income on housing. Such data accumulate to make designing healthier, affordable environments an urgent mandate. Continue reading “FitCity 10: Breaking it Down”