Jeff Speck 1 : The walkable city

                                  

TED 2013

Jeff Speck 1 : The walkable city (transcript)

Summary

Although it is difficult for us to change our lifestyle, the speaker tells us that now, it'll be time to reconsider that.

It's because the problem is suburban sprawl. It means the chaotic development of the cities which definitely require automobiles, remove trees to park cars and people seek their homes further from the cities centers and their jobs but they spend their time to commute for over two hours.

Here, you can think that you don't spend your money on your driving and homes but you can spend it on local recreations. It means that your home investment and transportation fee shift your local investment that you can use. It includes trying to have many corporations, for example, a biotech, medical and aerospace one, slimming highway to use cars and investing to rebuild cities streets for bicycling and walking. The city becomes the cool kind of the city where young people want to live in and can save money more.  

You don't forget that your city spends more money to create usual highways than that and that the city affects your health.

The biggest health crisis we have comes from environmentally induced inactivity, thus if you live in a more walkable city, it's possible for you to have less weight and it leads to your health.

So lacking exercise, having asthma, and meeting car crashes are not related whether you're in the city or not but how your city is designed.

This is a walkable city where, of course, burning fuel will be the half.

You can think that you live in there that is a walkable neighborhood, it makes you more sustainable and puts you a higher quality of life.  

Words in this story

sprawl /noun/ an ungainly or carelessly relaxed position in which one's arms and legs are spread out.

induced / bring about or give rise to.

neighborhood / a district, especially one forming a community within a town or city.