Elevators, escalators, and moving walkways are designed to minimize physical activity. Considering the rising obesity rate in the United States, urban planners are now trying to design the physical activity back into people’s lives. “It’s not necessary for us to go to the gym,” New York City’s assistant health commissioner Dr. Lynn Silver told Next American City. “Instead,” the magazine reports, “making stairwells more attractive, building ‘supportive’ walking routes, creating access to fresh produce, and ‘animating’ streets to make them more pedestrian friendly can encourage all the exercise a New Yorker needs. It’s LEED green building standards meets P.E. class.”
Source: Next American City
Image by Stig Nygaard, licensed under Creative Commons.
