I have known for sometime that doctors often proscribe pills to people even though the drugs are only responding to that person's symptoms. This is unfortunate, because in these circumstances there is nothing being done to help fix the cause of the problem - if the problem was solved then the pills would not be needed.
In order to explain what I mean I will give an example of a somewhat typical elderly lady living in the suburbs. This lady lives alone, in the suburbs, having outlived her husband. She is past the age of being able to drive safely. She can no longer drive to her friends' homes for social interactions. Furthermore, she cannot get groceries from the nearest store since it is too far to walk. She has to rely on someone else to get her groceries and help her move about the neighborhood. Most of the time this lady is alone. Eventually she becomes depressed and goes to the doctor for treatment. The doctor gives her medication.
This lady's medication was to help with her depression. Pills treating the symptoms of a problem. In this case the problem is directly related to the design of the city in which the lady lives. Clearly it is beyond the power of the doctor to address the real problem - it is up to those that improve and design the layout of the metropolitan area. Improved design would treat the problem, not just the symptom(s). These improvements could include a variety of solutions, such as better, more reliable transit, or walk-able mixed-use communities. As a city planner, it will be (and perhaps currently, it is) my responsibility to fix these problems.
It is difficult to foresee any unintended consequences of the design of a city, but this example has taught me a lesson about the importance of choices as a urban designer/planner.
You cited this story as an example where improved city planning could have improved the lady's situation. Can you provide some examples of how the city design could have been improved?
ReplyDeleteWould you recommend a design where grocery stores are within convenient walking distance of all residential areas? If not that, then perhaps within walking distance of areas with predominantly elderly residents? If either of these are the case, how can you, as a city planner, effectively encourage grocery stores to locate themselves in this way?
Before we go any further we must also acknowledge the fact that this issue is not unique to grocery stores by any means. It can reasonably be generalized to include the structure of suburbs as a whole.
Next. this example is a good case of a completed unintended outcome—something that most likely no one ever thought of. We can never think of everything, so no matter what city plan is put in place there will always be a situation where a thing that no one thought of has an adverse impact on someone. That's just a fact of life and it can't be entirely avoided, but of course it also doesn't mean we shouldn't TRY to think of as many things as possible. So that then raises the question of how HARD should we try? How much effort should be put toward thinking of these contingencies? And how should we respond when contingencies and their remediations are mutually contradictory (e.g. relocating grocery stores will have negative impacts on other residential qualities, traffic flows to commercial hubs, etc.)