With as many as 11 Million new residents projected by the year 2020, California is in need of some serious land use planning. A bill signed into law on October 1st by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dubbed the “Smart Growth Law” is positioned to lead the charge. In what is being touted as landmark legislation to curb greenhouse emissions from automobiles and light trucks, the Smart Growth law mandates a new approach to housing development, transportation, and the reduction of global warming pollution that provides powerful incentives to promote infill in urban areas and curb suburban sprawl. Around the state, the law, authored by incoming Senator Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, is being hailed as the first of its kind in successfully creating an alliance between housing developers, transportation officials and environmentalists. Better still, the law may also end up being a boon for the health and fitness of California residents. To the delight of healthcare professionals and exercise physiologists everywhere, the Smart Growth law is poised to improve the walkability of neighborhoods all across the state.

In a nutshell, here is how the law works. In 2006, California passed a law requiring the state to set a goal to reduce green house emissions back to the 1990 level by the year 2020: that would mean a reduction of 30 percent. The Smart Growth law connects regional planning with this earlier law. Basically, there are 18 metropolitan regional agencies in California which periodically have to present plans to the legislature for how their region is going to accommodate the housing and transportation needs for projected population increases. Under the smart growth law, these regional agencies now have to mesh their plans with a formal and comprehensive “sustainable community strategy” that documents specifically how they intend to meet the greenhouse gas reduction requirement. For their sustainable strategies to be approved by the legislature as required by 2010, each agency will have to develop its infrastructure in a way that takes vehicles off the highways and creates less need for driving over much shorter distances on a daily basis.

The beauty of the Smart Growth law is that there is really only one way for a region to get that done. That is-- by adopting a land use policy that shrinks the footprint for development and locates a significant amount of new housing and transportation improvements around pre-existing commercial and employment centers, areas of high population density, locations with mixed land use, and travel routes with better connectivity for public transportation, walking and bicycling. In other words, the types of neighborhoods that keep people out of their cars and provide increased opportunities for physical activity to accomplish the daily tasks of every day living. In addition, the analysis of transportation patterns the law requires from each regional agency is going to provide an unexpected windfall of data for researchers in the area of built environment. For example, as part of their sustainable growth strategy, the agencies will have to measure the percentage share of travel for work and non-work trips across all of the following modes: single occupant vehicle; multiple occupant vehicle; public transit including commuter rail and inner city rail; walking; and bicycling.

This is an exciting prospect because built environment studies—some of which are highlighted on the Stanford Center on Longevity website-- need just this type of information to evaluate the effectiveness of community design to promote better health. Evidence continues to emerge from these studies that improving the walkability of neighborhoods results in lower region wide obesity rates, more people engaging in regular physical activity without having to plan a trip to the gym, and overall increased measures of “community fitness”. For instance, earlier this year, a study conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine that looked at various metropolitan regions across the nation named the San Francisco region the “fittest of America’s most populous metropolitan areas.” And what accounts for this achievement? In part, it is because of transportation patterns within the built environment: there are more people walking and biking to work and using public transportation. It is not surprising, then, that the San Francisco region has a higher number of residents who exercise moderately, have a better measure of overall health, and a lower rate of population wide obesity.

Mobility Division Director Anne Friedlander explains, “The Smart Growth Law has the potential to become a powerful tool for improved fitness and mobility with health benefits extending across entire communities. Positive attitudes about the importance of daily physical activity could be increased if walkable neighborhoods become the desired land use model, instead of the exception. Better community design can build in permanent increases in physical activity for all, and though they may bring smaller changes than starting an extensive diet and exercise program, they have a more lasting impact across entire populations. At a societal level, that could result in improvements in overall health and mobility that are quite profound.”