CNU April 2010 E-Update Newsletter

PLAN NOW TO JOIN US IN ATLANTA

01 Compelling Colloquy: CNU 18 Session Details Now Online

Detailed descriptions of
the majority of CNU 18 plenaries, seminars and breakout sessions can now be
seen at cnu18.org/sessionlist & cnu18.org/advancedseminars. Check back often in the coming weeks, as
additional session descriptions are posted.

Last
year, at CNU 17, Victor Dover memorably declared that urbanism alone is a
potential generator of answers for many critical tests facing our country and
its communities.CNU's 18th Congress, meeting in Atlanta from May
19-22, will showcase the innovative work new urbanists and their partners are
doing to deliver solutions that address economic, environmental, energy, social
and health challenges. And co-organized by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, which is headquartered in Atlanta, CNU 18 New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places will likely be the most robust
union of health professionals and the urban planning and development community
ever held.

Chronic
diseases associated with sedentary and isolated populations, including obesity,
are one of our major crises. They have a huge impact on families, and make our
healthcare system ever more costly, too. The doubling of driving nationally
between 1983 and 2007, increasingly on auto-centric street systems that are
dangerous by design, has sent injury and mortality rates soaring, exacerbated
mental health problems for isolated non-drivers, and decreased air and water
quality. As CNU 18 chair Ellen Dunham-Jones, a Georgia Tech architecture
professor and co-author of the renowned Retrofitting
Suburbia has noted, conventional suburbia no longer looks like the most
healthy choice for raising a family, or the most healthy pattern for growth.

For
urbanists, cooperation with health officials embodied in CNU 18 is highly
strategic. As we show policy makers and the market effective, preventive
alternatives to an overburdened and unsustainable medical sector, demand for
our solutions grows. Besides featuring experts who are pioneering the idea of
healthy communities -  including the
co-authors of the seminal book Urban
Sprawl and Public Health, Dr. Richard Jackson, Lawrence Frank and Dr. Howard
Frumkin (CNU 18 honorary chair and Special Assistant to the CDC Director for
Climate and Health) - the Congress will offer opportunities for urbanists to learn
how to apply tools such as Health Impact Assessments which can demonstrate how
walkable mixed-use communities lead to positive health outcomes.

Liaisons from the Centers
for Disease Control working with seasoned CNU, Next Gen and CNU board members,
creating a unique program that reflects the latest research from the CDC, an
emphasis on interactivity and ample time for discussion that will advance
reform. Read cnu18.org/sessionlist and see how the health connection is
invigorating CNU's exploration of topics ranging from retrofitting suburbia and
recession-exiting development models to urban agriculture and lifelong
communities for growing-up-safe and aging-in-place.