I get the job now of introducing our
speakers for our first session but

I want to preface this a little bit by
just telling you about the process that.

The committee.

The search committee kind
of went through in terms of

putting on this deciding
to put on a symposium.

To help to educate us about
the sort of research agendas that

the a Frederick Law Olmstead chair
today really should be looking at.

So we began talking about all
of the different disciplines and

areas that stead so
magically We wove together and

intersected with public health
civic engagement parks and

Landscape Architecture water and
storm sewer systems and transportation.

So rather than say you know who

are the leading historians and
scholars on own stead.

We chose instead to say who ask ourselves
Who are the leading scholars and

voices in these disciplines
who can help us better

understand both the legacy of Olmstead but
also what that

future might be of how how
his incredible legacy.

Might manifest at Georgia Tech and
help us find that amazing new person.

So we.

I think we're we're just overwhelmed
at the wonderful speakers

that agreed to come and help us kind
of ferret out some of these ideas and

so we get to kick off this morning
we are not going to read the bios

everyone's bio's are in the program but we
are going to start with Dick Jackson and.

And Dick to come to the stage.

So in addition to all of
the amazing work that

Dick has done as a former director
at the Centers for Disease Control.

All the work that he has
done in calling attention to

the importance of the design of
the built environment to public health.

I want to say as a fellow
New Jerseyan Dick Dick and

I are both from the great
state of New Jersey.

He's from Cale's from not only he's got
a grandchild being raised in Atlanta.

That was.

Professor Allan when you talk about
parkways we folks from New Jersey.

Say what exit because
I'm from one fifty one.

I don't know.
And like Messner live Didn't some and so

you were about one twenty right.

But why do we know things like
this is kind of ridiculous but

it's how you survive.

It was the Garden State until.

It was paved over and it's No.

I think it may have leaked out my text
which probably isn't a bad thing.

I actually grew up in Newark New Jersey
and branch Brook Park was the respite

enjoy of the folks living in a tough
city a very industrial city and

Brentwood park was built along the second
River and north got pretty tough

to live in by the one nine hundred sixty
and my family moved to Nutley New Jersey.

We were along the third river and I grew
up spending all my summer at the park and

I thought that it was
naturally built this way and

that every five years it would flood
right up to the edge of the houses but

wouldn't go any further and
I didn't realize until I was groomed up

that protocol instead sons
had designed this part.

And yes it was supposed to
flood every once in a while and

it was the way it was going to be I
had a chance to live in New York and

one of the sad things I took
this from a building on one

hundred fifty seventh Street looking up
towards the park and they're building for

huge tombstone buildings that are going
to shade the entire south of the park

because very wealthy people
want to live near the park and

so in many ways we're removing
that access to folks.

There's a one hundred ninety something
storey needle like building going up at

fifty seventh and Park Avenue and
the top floor rents for

ninety no sells for
ninety four million dollars and

the political rats that will probably buy
it will be there two weeks a year and so

so often we build for wealthy people and
it's such a contrast to what

almost did where he created places
that were for the recreation of.

The normal human being even though the
money for Central Park came from the folks

who were building going up Fifth Avenue
and wanted to have the housing values to

be up there almost in his
sons really understood.

While it bleached out.

Leased out a bunch of
my slides That's right.

I understood that.

Water features were really extraordinarily
important to where we live.

As Professor Allan mentioned
he grew up in a beautiful town

alongside of the Connecticut River and

the Connecticut River drains the mountains
along the spine of New Hampshire and

Vermont and I easily could
imagine him walking down and and

fishing in the river and canoeing down to
Long Island Sound and going upstream and

perhaps going up and down the river and
the river was a huge amenity to the people

and those of us from New Jersey know
that if you live in the upper reaches of

the Passaic River and Summit and Ridgewood
where Allan Coe Mack is from is drains

into the longest Superfund site in the
United States of America at this point.

The Passaic River they dumped huge amounts
of Agent Orange and other chemicals into

it and actually human pollution from
about one thousand nine hundred forward.

But it was an enormous amount of
the the richest shellfish fields.

In the world or
at least in the United States work

downstream in the Hackensack and
the jersey Meadows.

During that time and
I grew up and we would when I

was a kid we would go down to the parks in
the park ran all the way from New York.

It's interesting.
These insurance cities.

It went past a cemetery that was
as beautiful as Mount Auburn and

all the way up through Bellville which
were my grandfather worked in a mill and

through Nutley.

Where we had a lovely
park along the river and

one day in one thousand nine hundred
five bulldozers appeared and it and

the part disappeared and my brother that
was a rower couldn't get to the park and

we really didn't want to eat the fish but
you could at least go fishing along

the river and it disappeared and so you
get some more Park back after we put in

this useless highway that
goes between New York and

Patterson who the hell want to go between
York and Patterson I don't know and.

It never no park was ever
put back in place and

there's a metaphor here that we built for
cars and

we forgot about human beings we
particularly forgot about our children.

Stood his sons were asked to
look at the City of Los Angeles

where I live now by the way there are
three times as many people in the city of

Los Angeles as are in the entire state of
Georgia the immensity of the Los Angeles

region is enormous and you can go a long
distance when you fly into L.A.X.

look out the left side of
the plane as you're going in and

as far as you can see there is houses and
not a speck of

green space there is to the north up
towards the hills and Beverly Hills.

There's no green space to the south.

That's where poor people live and Olmsted
sons were asked to come up with a plan for

this place so one of the people that
invited her some of the people invited

them out to L.A. where Mary Pickford.

And Douglas Fairbanks and

they invited him to pick fare
where they lived up in Pasadena.

And everybody that came to L.A. went to
Pasadena go God this is paradise it's

beautiful it's an Eden on earth we should
build something like that after a while

she became irritated because people
would come say this is absolutely great.

And then go about five ten fifteen
miles to the south and put in spring.

By one thousand nine hundred five L.A.

was still the largest agricultural county
in the United States of America and

you can you imagine how much
food was being produced

in California have to do is add water and
things will grow very well and so

how precious water was in Los Angeles
was something that the almost dead sons

understood beautifully and so the parks
that were being proposed were built around

the rivers as perhaps lame as though some
of those rivers are most of the year

they still were places of floodplain and
groundwater recharge.

And lovely book on
the own stead Bartholomew

plan of one nine hundred thirty and
I think it's going to inform us as we look

forward to what we need to be
doing in my grandson's generation.

The it has a race.

The quote from John Maynard Keynes but
this is about one nine hundred twenty

eight his report came out and he talked
about the future of capitalism and

how come an interest is going
to make us all rich and

machines are going to make life a really
easy for all of us and the big problem for

his grandchildren or great grandchildren
was what we're going to do we only had

to work three hours a day and
he talked about the threat of leisure for

the large portion of the population and
what it is why do you talk about leisure

and the threat of leisure and yet the idea
that people needed a place of respite in

a place of leisure was totally evident to
everyone by one thousand nine hundred.

So cement has become
the enemy to health and

here's the lovely city
of Hartford Connecticut.

This place was so
beautiful that the greatest writer.

Perhaps in American history but certainly
in the one thousand nine hundred three.

Mark Twain moved to live to heart
in Hartford Connecticut and

that's where he lived for about
twenty twenty five years of his life.

And we built a highway along.

The Connecticut River that
goes the whole distance and

now no child in kinetic can
get to the river unless they

probably go over a bridge and
somehow get over to the river.

They certainly can't easily go for
a swim and

just to do Connecticut Hartford
in perfectly.

We then.

Bisected the middle of the city by running
a highway right through the center of

town and then wondered why
nobody wanted to live there and

the town fell into complete disrepair and
the tax base disappeared.

The same thing.

This picture of my hometown the highway
running along the river and

removing the access as well.

And here's a picture of well los angeles.

Well one thousand nine hundred thirty.

There was some flooding.

And so the one hundred thirty one
number of people were killed.

It's Own.

Well we have to do something about this
river that you know looks very common.

It's a dry Arroyo a lot of the time and
all of a sudden we get a lot of rains up

in the hills and
it goes flushing down into the ocean.

And in fact you always know when there's
a big rain because you see lawn chairs at

the beach that aren't
coming from beachgoers

it's coming from San Fernando Valley as
the water runs down the river and so.

The solution was channelized the river.

And really the purpose they did this for
was so that Arnold Schwarzenegger is

the Terminator could ride a motorcycle
up and down this whole thing.

But you know you wouldn't
want to send your eight

year old grandson down to go fishing.

Along this river and
water moved extraordinarily fast.

Somehow I've noticed
every time I go there.

It's a magnet for shopping carts I don't
know what it is about river bottoms and

shopping carts but

they're absolutely everywhere and
they've got stuff growing out of them.

There's a lot of debris and trash and
of course it's flat so the rails and the.

Roadways go up and
along each side of the river.

This is looking the opposite direction
fifty miles of concrete Can you imagine.

And by the way six percent of all the C O
two addition to planet Earth is from

concrete.

Partly from the big limestone
itself you drive off C O two and

the baking of it at two thousand
degrees you need a lot of fossil fuels.

So we were going to keep the area
from flooding but in real truth

what was going on is developers want to
all that land to just put in cheap house

after cheap house and the essence of much
of building in America is a very high

rapid return on investment in fact in
some ways I think it's the biggest health

threat to the United States as Instead
of looking at a twenty year or thirty or

a fifty year return on investment
we look at a three to five year or

the next quarterly return
port return on investment.

If you leave a soft bottom in the L.A.
River actually trees grow pretty well they

get swept out the next time
a big storm comes along and

a wash up in Venice Beach or
somewhere else but it's quite lovely.

If people are out there when there's
enough water and you can go kayaking so

Jersey boy I went out to California for
medical school had the curse of marrying

a cow with beautiful Californian and
suffer from by coast ality ever since.

And so

we've got the chance to come to see the
city in one thousand nine hundred four.

So I came back to see the city and.

Howard from going and I I was
the director of the National Center for

Environmental Health for a few years and
then how he followed me.

And how we worried about everything from
childhood lead poisoning to pollution to

water pollution to cancer clusters birth
defect Lester's destruction the chemical

weapons the United States on and
on and on cruise ships and.

In and midst of my gosh.

And one of the things I learned in
this whole process was that medical

care was going from seven
percent of the G.D.P.

to nineteen percent of all
the money in the United States and

so even though I was trained to think the
biggest problem was chronic diseases and.

Disease The biggest problem is responding
to damn much money and medical care and

not getting very much.

We're number forty six worldwide for
life expectancy and yet

we're spending twice as much per capita as
any one else in the world on medical care.

So that's what the slide says when
the other things I learned from

Jim marks in the chronic disease
folks is word avalanche of obesity.

So at this point.

This is the map of obesity
based on telephone calls

you know how reliable that would be
how fast are you and how tall are you.

In one thousand nine hundred one.

And here it is in two thousand and
ten where the point where two thirds of

American adults are either overweight or
obese and a third of our kids

are overweight or obese two out of every
seven young people that volunteer for

the United States military cannot get in
because of obesity and lack of fitness and

we argue that some of this is because
we've removed the autonomous physical

activity that I had growing up in Nutley
New Jersey with those parks nearby where I

could get anywhere where I needed to
be pretty much on foot or on a bike and

I'm saying where I needed to be I
didn't wish I could get to New York

by active transportation by walking
down and getting on the bus.

With the obesity onslaught
in the United States.

You know that it's going to be accompanied
by an avalanche of type two diabetes

because when the biggest risk
factors of type two diabetes.

We called it adult onset diabetes
when I was a young pediatrician.

And if I went to the pediatric clinic in
one thousand nine hundred seventy three.

One hundred seventy five.

How many kids do you think I saw with
adult onset diabetes type two diabetes.

None.

If you go into that clinic today.

Half the kids diabetics
have type two diabetes.

And I always kind of thought
it's not as serious as juvenile

diabetes that requires insulin shots and
some of these other kids do too.

Turns out the survival of our young.

People and we're now seeing huge numbers
of young people with type two diabetes

is worse you believe it is worse than
the children with juvenile diabetes.

So this is really this issue
of removing children's

physical activity from their lives and
making it difficult for

them to eat healthy food is a public
health epidemic on a par with anything.

John Snow would worry about and in fact
John Snow got a lot of trouble for taking

the handle off the pump and the people are
saying we ought to put a tax on Coca-Cola.

And sugar sweetened beverages
are very mad at us because we feel

like the modern day John Snow's this
is diabetes in two thousand and seven.

We've doubled diabetes in just.

That generation two percent of all
the money in the United States right now

is going to the treatment of diabetes so
that's a huge amount of the G.D.P.

of the United States.

I put this in them sort
of jumping around but

I'm thinking a lot about my grandson's
lifetime when we moved to Atlanta.

And we're looking to plant something where
we lived with the planting zones and

you know landscape architects
are really working an agenda

to convince people about climate change.

You know they're not.

But you know here we were back in
planting zones seven hardiness

zone seven back in one nine hundred ninety
eight and what do you think happened.

This latest date I can get for
planting zones by two thousand and six.

We've gone from zone seven to
zone eight here in Atlanta.

Not the New Jersey has gone from.

Zone six to zone seven so we've become as
hot as Atlanta in the New York region and

Atlanta's become as hot as
northern Florida in sixteen years.

My son is just thirty three years old and

turned recently and he has never
lived in a colder than average year.

If you look at the last time.

Hundred twenty five years of.

Temperature data from
the US United States Weather Service so

denying that we are facing
this is the most shocking

slides as a whole year's worth
of temperature data and.

No state except our frontman's is
less the number one hundred site

six in the hottest hundred
eighteen years and history.

But most of the country.

Here's George at one hundred eight.

I hope the next slide show up.

This is really a shocking slide it very
much relates to what urban planners

in Frederick Law Olmstead would understand
this as a examination of the best

snapshot of health of Americans over
time as this so-called enhanced actually

do physical exams and it takes four to
five hours blood tests in all arrests and

they compared people with the prime
earning years of life from ten fifteen

twenty years ago with the same age
group twenty years just recently.

And Haynes it's called
doesn't matter if you

think people's You are spending
one thousand percent of the G.D.P.

you think that number of people reporting
excellent health is going up or down.

That's a big deal when people
say they're in excellent health.

They're usually pretty good predictors
of how long they're going to live and

how well they're doing.

Can you get around you need extra help.

Nine to fourteen percent
increase due to cane or

a wheelchair doubling in
one generation smoking

has gone down obesity has gone up but
look at this one and that you know

the one thing we keep telling people you
know watch your diet but at least keep

your physical activity up and we've been
why your fingers and medicine people for

fifty years thirty years telling people to
exercise look how successful we've been.

No physical activity and this

is why we're sore at the doorstep dog of
architects because if you want people to.

He got to give them the place
that they really want to walk.

We've also made it hard for children to
be outdoors and to have the autonomy and

the idea that a child is going to be
prepared for their lives by being strapped

in the back of a car on a school bus day
in and day out for seventeen years until

you hand them the car keys isn't
ridiculous approach to life.

Richard Lewis our friend has
done a wonderful book and

he thinks a lot about the fact that we
diagnose kids with hyperactivity but

in truth they probably are a lot
of them are normal but

need to be in environments
that welcome that activity.

I love this picture of the mom
being stressed out and

the this is a wonderful new book and
I was talking to my son I said

Have you seen this book The overwhelming
the fact that Americans.

Maynard Keynes was wrong.

We don't have three.

What do you do with our you know we work
three hours going to with the rest of

the time we work all the time we don't
know what we're going to do with the fact

that we can get any rest no
one has any time whatsoever.

When we lived in Atlanta and
worked in Atlanta.

I lived next to the most
environmentally unfriendly or

at least health unfriendly Boulevard I
can imagine the United States of America.

Namely Buford Highway
which you know mile and

a half between cross walks
highest pedestrian deaths rate in

the state very dangerous for
people to get across and very difficult.

So the purpose of public health is to give
conditions where people could be healthy.

And the purpose of environmental public
health is to assure our children and

grandchildren have the world at
least as healthful beautiful and

diverse as the one we were given
you are doing a wonderful job and

one of the this is my for my video
series one of things I love about.

What you're doing in Atlanta with
the belt line every time I go there.

It's crowded and I love the fact that
it's top down you've had real leadership

from the four Mer but you also have had
wonderful leadership from the community in

the community owns it.

Here's a place in New York through the
meat packing district who the hell would

want to go for
a walk on the top of an old rail line and.

It's now the tenth of the slide blew it
away but the tenth most popular tourist

destination in the world is the High Line
in Manhattan and it's fun to

walk with a two year old because you're
not looking for cars the whole time.

Big changes are happening.

The American Institute of
Architects is now making health

on a par with designing
the Green Building Council in part

because the Howard from conciliator ship
is made health on a par with design.

And the Urban Land Institute.

This is their proposal These
are the biggest developers in the country.

This is totally number one
is totally contrary to

the past way we used to bill put profit
first to put cars that highly associate

put cars first this is put people first
and I love Number five on this list

make healthy choices easy so
urban River Parkway is the most done but.

We've got two great big water bonds coming
up in California like billions of dollars.

And we want to have that water that money
not just go to water management but

actually to create parks in green
space where people can read.

Here's the model of
the American River Parkway and

when I was health officer a lot of my
coworkers lived up in Folsom and some of

them would bicycle thirty miles to work
every day and didn't need to go to the gym

at the end of the day because of their non
polluting exercise filled smile filled

get to know my neighbors environment and
by the way the trees are growing in

the water is doing ground water recharge
which is a really important thing and

it's cooler when Olmsted said
the park is the lungs of the city.

I thought it was kind of a cliche and
the more I thought about it.

The wow.

If your lungs are bad you die.

And how good your lung function is that
age twenty is a very good predictor

of your lifespan.

So how good your parks are is
a very good predictor for

the lifespan of the people living there.

San Jose California is sinking into the.

And it's dropped about thirty feet
one of the things I've had to do is

do ground water recharge.

So if you're building all
this industrial or heavy duty

cement to actually do
keep buildings in place.

Well the biggest things you can
do is ground water recharge.

Redding California is pretty hot and
dreary.

And it's you know a lot of parking lots
and you know Target stores and the rest.

They hired to design the sundial
bridge and it was transformative

when over the Sacramento River it was
transformative in Redding California.

They built the bridge and
we got to put a children's center nearby.

We've got to put in adults and we're
going to put a senior center and they're

going to put walking trails that beautiful
art piece and I think art is so important.

As Now the base for
in one thousand mile trail.

So a number of us and L.A. are thought.

Cheese that Olmstead signs
they were really smart and

we didn't do what they told us to do.

Maybe we need to at least start with
a twenty eight mile Greenway next to

the L.A. River Marysville or a Gosa has
and had him braced it enormously well and

was very active in doing this and
these are some of the plans that were

first drawn up by the architecture still
have the power lines and the train

lines going nearby but at least making
a place much more accessible to people.

But I and my grad student Tyler WATSON
We've been thinking a lot about the fact

that South L.A. and the cities and towns
that you see that are red are the ones

with the worst obesity and also people
are very poor is building this so

we've been arguing for trails physical
beauty design for safety and health.

These are some of the pieces we
did in The L.A. Times on this.

If you put this in place.

It saves money land value goes up and
people want it.

Every dollar spent on trails
is about three dollars.

And medical benefit.

Two days ago three days ago where Gore
said he had gone to the White House

met with the president and argued that
you know we need all these things in L.A.

but the one thing we want is the L.A.
River Parkway and they were

originally the Army Corps of Engineer
was going to spend about four hundred

million over the course of many years
they have now agreed to one billion and

nine thousand jobs will be
generated by the creation of this.

So this is not it to pathetic to business
and it will go forward the negative

news is they haven't done it for
the poor people they've just done it for

the wealthy people but to close and
I'm sorry I went a little over time but

we'll get there and
we're going to do all the L.A. River.

We go with an ohm study and
vision our children

a world that is as beautiful healthful and
diverse at least as the one we were given.

Thank you very much much

bigger

home and plant the program because I've
never gotten a program that has the wild

flower seeds before.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much debt that was at.