211824 Aging-in-Place in America's Aging Cities and Aging Suburbs

Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 10:30 AM

Dan Burden , Urban Design and Transportation, Walkable Communities / Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Inc., Orlando, FL
  
By examining the presenter's work on walkability and active living in 2,500 towns and cities, participants will gain a fresh perspective and insight into our changing demographics, our shaken economies and other major living instabilities and uncertainties. This brings not only vision, but hope. An optimistic view of the future is both visionary and pragmatic. At age 65, the presenter has already planned his personal retirement years to be highly affordable and in a great place where he can live happily on a skimpy budget, have many friends and take an active role in his community. These plans are well underway, though he does not plan on retiring for ten years. As he is approaching his own "final trumpeting" era of life, he has many inroads, putting in place adaptive visions for the future in towns and cities of all sizes. These visions have been worked out in wealthy towns, and many dozens of towns each year struggling to keep lights on in the city hall, as well as all towns in-between. Participants will “walk” through how building to the future involves a much older, classic, more sustainable scale and economy. This scale and economy is based on the human foot. This scale and plan will rescue neighborhood after neighborhood, town after town, and region after region. This scale and plan is already well underway in a few semi-secret places. It is working, and these places will be celebrated in this important talk.

Learning Objectives:
Describe how towns built for people, not cars, are the ones with the healthiest people and economies. Discuss how transit, reduced auto dependency, independent living, healthy neighborhoods for seniors, greater social exchange, greater diversity, and the other notions of active, healthy lifestyles come about.

Keywords: Community Planning, Community Building

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Dan Burden is a nationally recognized authority on bicycle and pedestrian facilities and programs, livable communities, healthy streets, traffic calming, and other design and planning elements that affect roadway environments. Time Magazine recently listed Dan as “one of the six most important civic innovators in the world.” The Transportation Research Board (National Academy of Sciences) honored Dan by making him their Distinguished Lecturer in 2001; the national Smart Growth Coalition awarded Dan its first “Lifetime Achievement Award” ; and the League of American Bicyclists lists Dan as “one of the 25 most significant leaders in bicycling for the past 100 years.” Dan has thirty years of experience in the livable communities field. He served for 16 years as Florida DOT’s first State Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator. This program became a model for other statewide programs. In 1996, Dan founded Walkable Communities, Inc. This nonprofit group has been assisting North American communities to become more walkable. Then in 2005, Dan and Walkable Communities, Inc. joined Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Inc., where Dan now works as a Principal and Senior Urban Designer. Dan has personally photographed and examined walking, bicycling and transportation conditions in over 2,500 cities in the U.S. and abroad. He worked as a bicycle consultant in China for the United Nations, in 1994, and he has also worked in Australia, Canada, the Caribbean and many European countries. His pictures have been published in such diverse publications as National Geographic, New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Sierra Club and Weekly Reader. Presentations given by Dan are always richly illustrated with examples from near and far. Dan’s visual, information-rich workshops, with National Geographic quality images, showcase the most modern and best ways to plan and design better streets, town centers, and neighborhoods. Today, many state and national organizations select Dan as either a featured or keynote speaker for their annual conferences. This year, Men's Health Best Life, Reader's Digest, and PBS are working on pieces with Dan on elements of Walkable Communities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Healthy Communities for Healthy Aging Forum
See more of: Healthy Communities for Healthy Aging Forum