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The 234 Metro bus on Sepulveda and Magnolia., originally uploaded by hereinvannuys.

Obesity. Sprawl. Cars. Diabetes. Public Transit. Heart Disease. Walking. Asthma. AIr Pollution.

Are there connections between the aforementioned? Of course there are.

At a workshop that I attended today at Our Lady of the Angels, speakers included Dr. Jonathan Fielding of LA County Department of Public Health; Richard J Jackson, MD, a professor at UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Gail Goldberg, LA Director of City Planning. They told an audience of community planners and non-profit health, environment and education workers that green planning will be remaking LA.

Higher density walkable neighborhoods, linked by buses and trains, with pedestrian friendly commercial streets are some of what LA may build in the coming years. The vision of the city of the future, will not be the Jetsons, but Andy Hardy as folks sit on front porches and walk down the block to pick up their dry cleaning, mail a letter and pick up groceries.

The idea behind the greening of LA is that we can improve our health by living in a healthier planned city.

The present statistics on the health of both the US and LA is not encouraging. There is an epidemic of fat, grossly fat children whose parents are also obese. They are costing us both lives and dollars as they come down sick with diabetes, heart disease, cirrosis of the liver and cataracts.

California is busily paving over the most productive farmlands in the world in the Central Valley and by 2030 it will have a population greater than NYC (20 million). And LA continues to have the foulest air in the nation, and the most traffic and hours spent in transit of any other metropolitan area.

I asked the experts if they had any comment on how LAUSD can condemn single family homes to build schools while blighted commercial strips and underutilized asphalt wastelands (Sherman Way, Van Nuys Blvd) sit nearby? They answered that LAUSD is a power onto itself.

Goldberg said that LA is a great, unfinished city and that its challenges should inspire us. Think of her hopes as you drive through Arleta, Van Nuys, Sepulveda, Compton, Watts, etc.