Connection Between Chain Smoking and Smart Growth Discovered
Demographia/PublicPurpose/RentalCarTour Updates
Smart Growth Promotes Chain Smoking?
Perhaps it is time for the foundations and academicians dedicated to
linking automobile use and obesity to turn their attention to other
spurious connections between land use and health. Let's start with
smoking.
A quick look at the latest United States Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS) Consumer Expenditures report provides what may be evidence of a
strong connection between smart growth and smoking.
In 2005, the BLS reports that expenditures on tobacco products were
$344 per household in smart growth Portland and $308 in smart growth
Denver. However the situation was much different in Atlanta,
Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, where more liberal land use policies
prevail. In Atlanta, per household tobacco expenditures were just $142
annually, less than one-half the Portland figure. Dallas-Fort Worth and
Houston were at $228 and $246 respectively, both well below Portland.
In the event that Portland does become more dense, as the planners have
dictated (though there is scant evidence that it has happened yet),
local concentrations of smoke will be higher, making the health risk
from second hand smoke all the greater.
Of course, this issue will require much more study, but federal data
certainly suggests that chain smoking and smart growth go together. At
this point the case is at least as strong as the connection between
automobiles and obesity --- something the anti-suburban lobby has tried
to do while making sure that diet and the explosion in video game use
by children are as truants absent from their econometric
specifications.
References:
BLS Consumer Expenditures Page