Does North Texas’ geographic sprawl give it an advantage in the fight against coronavirus? - The Dallas Morning News

ultrasimi.blogspot.com

With its car-centric culture and sprawling suburbs, North Texas has never had the same population density as many other major U.S. cities.

But did our spread-out suburbs help slow the spread of coronavirus?

Unlike jam-packed places like New York City, where residents are stacked in high-rises and cramped subway cars where the virus can spread quickly, we have spacious yards and vehicles to get from place to place. Surely this more-distant lifestyle has helped flatten our curve, right?

Experts say it’s not quite that simple.

The spread of any virus depends on two major factors: how infectious it is, and how much interaction an infected person has with others. The virus that causes COVID-19 is highly contagious. Because of its long incubation period, carriers can spread it to others without even knowing it.

So, public health officials say, simple steps like social distancing and wearing masks have a greater impact on the spread of coronavirus than does general population density.

“Whether or not someone gets the virus is not just influenced by the properties of the virus alone,” said Diana Cervantes, an epidemiologist at the University of North Texas’ Health Science Center. “It does not matter if you are in a rural area or urban area — a person needs to try their best to limit close contact with people, practice good hand hygiene and limit the amount of contact they have with people who may be infected. And right now we just need to assume everyone could be infected.”

Still, some leaders have said our proclivity to denser cities put us at risk. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo asserted that “dense environments are its feeding grounds.”

Timothy Bray is director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas. He said that the sprawl of North Texas may have helped slow the spread, but not simply because the region has low population density.

While heavily hit cities like New York City and Chicago rely on public transportation and more shared communal space, Bray said, Dallas and Fort Worth historically have grown along interstates and highways.

“We’re not even built the same. We are configured differently,” Bray said. “It sure seems that there is something to that because what congestion does, what density does is put susceptible people in a close space together.”

Will the pandemic alter North Texas housing patterns? One official doubts it, suggesting that residents' lifestyle choices are a greater factor.( G.J. McCarthy - Staff Photographer )

Urban planners who advocate for higher-density neighborhoods, however, say that data shows that the virus’ spread has not been impacted by density. The virus has hit communities of all sizes, whether urban, suburban or rural, said Patrick Kennedy, a Dallas urban planner who has often advocated for a more walkable city.

“To me, that’s just sort of being intellectually lazy,” Kennedy said. “The fact that it’s in nearly every county in the U.S. points to how infectious it is.”

Density hasn’t been a clear indicator of viral hotspots. San Francisco and Seoul, South Korea, both cities with high density, have not had outbreaks nearly on the scale of as places like New York and Seattle.

Some of Texas’ hardest hit counties are in the rural Panhandle. Even in New York, some of the first major outbreaks were in suburban communities on Long Island rather than the densely populated boroughs of New York City.

According to an analysis of COVID-19 cases by county that was recently published in Scientific American, although an increase in density would mean a rise in the number of contacts an infected person would have, “the effect is relatively small” on the total number of current cases.

In Dallas, the last 10 years have been marked by rapid high-density housing developments in and around downtown. Many have pushed for a stronger, livable downtown — that means high density.

Mike Eastland, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said his group helped cities shift building codes in the early 2000s to allow for more high-density housing and walkable communities.

Now, the pandemic has put similar efforts across the country into question. Anecdotally, some people in larger cities who are now finding ways to work remotely are wondering if it’s worth it to live in a place where a virus can spread so quickly.

Eastland said its unlikely that the virus will have a major impact on North Texas’ housing patterns.

“Where [people] chose to live and how they move these days is probably more than this one thing,” Eastland said. “I would think our lifestyles are going to be more grounded to what makes sense in our lives.”

Kennedy, however, said Dallas’ urban benefits outweigh those concerns. Large cities offer cultural diversity, strong tax bases and even other resources like large hospitals — especially crucial in a pandemic — he said.

“Cities have gone through these kinds of things throughout history,” Kennedy said. “Cities always come back, and it’s because they’re fundamentally advantageous.”

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Give" - Google News
May 03, 2020 at 06:00PM
https://ift.tt/2KSuPo3

Does North Texas’ geographic sprawl give it an advantage in the fight against coronavirus? - The Dallas Morning News
"Give" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2YqGX80
https://ift.tt/2YquBwx

Bagikan Berita Ini