Urban sprawl has typically been discussed in terms of its environmental and economic costs. But Dr. Richard Jackson has been studying its impact on our physical and mental health for nearly three decades.

Jackson, the department chair of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA, was in Rochester last week to kick off the fourth annual Rochester Regional Community Design Center's "Reshaping Rochester" lecture series.

As the country became more auto-centric, says Jackson, it not only pushed development farther and farther away from urban centers and increased our dependency on fossil fuels - it has, over the last 50 years, contributed greatly to the steady increase in heart, respiratory, and diabetes illnesses in the US.

Consider that up until 30 years ago, only rural children were transported from farms and country homes to schools. Most children, including the very young, walked or biked to school.

Less than 13 percent of all elementary and secondary school students walk or bike to school today, Jackson says. And the dramatic reduction of physical exercise as basic as walking has coincided with a sharp increase in childhood obesity, early onset of diabetes, and mental health problems.

And it hasn't been so good for adults, either.

Among the standard treatments for the number-one malady among adults in the US - depression - is more exercise and physical activity.

Auto-centric design values have also created problems for our seniors, isolating them from shopping, entertainment, and social activities.

Jackson would like to see design that returns schools to their role as community and cultural centers. Children can be closer to their families and mothers won't be converted into harried chauffeurs, he says.

"We humans often assume that what is had to be that way in the first place," says Jackson. "In reality, virtually everything in our built environment is the way it is because someone designed it that way."