“If you’re so smart,” people sometimes ask the Antiplanner, “why haven’t you published any articles in peer-reviewed journals?” Part of my answer is that I’ve seen so many peer-reviewed articles that are simply junk science that I don’t have much respect for the process. (The other part of my answer is that I am not seeking academic tenure, which used to be the major reason for writing peer-reviewed articles.)
A prime example of peer-reviewed junk science is the spate of articles a few years ago linking obesity to suburban sprawl. As noted here before, back in 2003 a group called Smart Growth America breathlessly announced a peer-reviewed study supposedly proving that sprawl “has a hand in the nation’s obesity crisis” which “demonstrate[s] the urgent need” for smart growth. Actually, the results of the peer-reviewed study were much weaker, only claiming that sprawl “had small but significant associations” with obesity.
Small is right. As Wendell Cox discovered, the data used by Smart Growth America indicated that residents of dense Boston weighed just 1.7 pounds less than Boston suburbanites, while those of denser Chicago weighed just 1.4 pounds less than that city’s least-dense suburbs.
