A sprawling city like Atlanta or Tampa is better than compact
cities like New York or Boston in terms of healthy lifestyle and
environmental impacts.
The main reason behind this is the high population density in
the compact cities, which lead to many environmental problems like
pollution ( air pollution, water pollution land pollution and noise
pollution) which is very bad for the health of the human beings and
hence doesn't lead to a healthy lifestyle.
The other reasons may include.
- Compact cities have limited resources and higher population
which can lead to competition between individuals for food, water,
shelter, light, and other resources needed for survival. This will
also decrease the overall quality of these resources.
- Disease and parasites. Disease is more likely to break out and
result in deaths when more individuals are living together in the
same place. Parasites are also more likely to spread under these
conditions.
- High population densities can lead to the accumulation of
harmful waste products that kill individuals. This can happen
because of difficulty in managing garbage collection and disposal
when large amount of it is produced in short span of time.