Ark La Tex In-Depth: Recovering from a bad health grade

This winter The Pennington Biomedical Research Center assigned Louisiana a "D" letter grade for the way it's built.

They said Louisiana cities aren't creating active environments for adults and kids.

From roads without sidewalks to neighborhoods full of dead end streets to parks that are hard to access, not all of Shreveport is built as a good environment for your health.

That's why city planner Dara Sanders is working on a unified code to fix that.

"That unified development code is going to implement the idea of our master code, which sort of criticizes the way that we've been developing neighborhoods and developing commercial centers to be more automobile dominated," said Sanders.

The code will focus on healthy living by calling for more recreational options like parks and bike paths.

It will provide for more connected streets and sidewalks within the city.

Dara said they're hiring a consultant to help with the plans.

"Once the lead consultant is selected, we will be building a team of local professionals who will then take us through a very inclusive public input process," said Sanders.

Grassroots activist Loren Demerath said the changes can't come soon enough for a very simple reason. 

"We go out for family outings and we just want a place to go. We don't necessarily need it to be special or anything," said Demerath. "As I get older and need more excercise and get more decrepid, a city like that's designed for more activity will be healthier for me. So, that's one of the reasons I'm working on it frankly," said Demerath.