In this session Belinda Tato will talk about last week ACTIVITIES WORKSHOP. If you have seen the pictures, then you already know that the participants had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. As Creative Guest Elger Blitz said, playing is good for everybody, regardless of their age.

We also have a guest: ENVIRONMENT Community Activator Romy Ortiz, a human geographer from the University of Bergen. She works in the Centre for urban ecology, on environmentally friendly urban development, urban meeting places, and integration issues. This is what she writes about her role:

“Come to the workshop, so we can design a square that is human and environmentally friendly!”

If you don’t feel like surfing dreamhamar.org, this is your best shot at getting the latest news on what’s going on in Stortorget Square!

See you today, on Monday 17th, at 18:00 on dreamhamar.org!

Researcher looks for link between people’s health and where they live
We know that smoking causes cancer, yet we still light up. We know that overeating causes obesity and diabetes, yet we still overeat. We know that exercise makes us healthier, yet we can’t resist the couch’s siren song.

We all want to be healthier, and we know how to become so. Yet we just don’t do it.

S.V. Subramanian, associate professor of society, human development, and health at the Harvard School of Public Health and a researcher at the Center for Population and Development Studies, has heard all of the theories explaining why living a healthy lifestyle is so difficult. We’re predisposed to pack on pounds to survive the famine that, in olden days, was certainly coming. We’re addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes and the fat in burgers, which get their hooks into us. Convenience is key: Who can drag themselves to the gym every day and cook healthy meals of nuts, fruits, and vegetables when the golden arches beckon?

Subramanian understands that those theories may help explain our resistance to things that are health promoting. Indeed, explanations based on the idea that we are programmed to be who we are and do what we do appear to be returning with some force in recent years with an explosion of genetics research.

But he feels that this has often come at the exclusion of other factors. In particular, the idea that our environments — the places where we live and work and play — may also be important.

“If it’s environment, then there are levers we can pull,” Subramanian said.

Subramanian has embarked on a study that will examine the link between health and location. The study will utilize several longitudinal nationwide data sets to get to the roots of the linkages between neighborhoods and health.

In doing so, he’ll compare health statistics such as those gathered by the Framingham Heart Study, which recorded health outcomes of three generations and followed people as they moved around the country. He’ll probe the age when healthy behavior is formed in the National Longitudinal Study for Adolescent Health, which examines 9- to 16-year-olds. The third data set is a national health and retirement survey of those 50 and older who were recruited in 1992 and revisited several times since then.

Subramanian also plans to use data from national geographic information systems (GIS) and plot the locations of businesses that might be detrimental to health, such as liquor stores and fast-food restaurants, as well as those that might be helpful to maintaining a more beneficial lifestyle, such as health clubs and parks. He can overlay that information with data from the studies and census data on income, race, and ethnicity, creating a rich picture of health and location.

“There’s a thought that poor neighborhoods are underserviced, but we don’t know if that’s true,” Subramanian said.

Subramanian, who received an investigator award in health policy research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to pursue this work, said the effort is like finding hot spots, places that are both socially and resource disadvantaged. In addition, he said, instances when these two aspects do not appear together may also offer interesting insights.

Though medical science often looks to intervene at the personal level — helping a patient to make healthy choices — the research may show that there are also effective interventions that can be made at the neighborhood level, such as tax cuts for health-related industries to move into a neighborhood, or incentives for nonprofits to conduct activities that encourage better health.

“What are the things that we can change about a place without having to move the people?” Subramanian said. “It’s an interesting public policy question: Should interventions be at the person level or a higher level, a school or neighborhood?”

One unusual wrinkle that Subramanian is planning to investigate is the extent that free will plays in people living in unhealthy neighborhoods. People generally choose the places where they live, and while some seek parks and good schools, others may select for other factors. Though there is a myth of social mobility in this country, Subramanian said it is actually quite difficult to change social class, and most people end up in neighborhoods like the one they left out of constraints or choice.

“We can learn about health-seeking behavior,” Subramanian said. “I want to quantify how much health and health-related conditions drive the choice of neighborhoods.”

Subramanian said examination of that last factor is important because it has been raised in critiques of other studies, and Subramanian wants to bring data to bear on it.

It’s important, Subramanian said, to understand that exposure to neighborhood landscapes doesn’t equate to taking a fast-acting pill or poison. Instead, effects of neighborhood conditions may lag exposure or accumulate over time. In addition, the life stage at which one is exposed may also matter. When the three-and-a-half-year study is completed, Subramanian plans to write a book on health and disadvantage in American neighborhoods.

“If you have an environmental exposure in a neighborhood, it’s not going to show up for a long time,” Subramanian said. “If you’re exposed in utero, it may not show up for 25 years.”

Article from Harvard Science.

Mr. Subramanian is an associate professor of society, human development, and health at the Harvard School of Public Health and a researcher at the Center for Population and Development Studies.

The 1st of October – it happened! What many citizens of Copenhagen have been looking forward to. The day when they shut down one of the most busy streets for cars, Norrebrogade, Copenhagen N. The street is one of the main thoroughfares of the capital – and it will be permanently closed for three months.

North from the center – it takes you ten minutes by bicycle to get there – the, for few days ago, most busy and dangerous street of Copenhagen. It has been a fight for years, but now it is about to turn. Copenhagen is getting more green, and more pedestrianfriendly for each day – and now more than 50% of the people are using their bike to work/school each day. But some of the streets are to dangerous, and it is to little space for the cyclists. That is why they are trying this out on Norrebrogade. They will improve bus and bicycle traffic – and normally it is around 17000 private cars, 33000 cyclists and 65000 bus passangers each day. The municipality of Copenhagen hopes that this will remove 40%-50% of the private cars.

Some problems will occure – the residents will “only” have the possibility to park near their house – the shops can only get their delieveries in pointed depots – some of the other streets around will have a problem with more traffic – some streets that today works as small shoppingstreets, with great possibilities for pedestrians. Of course this is a annoying experiment for someone – but I think people should think about it twice, give it a chance – and see that the noice, and the air – will be better than ever – people can easier go around from shop to shop accross the strett – more comfortable to have a snack by the corner of the coffeshop – I think this will be a success! I just think that this is the beginning for a city without private car-traffic in the most important streets of Copenhagen, and make Copenhagen a city with more healthy environment – and more healthy citizens!

I will keep you updated on this case – I think it is very interresting to see how this will work out – and also what the citizens say in three months – and what the problems and the successes are!

It seems like there is no one, that will go in a discussion about the street either should be wider, so this is the best solution. I think, we have torn down the houses in Norrebro, that we will tear down. - Klaus Bondam – thecnic-and environmentmayor in Copenhagen, (R)

For more information – check out the newspaper Politiken

Well, the majority of people still do very little. Yet this should not make them feel guilty because a real change in climate change is not about guilt and expiation. On the contrary, mistakes and errors are natural milestones in the search for new solutions, they show us what we have overlooked and what we could do better and more intelligently.

Individual efforts are surely an important starting-point here. We now have both the technology and the knowledge to make considerable improvements. But even if our everyday lives were to become more sustainable through the use of the latest technologies or the application of natural regulation mechanisms, it is still our individual behaviour and our readiness to adapt that will effect a change. And this does not just mean switching to products that damage the environment less. This is often just a superficial measure. We need to rethink on the cultural plane, because social conventions in each particular cultural context are more important than products as such.

But to do this again needs more than just our personal involvement. Fundamental changes to transport, and to energy and other systems will all require long-term visions, leadership, co-operation, innovation and investment by companies and the authorities at all levels. It is therefore just as important to commit the state as to increase the proportion of our personal efforts.

Given the fact that in coming years the subject of the environment will probably put everything else in the shade, it is important that much-mentioned climate change should at the same time introduce a profound change of awareness.

Here the current discussion circles rightly around efficiency, sufficiency and structural reform, i.e. in the same order, the fact that the same solutions are found while consuming fewer resources, that consumption is restricted and that the way our society meets its needs has to undergo fundamental change. This sounds like saving and going without. The years of plenty are over!

But what really is needed today is not so much rhetoric about minimization and cutting back but a new sense of forward-looking ecological intelligence that successfully learns from nature. Positive guidelines have to be formulated that illustrate vividly what we can achieve. Hope has always been a more successful motivator than fear.

Lukas Feireiss

Last year since 2007 September until years end New York City has visually transformed. Taxi, yellow icon, blossomed in all colors and became a mobile artistic canvas, or Garden in Transit. This art, education and creative therapy project was created by 23 000 children and adult volunteers. They have painted 80,000 flowers on 750,000 square feet of adhesive panels for a four month public art exhibition featured on thousands of city taxis.

In 2007 yellow cab commemorated the 100th anniversary.
Garden in Transit was part of Portraits of Hope project.
“Portraits of Hope” is creative therapy program for seriously ill and physically disabled children. All projects culminate in the visual transformation of public environment.

Here, In the web page of Portraits of Hope, you can see more of their large scale art projects on blimps, buildings, tugboats and airplanes

Last year since 2007 September until years end New York City has visually transformed. Taxi, yellow icon, blossomed in all colors and became a mobile artistic canvas, or Garden in Transit. This art, education and creative therapy project was created by 23 000 children and adult volunteers. They have painted 80,000 flowers on 750,000 square feet of adhesive panels for a four month public art exhibition featured on thousands of city taxis.

In 2007 yellow cab commemorated the 100th anniversary.
Garden in Transit was part of Portraits of Hope project.
“Portraits of Hope” is creative therapy program for seriously ill and physically disabled children. All projects culminate in the visual transformation of public environment.

Here, In the web page of Portraits of Hope, you can see more of their large scale art projects on blimps, buildings, tugboats and airplanes

The typical characteristic of modern Japanese cities, most evident in Tokyo, is a chaotic, patchwork-like, urban environment filled with high-density residential and commercial areas close to industrial plants. Tokyo is known for hypermodern architecture, skyscrapers and looks like a future city. But how do people actually live in this concrete urbanity?

Given the lack of vast green spaces, Tokyoites are taking action. I have found a nice article about what creative citizens are doing to bring back some of the green in their city. First, reclaim your immediate environment and stuff the sidewalk with flower pots as much as possible. Second, imitate nature to soothe the stressed commuters with a forest of plastic plants, cement trees – or the friendly chirping of an artificial bird.

PingMag shows you the green islands and blossoming places in this most dense populated area. Read it and see more picture here.

In the pictures – Roadside Jungles – Tree Trunks As Lampposts. You start to feel like in a green avenue, until you look up and you see a lamp where the leaves and branches should be.
And Flowerpots, little idylls, in Tokyo’s streets.