Green Cities: Breathe Deeply and Walk Freely

"As much as I love my winter city, when spring rolls around life brightens up. The onslaught of studies from Friday’s Earth Day imply that our feel-good response to the fresh lime green of spring does much more than pump endorphins. How we green our cities may be a life and death issue. People with greenery close to home have significantly lower mortality rates, according to new analysis of the extensive Nurses’ Health Study."

"If you’re a frequent PlaceShakers reader, you’ve heard us tout biophilia – or the love of living systems – particularly where nature has been integrated into urbanism. We’ve looked at how land use and transportation choice impact the earth. We’ve blogged about compact development patterns as a tool for rural preservation. We’ve explored the rapid change for the Inuit living on the land, where they’ve gone “from igloos to internet” in 40 years, gleaning insights from these resilient people on our changing global landscape. And on Huffington Post, PlaceMakers’ Kaid Benfield is an advocate for the landscape, weaving preservation into development policy and nature into neighbourhoods."

Hazel Borys updates these lines of thought with the latest on the measures quantifying why it all matters.