Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work

Germany: Learning the Rules of the Road in Primary School

Last year during my extended stay just outside Munich, Germany, I came across the following:

It may be difficult to see the scale in the picture, but it's an enclosed mini-road system where children learn the safety standards for cycling. The schools in this town of Vaterstetten require that students pass a test, ensuring that the streets stay consistent with safety and sharing the road. The test is given in primary school, more than a full decade before Germans are able to obtain a driving license. Getting a license in Germany as well as Denmark is expensive and time-consuming. My cousin Lara in Munich and host-sisters Jose/Emma in Copenhagen likely paid upwards of $2,000 USD and spent more than 50 hours for theory and professional instruction for a license. And more than often a license does not come with a car; this is also incredibly expensive in these countries. I will grab some numbers from copenhagenize.com: 

In Denmark a basic compact car will cost you about 100,000 DKK. ($17,400). A new Honda, depending on model, will cost between 200,000 DKK ($34,700 USD) and 500,000 DKK ($86,900). A new BMW, again depending on model, will set you back between 400,000 DKK ($69,500 USD) and 2.5 million DKK ($434,360 USD).

And finally, fuel prices. The price per gallon of gasoline is nearly triple in Germany and Denmark, compared with the US. Currently the US average is $2.32 per gallon; $6.07/gallon in Germany; $6.34/gallon in Denmark. 

I will end on this statistic (found once again on copenhagenize.com):

Bicycle: 63 cents net profit for society. (3.65 DKK)  

Car: $1.15 net loss to society. (6.59 DKK)

And keep in mind, this is in Denmark, without the massive subsidies for autos and fuel.

WOW. Maybe we should be building mini-roads to train and test our children for cycling in this country, and better bicycle infrastructure to go along with it! Cycling is beneficial in sooo many ways... 

Clover Valley Farms Projects

I often think of the amazing experience I had as the live-in Intern at Clover Valley Farms. I want to share the many projects we worked on over the course of the 2013 summer, one of which, the farm blog I kept, helped me launch this project! 


Animals: Poultry, Hogs, Turkeys, Layers, Bees

We raised about 300 Cornish Cross Broiler and Red Broilers and 50 turkeys. These happy animals were kept in 10x10 pens moved daily for new forage. The turkeys took over one of the orchards for the last part of their lives. At about 10 weeks they were processed and sold on site. In addition to meat birds we had laying hens. A couple dozen eggs were collected twice daily and sold to friends and neighbors.

   

The hogs arrived small, feisty, and shy. They were also part of a rotational pasture system, allowing them to forage in new territory once they had nearly dug their current one up. These were my favorite buddies, if you can tell by the picture of me joining in their wallow.

  

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) at UMDuluth Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI): I helped Cindy with her IPM project, tracking pests in CVF and UMD orchards to inform more environmentally responsible pest control practices.

The Garden: beans, greens, squash, potatoes, corn, onions, cucumber, garlic, tomatoes, zucchini, radish, peas...you name it, we probably had it!

The Greenhouse: Cilantro, dill, parsley, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme. Herbs were harvested fresh for meals, dried for herb mixes, and used to infuse homemade vinegars!

Fruit: 3 apple orchards, grapes, high bush cranberry, juneberry, currants, gooseberry, wild berries

    

Planting & Pulling: The berm in front of the greenhouse was cleared and planted with a variety of fruit bushes! I also helped plant a new orchard with 3 varieties of apple for a total of 50 new trees.

     

  

Cooking... And Eating!!!

Wildlife: Readers who are unfamiliar with Minnesota, the northern part of the state has a very unique and spectacular biome that supports diversified flora and fauna.

Old Fashioned Bartering: Cindy and Jeff would trade goods with friends for things like this beautiful handmade crock!

Dog Training: Honey joined us during my time there so I learned some serious dog discipline

Other Adventures: Community events, Great Lakes Aquarium, bike rides, hikes, Lake Superior swimming!

  

 

Thanks for reading! 

Evolutionary Psychology/Neuroscience & Good Feelings

I love learning about how things came to be, and how things work. Recently I've been enthralled by the human brain -- how it came to be in its current evolutionary form, how it works, along with everything new we're learning about the brain with the help of technology. One might wonder what this has to do with "urban planning/design"... I believe it has a lot to do with it. Simply put, it's possible to create and design places that appeal to us and the human condition, that can grant us health and make us feel calm, safe, and happy. This theme is nothing new to my blog, but I suppose I'm coming at it from a different angle this time by looking at the brain. 

My aunt gifted me an amazing book last year for my birthday, which is essentially what sparked my interest in connections between psychology and urban planning. Written by German neurobiologist Gerald Hüther, The Compassionate Brain: How Empathy Creates Intelligence speaks on the newest science of the human brain, written like a user's-manual. We now have a better understanding of how the brain works than ever before, and the fact that the majority of us do not use this knowledge to our advantage daily is nonsense!

While the book itself is unrelated to urban planning, it gives insight to the idea that there are certain elements in our lives, from behavior to environments, that are proven to cooperate with our brain chemistry and be beneficial to our well-being.

This post is meant to introduce these ideas and open up the conversation. And more from science, environment, health -- a Washington Post article from 2007: If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Only Be Natural, speaking on neuroscientific discoveries about morality having biological roots. "The more researchers learn, the more it appears that the foundation of morality is empathy." Hüther argues that compassion takes empathy one step further, as the next step in the brain's evolutionary process; compassion is a current peak in intelligence. 

These two pieces of scientific literature back me up: what is or feels "right" and "wrong" is not "'handed down' by philosophers and clergy, but 'handed up,' an outgrowth of the brain's basic propensities." Whether we know it or not, and as we struggle to determine exactly what triggers those good feelings, pleasure triggers are inherent within our brains, and we're now discovering how to get there. I would like to be part of what gets us closer to some of these answers, specifically pertaining to human connections with outside city environments!  

UPDATE!

Another blurb found on another blog:

"There might be a very good reason why it's been so damn hard to make things work the 'traditional' way. What's traditional in your culture might clash very strongly with your biological and emotional makeup."

____
Sources:
The Washington Post
The Compassionate Brain, Gerald Hüther
Raptitude Blog

Food: Urban Gardening

 Ron Finley: A guerrilla gardener in South Central LA

 

26.5 Million Americans live in a food desert. 

Wikipedia defines Food Desert as "a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile."

This made me think: the year I spent in Duluth, I lived in a food desert, so I know what it's like. Yet there was an amaaaazing local restaurant a few blocks from me that was doing something different - being an early adopter of sustainability. Yesterday, my grandma reminded me about Duluth Grill after she caught the feature below on the local news. Through my Clover Valley farm internship I even got to meet the owner of Duluth Grill and work a bit with the urban garden manager, Francois. You can find the vinegar I helped start at the farm on the tables and shelves at the Grill too!

  Duluth Grill on the Food Network!

____________

RON FINLEY empowers through urban gardening!!!

Living Streets Part II

Among the dozens of pages I've bookmarked for conversations on my blog, I came across a page that has me thinking about Living Streets once again. I've been waiting to write about this topic for some time now, and since my most recent post, it keeps popping up; in my thoughts back to my own childhood (which I still plan to share), in the first few chapters of the Jane Jacobs classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and then stumbling upon this piece of research. So it was published almost 20 years ago, but in a journal entitled International Play... who doesn't think a research journal about playing is awesome?!

The research reinforces my personal feelings about residential streets loosing their function as social and play environments. It also, interestingly enough, mentions that Munich can be used as an existing model for reclaiming the streets for children, which I captured pictures of last fall. Not only that, but I spent my time in Munich as an Au Pair, taking care of 3 young girls aged 14 months to 6 years. Each day - weather permitting - we spent outside was spent doing some sort of activity in the street. I doubt there was a day that passed that I didn't see a group of kids playing in the "street," whether it was scootering and biking around or boys kicking a soccer ball (I bet this happened daily no matter what!). Even though our neighborhood was more suburban than urban, the streets played an important part in the way of life for people of all ages. It goes to show that "safer" streets with less or slower traffic are used for reasons other than driving or transport.

 From the publication:

"One should be able to play everywhere, easily, loosely, and not forced into a 'playground' or 'park'. The failure of an urban environment can be measured in direct proportion to the number of 'playgrounds.' 

Notwithstanding research which suggests that parks and playgrounds are highly valued by children (Homel and Burns, 1986, 109), perhaps this argument is not as absurd as it seems. It helps us to realise that the way we have been seeing 'children's spaces' is "culturally constructed". This quote is highlighting the possibility that parks and playgrounds are among the few places left for children in our cities. It is saying that a truly child friendly city should be one big playground. Cities in the developed world can hardly be described in such terms, mainly because of the way in which streets are seen as barriers for children, rather than as a useful resource for play.

No doubt circumstances are changing ever-more rapidly, with the automobile as the main culprit. Car dependency creates more dangerous streets, leading to more parental supervision for child safety, more formal/supervised play, less freedom and independence for children, and ultimately less ability for spontaneity and creativity in children. All of which can play a major role in the development, socialization, and sense of community for children.

This is where Living Streets come in. The publication reviews "traffic calming" in countries that have had success in reclaiming the streets as social space - not surprising that the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark are mentioned here. Munich is highlighted:

One European city which is developing a reputation for being a "playful city" is Munich. Since the early 1970s, the combined efforts of play organisations and city authorities has led to Munich evolving as a model playful city. The key aspect of the approach taken is the realisation that children need time and space for open, non structured play, and that such play is a crucial part of a child's positive development (Zacharias and Zacharias, 1993). It is argued that playing should be allowed and possible in all the everyday environments of the city, rather than simply in specific playgrounds. There should be a "playable city" where the entire environment is conducive to children's play. In many parts of Munich, the streets are seen as appropriate places for children to play (Moore, 1993).

To support the ability of children to play in the streets, a number of "verkehrsberuhigter Bereich" have been developed. Many of these are similar to woonerven, and they have a special sign that says: "children can play in this street". Cars must travel very slowly (5 -7 km/h) and they can only park in marked areas. Knecht (1995, pers. comm.) has recently conducted a project in Munich called "Play in the streets and yards". His observations were that children do in fact play in such verkehrsberuhigter Bereich where they cover a large area, as in an area of Munich called Moosach. In one street in Knecht's study, Hirschstrasse, children painted a mini golf course with chalk on the street. They made 20 stations with wooden material and toys and other material. A huge number of children from the neighbourhood streets (also verkehrsberihigt) come to Hirschstrasse to join the game. Children also play tennis, roller skate, play ball games and so on. One of the most important findings of Knecht's study was that if there are a lot of children playing in the street, the car drivers proceed very slowly. Sometimes they even turn around and look for another route. Thus, children have been able to successfully reclaim the street!

While I feel relief to know that my inclination is actually backed up by research, it's disheartening to see the place I knew as a playground growing up disappear. But progress is being made with like Living Streets and traffic calming. Such strategies can be thought of as a piece to the puzzle or possibly even a catalyst to transform streets away from exclusive automobile use and back to communities that actually bring value and life to the veins of a city. The authors of the research couldn't sum it up better:

Making provision for children's play throughout a city's public spaces, including its residential streets, will not only be of great benefit for children, it will create a physical and social environment of superior quality for all the city's residents. If we can encourage more people to use residential streets for walking, cycling, social interaction and playing, then cities will become more sociable, more livable places for all city residents. Cities will once again become places which facilitate exchanges between people of all ages.  

Sources: 
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/general/tranter.htm
http://www.ncsu.edu/www/ncsu/design/sod5/phd/resources/Streets_as_Playgrounds.pdf