Blog – Page 5 – Worth it Places

Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People

Dan Buettner’s book Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People is published. It is a follow up to his 2008 book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. I don’t drink wine, so I replaced that one with “Grow a Garden”, which is also on the Blue Zones website. Community is another addition for the Blue Zones website.

Changing the built environment to allow people to move naturally more often is an important part of good urban planning.

Move Naturally

Move more, move often.

Grow a Garden

Good exercise, good food, good spirit.

Plant Slant

Beans are cornerstone, plus vegetables, fruit, and whole grains.

80% Rule

Eat and converse with family or friends.

Rest Enough

Sleep enough and down shift (e.g., pray, nap, hangout).

Purpose

Purpose driven life.

Loved Ones First

Put loved ones first.

Belong

Be part of a faith-based community.

Right Tribe

Have close friends and strong social networks.

Community

Taking focus off ones problems and focusing on making a better community deflates and diminishes the overwhelming problems of oneself.

How to Make an Attractive City

How to Make an Attractive City – The School of Life YouTube Channel

1. Not too chaotic, not too ordered.

- - Variety and order (example:)
    1. Variety – form and color
    2. Order – width and height
  - Not too chaotic and not too ordered
    1. Too chaotic is off putting
    2. Too ordered is boring
  - Humans crave organized complexity

2. Visible life.

- - Don’t hide signs of life.
  - Have work on show.

3. Compact.

- - Humans need “balancing and moderating influence of living close to other people in uplifting surroundings.”
  - Too much spacing wastes resources.
  - The art of a public square: not too big, not too small.
    1. Make squares with 100-foot diameter.
    2. Must offer feeling of containment, but not claustrophobia.

4. Orientation and mystery.

- - Balance of small streets (mystery) and big ones (orientation).

5. Scale.

- - Biggest building show actual importance of a society.
  - Ideal height of a building is five stories.
  - Make buildings dense, compact, and tight.
  - Make occasional huge buildings for something special for all of humanity.

6. Make it local.

- - Don’t make buildings look just like everywhere else.
  - Cities need to use local materials and forms.
  - Cities need to have strong characters.

Walkability – Jeff Speck

“Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time” by Jeff Speck (book) and “The General Theory of Walkability” by Jeff Speck (TED Talk):

How do you get people to walk?

1. A reason to walk (balance of uses)

- - Traditional neighborhood design (locate uses close enough to each other to allow walking; non-euclidean zoning; avoid super-sizing facilities – e.g. single vs. multiple ball diamond; avoid car-oriented life)
  - Fill in missing/under-represented uses (offices/appointment businesses, retail and services/walk-in businesses, dining, entertainment, housing, schools, recreation, worship, health care, and parking)
  - Walkable cities require transit

2. A safe walk (reality and perception)

- - Parallel parking provides protective barrier for pedestrians/bicyclists
  - Wide vehicle lanes increase vehicle speed (narrower vehicle lanes decrease vehicle speed)
  - Trees decrease vehicle speed
  - Induced demand (increasing infrastructure increases demand, e.g., more vehicle lanes increases number of motorists, more bicycle lanes increases number of bicyclists)

3. A comfortable walk (space and orientation)

- - Prospect (“open plain” = open street) and refuge (“wooded cover” = awnings, overhangs, and shade trees)
  - Fill in missing teeth (develop empty/abandoned lots that interrupt the walk)

4. An interesting walk (signs of humanity)