3 posts tagged “city”
Where I live, city officials and developers are pursuing something like a humane redevelopment of a rebirthed urban core. As a way to this goal, reviving a noble pedestrian existence has made the top of many lists. Such an existence is one in which walking to and from work, home, and play is not just a figment of the past, but a present reality.
In a recent issue of the New York Times magazine, a fascinating web 2.0 Internet application was featured that attempts to quantify just this kind of walkable urbanity with a number. That site is called Walkscore (www.walkscore.com). Type in your address and you can find out how easy it would be to live in a place without a car, or, put differently, to live in a place where you could walk to most of the things you needed.
Here's how it works. The more things you can walk to in your neighborhood means that you're going to be more healthy, you're likely to have more transportation options, getting places will be better for the environment, and you'll see an increase in social capital--an elusive measure of how livable a place is.
A score above seventy is deemed to be an indicator that it is pretty walk-friendly. A score below twenty-five means you're likely driving everywhere. Plugging in my address registered a barely double digit number. (Better keep the gas tank filled!) On the other hand, plugging in my city's downtown registered a whopping 92.
While this is great for folks who live THERE, suburbanites like myself are not without options. I've started riding my bike here and there and taking the bus to work. I even rode my bike to the Chinese restaurant nearby the house with my daughter to pick up our carryout order the other day. What fun!
So, wherever you live, your "walkscore" can be the start of something good for you and for your city. Check it out and see what your score is. Then, let me know what ideas you come up with!
Amid all the hoopla extolling our new urbanism, one down-to-earth mom defends suburbia here.
Speaking of death, I read a poem today by a friend, Mary Setliff, recently recognized by a local poetry festival, in which she potently describes cancer taking a friend. Her poem is called "The Bones of a Swan (for Will)."
Reading it, I was reminded of something that I read recently: swan bones are used in mythology to describe a magical building material out of which anything can be made. Imagine that: enchanted swan bones givng us "make-anything-you-can-dream-of" two-by-fours.
With my swan bones, I would build a city where anything you can dream comes true. And in that city, cancer, and death, wouldn't take anyone, but would transform them.
What a miracle that such a city has already been built, not with swan bones, but with the flesh and blood of a perfect Man, Jesus, whose death and resurrection works the most Perfect Magic of All.
And then, the last enemy, death, shall be defeated.
