Citiwire.net

For Release Friday, April 19, 2013
Citiwire.net

The next big health care breakthrough – which could cut rates of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer and Alzheimers by at least 40 percent and save Americans $100 billion a year – comes from a place you’d least expect. On your block. At the park. Everywhere.

What’s this amazing treatment, which also happens to be easy, enjoyable and virtually free? It’s as simple as taking a walk.

“Walking is like medicine for my patients,” says Dr. Bob Sallis, a Kaiser Permanente family practitioner from Fontana, Calif., describing the connection between how much time his patients spend walking and their overall health. “If walking was a pill or surgical procedure, it would be on 60 Minutes.”

“Being physically active is one of the most important things people of all ages can do for their health,” explains Joan Dorn of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She notes walking ranks No. 1 among Americans’ favorite aerobic activities, and that walking as little as 30 minutes is one way to achieve significant health benefits.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin has announced that she is preparing a Call to Action on Walking, which is being compared to the famous 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on the dangers of smoking. “Walking is easy,” Dr. Benjamin told a group of health, business, education and government leaders who came together in Washington to advance a national walking movement. “Everyone can do it, and it’s fun. We have to make being healthy joyful.”
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For Release Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Citiwire.net

For those of us who love cities in all their giddy, gritty glory, the Motor City awaits.

Although struggling, Detroit offers experiences you expect from a world-class city: heart-stopping architecture, a bustling waterfront, topnotch art, convivial nightlife, great food, picturesque city squares, a crowded public market, memorable strolls and a spirit all its own.

Let me start with a confession. Though I’m a lifelong Midwesterner and veteran travel writer, I always avoided Detroit. I expected to be depressed by seeing a once-grand place battered by economic disinvestment. I finally visited two years ago and witnessed scenes of abandonment and decay that almost broke my heart – but also examples of perseverance and creativity that stirred my soul.

Shortly after, I was connected to the Detroit Revitalization Fellows Project at Wayne State University, which tapped 29 young professionals to work with organizations on reviving the city. The project – funded by the Kresge Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation, Skillman Foundation and Wayne State – is part of an unprecedented philanthropic effort to reinvigorate Detroit.
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For Release Thursday, August 30, 2012
Citiwire.net

It’s a dark and wintry Thursday night in Copenhagen, and the streets are bustling. The temperature stands above freezing, but winds blow hard enough to knock down a good share of the bicycles parked all around. Scandinavians are known for stolid reserve, but it’s all smiles and animated conversation here as people of many ages and affiliations stroll through the city.

A knot of teenage boys swagger down the main pedestrian street. Older women inspect shop windows. An accomplished balalaika player draws a small crowd in a square as he jams with a very amateur guitarist. Earnest young people collect money for UNICEF. Two men pass, pushing a piano. Candlelit restaurants and cafes beckon everyone inside.

“Cultures and climates differ all over the world,” notes architect Jan Gehl, “but people are the same. They will gather in public if you give them a good place to do it.”

Cut, now, to scenes from the Republican National Convention in Tampa the past week, and the Democrats’ upcoming convention in Charlotte next week. Love them or hate them, those people packing the convention halls – convening from different places and backgrounds – have come together to take part in rituals that, for better or worse, help perpetuate our democracy. What does that have to do with a cold Copenhagen street? Only this: Democracy requires public places where people can congregate. Further, people are drawn to public places where they find other people. We all need those public places – good public places.
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For Release Thursday, June 21, 2012
Citiscope News

In many people’s minds, Detroit stands apart from other major American cities as an unredeemable disaster.

It’s a lost cause, they say, and we’d do better investing scarce resources toward revitalizing other cities with better prospects for the future.

So what makes Detroit different in the public imagination than other cities grappling with population loss, budget deficits, unemployment, crime, racial divisions and political corruption?

In large part, it’s disinformation. For example, the widespread belief that the city is a food desert with no supermarkets or any sources of fresh produce is, like many myths about Detroit that have grown up over the past 30 years, simply not true.

Actually Detroit sports more than 80 groceries, ranging from full service supermarkets to well-stocked neighborhood and ethnic stores. In May, Whole Foods broke ground for a new store in Midtown and Meijer’s, a well-regarded supermarket chain based in Grand Rapids, started construction on a superstore on the West Side.

Most Detroit supermarkets are family run, such as the beloved Honeybee La Colmena in Southwest Detroit, which grew up from a bodega and now features a produce section, meat counter and Latin foods selection to rival big box retailers. Co-owner Tammy Alfaro-Koehler, granddaughter of the founder, declares, “We are a full-service store, but we don’t want to be an anonymous big store. We’re part of the neighborhood.”

Source: Liza Lagman Sperl, Creative Commons

Tens of thousands of local residents do their weekly shopping at Eastern Market, one of the nation’s largest public markets, which features produce and prepared goods from 250 regional growers and vendors as well as surrounding blocks filled with a bakery, meat market, seafood store, specialty gourmet shops, America’s “oldest corned beef specialist”, an halal slaughterhouse, numerous restaurants and other tempting food related businesses.

Source: Liza Lagman Sperl, Creative Commons

“We have some vendors who have been here for generations, like one old farmer who remembers selling produce here with his grandfather when he was six,” says Jela Ellefson, Grants and Special Projects Coordinator, who joined Eastern Market through the Detroit Revitalization Fellow Project — a Wayne State University project that connects rising professionals with organizations on the forefront of revitalization efforts in the city.

Detroit is a blossoming leader in the urban agriculture movement, notes Ellefson, with more than 1500 farms within the city limits ranging from vacant lots to a 7-acre spread on the West Side planted by the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. Just two blocks from Eastern Market you’ll find neat rows of tomatoes, peas, salad greens, onions, beets, collards, okra, kale, leeks, rhubarb and fruit trees at the 2 1/2-acre Grown in Detroit cooperative farm, one of several plots around the city run by the group Greening of Detroit.
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For Release Thursday, May 31, 2012
Citiwire.net

You can glimpse the future right now in forward-looking American cities — a few blocks here, a mile there where people riding bicycles are protected from rushing cars and trucks.

Chicago’s Kinzie Street, just north of downtown, offers a good picture of this transportation transformation. New bike lanes are marked with bright green paint and separated from motor traffic by a series of plastic posts. This means bicyclists glide through the busy area in the safety of their own space on the road. Pedestrians are thankful that bikes no longer seek refuge on the sidewalks, and many drivers appreciate the clear, orderly delineation about where bikes and cars belong.

“Most of all this is a safety project,” notes Chicago’s Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein. “We saw bikes go up from a 22 percent share of traffic to 52 percent of traffic on the street with only a negligible change in motorists’ time, but a drop in their speeds. That makes everyone safer.”

Klein heralds this new style of bike lane as one way to improve urban mobility in an era of budget shortfalls. “They’re dirt cheap to build compared to road projects.”

“The Kinzie project was discombobulating to the public when it first went in,” notes Alderman Margaret Laurino, chair of the city council’s Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Committee. “Business owners had questions. But now people understand it and we’re ready to do more.”

“Protected bike lanes are not just for diehard bicyclists — they offer a level of safety and confidence for less experienced riders,” adds Rey Colón, a Chicago alderman who first saw how well these innovations work on a trip to Seville, Spain.

Mayor Rahm Emmanuel campaigned on the promise of building 100 miles of these “green lanes” over the next four years to heighten the city’s appeal to new businesses. After the protected bike lane opened on Kinzie Street last year, more were installed on Jackson Boulevard and 18th Street on the city’s Near West Side. Thirteen more miles are planned this summer throughout the city. (The Chicago suburb of Evanston just announced plans to install protected bike lanes on one of its busy streets.)
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