Planning for Preventative Health Urban green space provides a place to escape the concrete and steel of urban city centers, spend time in nature, connect with others, and get moving. As Americans become increasingly sedentary, a push towards funding and implementing green space as a means of increasing individual health has gained traction. Doctors now write green prescriptions for patients to go walk at their … Continue reading Got Green Space?
Drive through any town in the United States and you will likely notice that landscapes change from stately brick houses and white picket fences to depressed shotgun houses and chain link fences. What you won’t notice? As you drive toward the city center and home values decrease, a skyrocketing increase in heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure is taking place. In fact, … Continue reading A Prescription for Planning
As a native North Carolinian, there are a few things that come to mind as quintessentially Southern. At the top of this list is barbecue. The smell of hickory chips, the taste of tangy vinegar, and the social ritual of the pig pickin’ are, for many, cornerstones of a place-based identity. Unfortunately, our cultural appreciation for authentic barbecue underscores a fundamental tension between the strength … Continue reading Pork, GRITS, and Planning
On hot days when I was a kid, my mom would occasionally load the car with a bag of towels and sunscreen and take my sisters and me to the pool. We rolled down all four windows to feel the breeze that lasted for the 20 sticky minutes it took to get there. I remember the blue-green water, thick with children’s bodies, shouting and waving and … Continue reading Planners for Public Pools
