Tag

global

Congestion Cycle of Doom

By | Health, Silo-Breakers, The Global Is Local | No Comments

…..But first, a look back at Silos in the ChangeEngine world:

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback, either in the comments section of Silos or Silos II, The Power of the Triple-S, in person, or as Michelle and Rodney did, in full fledged posts on ChangeEngine. Excellent discussions have been taking place, and I want to encourage that to continue. Challenge yourself and your colleagues:

What is the box you are in, for better or worse, and how can seeking partnerships or experience outside those parameters benefit your organization AND the community you live in?

Good luck, and keep us all posted! Link back to Silo Breakers as you post about your efforts, use a hashtag (I’ll defer to Hasdai on how to do that), and talk to friends and strangers… (Ed: Thanks Adam. It’s @ChangEngine #breakoutchallenge on Twitter, facebook.com/ChangingMedia, or email hasdai@changingmediagroup.com).

——-

Okay, this week, we touch upon the issues raised in posts about bicycling this past Spring (B’More Bike Friendly, Bikemore in Baltimore, and I Bike, You Bike, We Bike!) but with a wider lens. Although the previous posts brought up the local ramifications of taking cars off the roads, getting more of our community off the couch and out of the drivers seat, and so forth, today we will take a further step back to look at the transportation trends across the country and the world.

As was noted in the recent post by Stu Sirota, Our Trillion Dollar Dirty Little Secret, transportation funding in the United States is hyper-focused on roads and bridges. It’s not an unreasonable priority. The road infrastructure throughout the nation is vast, adding up to just over 2.5 million miles of pavement (not including the quadrillions of acres that make up parking lots and such things). We rely on roads and bridges for transport and economic vitality.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

The trouble is that those pesky roads share some unfortunate traits with us — they get stiff in the winter, squishy in the summer, and show the effects of age sooner than they feel like they should (“I swear it was only yesterday that 695 and I were at the prom together, young and fresh, and now look at us, full of potholes and cracks!”). The context in which this massive infrastructure was built was far different, and the maintenance costs increase over time. The current political climate has not been productive for passing thoughtful, long-term legislation of any sort, and future transportation bills may face the same problems.

As Sirota points out in his piece, the network of roads and associated development that have grown out of the national highway building efforts of previous decades have initially eased and then subsequently caused congestion and a need for expansion and development.

Shifts in our expectations about transportation, urbanization, work and play are undergoing a generational shift, however, which may reverse or at least force a reassessment of earlier priorities. New industries and young workers have a greater interest in working and living in urban areas, rather than suburban software parks for instance.

OK, so great, good for U.S.; we’re progressive as hell and living the green dream, right? Well, no, of course not. America will continue to rack up miles on our cars, build roads while others crumble, and generally remain a servant of the internal combustion engine. But things will improve, of course — better gas mileage, improved bike/car education, and pro-environmental youth will vote with their dollars more and more as they join the labor force.

Other places in the world however, are on a different trajectory:

Image credit: European Environment Agency

The developing world has long epitomized a biking culture for decades, and although many people now own Motos (mopeds, scooters, or other low-powered motorbikes) and aspire to own their own car, bikes still fill the streets. India and China in particular are projected to experience a massive increase in car ownership in the coming decades, fueled (ha) in part by their own domestic auto industries.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

This trend is going to have a massive impact on vehicle emissions in coming years, but with any luck, the exploding population of car owners will be the proud owners of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars than were typical in the United States — imagine millions upon millions of Cadillac Eldorados cruising the Chinese landscape. At the same time, heavy industry in these countries will likely benefit from a greening culture as well as more efficient technologies, decreasing environmental impact.

This ebb and flow of transportation and urban fashions both here and around the world will have profound and lasting effects on our lives, our economy, our health, and our city. Baltimoreans have a particular responsibility to share innovations, be good ambassadors when traveling or hosting international guests, and break out of our regional and national silos when we engage in the online community.

Baltimore shares many characteristics with cities in the developing world — substantial industry presence, high poverty and disease burden, and vibrant pockets of entrepreneurship and innovation. We must share our lessons learned, reach out to inspire others, learn from disparate cultures with similar characteristics, and change the world.

Vision Driven Change

By | Health, The Global Is Local | 2 Comments

A few nights ago my wife and I had a conversation with our friend Peter. In contrast to our method of deciding our fate (last minute panic combined with procrastination and our desire to live in the moment), Peter was describing himself as vision-driven in his decision making process. By coincidence, the following morning I sat among a large group, including my fellow ChangeEngine blogger Scott Burkholder, loosely organized around the concepts of social entrepreneurship and a vague but optimistic vision of a better city.

These conversations have given me pause for thought, and to consider the role of this social innovation/social change blog platform. Our group of authors approaches the challenge of promoting positive social change from a variety of perspectives, and most of us have personal investment in the projects and programs that we write about.

I’ve occasionally thought that the quote attributed to Ghandi on a million self-satisfied bumper stickers — “Be the change you want to see in the world” — might be an appropriate mission statement for ChangeEngine. I looked up the phrase and found that he has been misquoted for the purposes of bumperstickerability. As corrected by the New York Times:

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”

Not surprisingly, Ghandi is a smidge more complex and a tad more profound than the sentiment captured on a bumper sticker.

My conversation with Peter and the breakfast group the following morning centered around the potential for individuals and small groups to generate substantial change. Both interactions emphasized the importance of envisioning a better place, even if the precise vision of a better future is vague. In a way, it doesn’t really matter. The effort counts.

Making an effort toward positive change almost certainly shifts the expectations, changes the conversation, and re-frames the possibilities for a community in need of transformative positive change. If Ghandi were a statistician, he might have talked about shifting or weighting the mean, if he were a talk show host, he might have talked about seeding the audience, but since he was an agent of transformative change, he talked about changing ourselves in order to change the world.

Hasdai Westbrook, our editor extraordinaire and Change-Monger-in-Chief, regularly reminds me to consider the social innovation components of the various issues that I address in my columns, and often this is a challenge for me when writing about burgeoning pandemics in Saudi Arabia. Today, however, I am struck how the health of the city is affected by all of its residents and their activities. Planting community gardens and socially responsible investment are both contributers to the same vision, and are relevant to the health of the greater community.

Barton, H.; Grant, M., 2006. A health map for the local human habitat. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health

My beat is Public Health, with local and global implications. At its core, Public Health is concerned with trends and interventions at the population level. While those in the research and analysis end of the field must be driven by process and procedure, those engaging in interventions must be driven by vision.

No public health intervention is undertaken without a vision of a better future for the population, but I believe that the definition of health intervention should be broadened considerably. From urban farms to the Mayor’s public safety initiatives to public art projects, there are a great number of activities taking place in Baltimore (and around the world) that directly and substantially impact population health. These activities impact the education, nutrition, economics, safety, and appearance of our neighborhoods, which can have a profound impact by shifting the mean toward a healthier city and and a healthier world.

Next time, The Gluten Wars, A Health-Conscious Society Loses Its Mind