Live Small and Prosper: London - The Healthier City

[“If we want to mitigate massive health costs that will be incurred by the growing population of long-living seniors, we have to start designing healthier cities and towns.” Architect and urban thinker Avi Friedman, June 2, The Londoner]

London, Ontario is a healthy city.

As well, it’s a low, flat city when viewed from the fifth floor of Victoria Hospital. It is more Deforest City than The Forest City. But it has a basketful of things going for it that project an overall healthy image in the minds of many.


["The mighty Thames flows through London": photo GH]

That it could be healthier, I have no doubt. I could be healthier too - thumbs up at my last physical - if I took up a more rigorous exercise routine, but that’s another story.

London could be a healthier city, and should make an effort to become one, to “mitigate massive health costs” and for a variety of other reasons.

I’m happy to live in a healthy city, just as I’m delighted the family doctor patted me on the head after my last physical examination. (I took it to mean I’m ‘good’ for another 30 years or at least until the next time I have to strip down in cramped quarters).

And I’d be more than happy to see or sense that Deforest City is making the effort to become a healthier city, for the short- and long-term, for this generation and the ones coming after we slip, on gossamer wings, from this mortal coil.

What ideas, ideals, and initiatives would propel us toward ‘healthier’?

More to follow.

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Ideas, ideals, and initiatives... got any?

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