Who would have thought? </sarcasm off>
By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Now that was the very reason why Parks were created in Britain under the Public Health Act of 1875 and subsequent ones.
You probably also already know about the power of green spaces on your mind and body, but there hasn’t been any sort of real scientific assessment of that – until now.
But, was there really a scientific study needed? Well, maybe yes. Maybe this will make people value their parks and open spaces more.
Frances "Ming" Kuo, Director of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois has studied the effect of green space on humans in a number of settings and measured the effect of nature on human health and well being by using data such as police crime reports, blood pressure, performance on standardized neurocognitive tests, and physiological measures of immune system functioning.
What she discovered was what most of us probably already know. "In greener settings, we find that people are more generous and more sociable. We find stronger neighborhood social ties and greater sense of community, more mutual trust and willingness to help others. "In less green environments, we find higher rates of aggression, violence, violent crime, and property crime -- even after controlling for income and other differences," she said. "We also find more evidence of loneliness and more individuals reporting inadequate social support."
Because of this strong correlation between nature and health, Kuo encourages city planners to design communities with more public green spaces in mind, not as mere amenities to beautify a neighborhood, but as a vital component that will promote healthier, kinder, smarter, more effective, more resilient people.
It is for that very reasons that publicly owned parks and open spaces, parks to which the public has access to and gardens at home and especially also allotments must be part and parcel of our (urban) environment.
For that very reason also the provisions for parks and open spaces and those for allotment garden must not be reduced but must be increased rather. More people having access to such areas would, more than likely, reduce a lot of our problems in society today.
Not that that, probably, will make any difference to the people wielding the knife and the axe in Whitehall and other government departments in the UK as well as in countries such as the USA, etc.
They rather tackle the problems than to provide preventive means, which parks and open spaces and allotments are. In addition to that allotments are a vital part of national food security.
When that was mentioned, however, and the fact that we need to be more self-sufficient in food production some idiots in DEFRA and other government departments stated that, as a nation we have enough money to buy our food from abroad. Doh? And what are we going to do when we can no longer (afford to) bring the stuff in because of lack of fuel or of uneconomic costs of same? What then?
© 2011
