Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.
The Case for Place-Making, Without the Sprawl
“What does it take to not only slow the spread of sprawl but also fundamentally change how we design and build communities? And how do we “unsprawl” communities that have already been built? A new book from our friends at Planetizen, Unsprawl: Remixing Spaces and Places, by Simmons Buntin, editor of Terrain.org and Ken Pirie, who works for Walker Macy Landscape Architects, proves that there are better ways to build communities…While there are clear reasons why we need to unsprawl, this is a focused how-to book. Exploring all aspects of a project from concept to design and through to its execution, there are lots of details about how projects were financed and built. We also learn about the successes and failures along the path to that “particular moment when a project becomes a true place.””
Nature Activities Improve Veterans’ Mental Health By Recreating Positive Aspects of Military Service
“Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects almost 13 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans when they return from service…While therapies that forced veterans to relive experiences have been shown to help some get over their stress, one grassroots environmental organization is taking an alternative route by providing nature activities to veterans, and it’s improving their mental health. The Sierra Club has been helping veterans improve their mental health by providing outdoor recreation programs. They believe these programs, which stay away from psychological counseling or therapy, and focus more on fly-fishing, kayaking, and backpacking, provide many of the positive experiences that came with military service.”
Study Shows Links Between Outdoor Activities and Mental Health
“An increased awareness of the potentially horrible side effects of the psychiatric drugs has lead to aggressive initiatives to determine natural manners to nurture mental health among natural health enthusiasts. Harvard Medical School writes that you will reap physical and mental health benefits if you spend more time outdoors in the summer months. In the outdoors our vitamin D levels rise, which helps fight osteoporosis, cancer, depression and heart attacks. You also get more exercise and feel happier due to an elevated mood, while also experiencing improved concentration.”
U.S., groups working to open more public access to Chesapeake
“Only 2 percent of the [Chesapeake] bay has public access points for kayaks, canoes, fishing, bathing and other recreation. And some of those places are so packed with visitors on sunny weekends that motorists are forced to drive away or wait until someone leaves. The development of farmland and sales of private homes, combined with the deterioration of aging public docks and ramps, have blocked access to the bay and its rivers and streams from the general public…Realizing that lack of access would also turn people away from concerns about the health of the nation’s largest estuary and cradle for much of the Atlantic Ocean’s marine life, President Obama issued an executive order three years ago to build 300 access points by 2025 — to complement slightly more than a thousand that exist in the bay watershed — but progress is slow.”
