Interview with Gregor Mews on “Shaping Spaces for Gen Z”

“Play is the way children
make sense of the world
in which they live!”
Maxim Gorky

This is an interview with Gregor H. Mews, Founding Director of Urban Synergies Group, on insights around the need for a Forum on healthy child development and their environments in Australia.

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1. Why are you organising a forum, and what do you anticipate to achieve with it?

We at Urban Synergies Group, together with our partner the Health Research Institute at the University of Canberra, found sufficient evidence that indicates the health conditions of children in Australia are concerning.

The international forum “Shaping Spaces for Gen Z“ is part of our collaborative commitment to shed light on an important societal issue, that cannot continue to be ignored. Our message is clear and simple- we need to do better. If we want to ensure that future generations can enjoy equal opportunities, prosper and develop to their full potential, we need to explore new approaches to decision making around such ‘societal’ challenges. Collective actions need collective discussions and a fair, informed process for key decision making.

With this forum, we want to create a platform where we can come together with all relevant stakeholders and passionate members of the community, including concerned parents to do something about this societal challenge.

We will attempt to answer two questions. Firstly, how can we provide more daily opportunity for children to develop the social and emotional skills, psychological resilience and physical attributes to enable them to succeed in life as independent individuals? Secondly, how best do we align our collective resources to reconfigure our environments and the opportunities available to children within them in a fair, effective, efficient and cost-effective manner?

2. Why do you focus on child play, and what kind of relation does it have to obesity?

From our own data gathered since 2000, 69% of primary school children in the ACT are of low general fitness and 1 in 4 are classified as over a healthy weight. Children’s gross motor skills are another area of serious concern. We observed children that are unable to walk properly backwards, because they never had the opportunity to explore and engage in risky experiences on their terms. In our society the perception of risk has shifted. The ACT Government is aware of this and is committed to address this issue. Many Non-government organisations are doing their very best to reverse this health crisis.

Play offers a very potent narrative for children to engage in a meaningful way with the natural world around them, if we allow them to have enough space and time. Indeed, evidence suggests who children that engage regularly in outdoor play have higher levels of physical activity. Children are not even aware that they are getting healthier, because it is simply fun. Playful experiences offer mental health benefits and improve their capacity to be creative as well as learn important social skills. We are thrilled to have our colleagues from Yale University join us on the day, sharing their latest research findings.

However, despite of all the evidence, the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child clearly states in article 31, that children have a right to play. In theory, this alone should be enough reason for adults to make sure their children have enough time and space for playful experiences in our cities. The health data helps to strengthen the case for play.

3. Is there a big cost associated with transitioning environments to allow for adequate physical exercise, what is this compared to the greater cost of childhood obesity?

True, there is a high cost associated with childhood obesity, which puts pressure onto the healthcare budgets, not just in Australia but worldwide. Combining these costs with physical inactivity as an independent risk factor is even more compelling. Infrastructure interventions in the built environment cost money and can have a lasting impact over their lifespan. This can be more or less helpful to achieve better health outcomes. Spent in an effective way, a piece of health supporting infrastructure, for example a safe and inclusive bike lane or footpath connecting attractive destinations, can become an effective measure in preventing diseases. However, the questions we should be asking ourselves are; how much do you value your own life? Can you put a price tag on it? Perhaps you want to be loved, spend as much time as possible with people you care about, grow up in comfortable home and have access to clean and safe environments. All of these contribute to your overall health and well-being. So I’d like to ask you why do you choose to spend these days so little time among your loved ones, feel like you need to spend more money on a bigger house, and pollute the environment contributing to an ecological footprint that is now five times higher than this earth’s carrying capacity? The price tag is our children’s overall well-being and we all are starting to pay for it. They are becoming fatter as well as sicker and sadder. Playful spaces near you can be part of the solution. Share your thoughts with us, be part of the debate and help us shape spaces for future generations on Wednesday 8th March.

Interviewed by: Kimberley Le Lieve, FairFax Media.
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Background information on Gregor H Mews

Innovative governance yet the biggest challenge to make Canberra future proof

Let’s face it – the ‘dry’ and not so sexy stuff in urban design matters too. Of course is good fun to talk about quality urban design outcomes and the colourful bicycle culture..but..if we want to be serious about providing a healthy environment for us and for future generations we need to make sure that we treat Canberra as a collection of small towns with one higher services centre (civic), many of the with they own set of shops, commercial, businesses and most importantly utilise the different community wisdom – working together in the spirit of empowerment, collaboration and content awareness.

Who are we?

In the year 2006, 333,940 people lived and spread over 2,358 square km in the ACT with a population density of 142.1 people per square km. This is overall for a capital city exceptionally low and provides a number challenges in terms to providing equal services to it’s population in particular with its growing Greenfield developments, with regards to our sustainability paradigm and health to is residents.

What can we celebrate?

It is also quite remarkable that we can enjoy access to some of the country highly regarded institutions such as the National Library, National Museum, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, National Film and Sound Archives, Australian National University etc.

I’d like to point out that the word ‘national’ occurs frequently in the names and underpins Canberra’s status as the national capital with significance. In other words the average Canberra household is living predominantly a small town environment with a comparable excellent access level to formal social infrastructure. Often referred to overall comparable high quality lifestyle.

Having mentioned all that it becomes self evident that we can treat Canberra as a collection of towns with national significance.

Let’s cross-reference internationally!

Germany and Australia- despite two major differences a) a 20 year policy head start and b) most of the collective dwelling history started before the age of car – I’d like to compare the earlier mentioned set of data to one of Germany’s largest regional district called Landkreis Potsdam- Mittelmark in the state of Brandenburg.  Its size is approximately 2,575 square km with a population of 204,594 (2010). Population density account to 79 people per square km.-

A closer look!

Let me draw for you a better picture of the Landkreis Potsdam Mittelmark. The region contains ten largish towns (more than 10,000 people each) spread over the area.  Given that it’s geographically closely connected to state capital Potsdam, which has similar amount formal institution as Canberra (UNESCO world cultural heritage) and offers a high level of sophisticated services to its population.

So if you add up Potsdam’s stats with these from the Landkreis we achieve an overall geographical size of 2,762.38 square km and overall population of 359,200. The city has a density of 825 people per square km and allows a high level of green transport choices including light, heavy rail, busses – hint economy of scale- as well as a excellent network of walking and cycling infrastructure.

How are we actually performing?

In both cases, the ACT and Potsdam/ Landkreis Potsdam Mittelmark, provide similar service level, commercial activities and offer public transport for its residents. Each suburb/town has a slightly different spirit and mix of interest groups, but interestingly both perform differently through comparing energy and transport matters in a spatially sense?

Both have a large amount of national park or conservation areas, Potsdam and Potsdam Mittelmark 25 in total- Canberra with the National Capital Open Space System and Alpine Parks in the south.

The share of renewable energy sources in the German case increased in just 6 years from 4.2 % (2000) to 34,4 % (2006). The latest data shows a further increase to 47 % in 2008. Due to the average 4.2 to 4.7 hours sunshine per day, they use a mix of renewable energy sources ranging from biomass, wind, solar and geothermal. Simultaneously the overall electricity consumption is declining, made possible through effective communication, empowerment, collaboration, new technologies leading to behaviour change resulting in 3.3 tonnes of CO2 per capita.

Canberra invested recently a lot in solar energy with its individual subsidies/ feed in- tarif and the recent announcement to construct it’s first large scale solar facility. Also the ACT Government released recently its ‘Weathering the Change Action Plan Stage 2’ strategy and is currently using 9.2 global hectares per capita (2009), of which is 12 % is electricity related consumption.

Transport wise the German case ranges from 37% private vehicle share in Potsdam and 50 % private vehicle as the choice of transport in the regional area. This means even in an environmentally aware society the car will still have a role to play in the short to medium term.

However the difference between Potsdam and its surrounding regional area indicates that the car doesn’t have to be the king.

In a built environment that is compact enough to create convenience for all it’s people, with a diversity of land uses, high quality destinations, quality open space network it is possible to reach a higher modal split (20 % bicycle, 23 % walking, 20% public transport). In areas further away from Potsdam, compact towns achieve a share of 30 % people walking and bicycling and 8 % public transport. It is also important to mention that there is a gap in the modal share as the rest may use heavy rail to get into the main centre. The current methods of data collection point out that lack of data.

In terms of the Canberra case – the ‘Transport for Canberra’ strategy indicated a historical car dominance and commitment to create a better and more equitable as well as holistic transport network choices through a bus- and potentially light rail network. There is also a solid amount of active travel work integrated.

Canberra’s modal split in 2006 was 5 % walking, 2.5 % cycling, 7.9 % public transport and 84.6 % private vehicle. The new target is to have 7% walking, 7% cycling and 16 % public transport by 2026.

This is very ambitious as it refers to travel to work trips only and in accordance to the research findings of Jan Gehl around 80 % of active travel trips are account for not work related trips.

Strong links with the planning strategy have been taken into consideration and a commitment to a compact city approach is welcome.

But the work has really just started, if we want get rid of the white elephant!

In conclusion both cases are comparable on a number of items, the German case shows a lot of success stories with a history of 10 years in good policy implementation – in accordance to Agenda 21- that supports innovative governance and cooperation rather a traditional government approach.

Citizen control, delegated power and partnerships are needed to ensure overall success.

However, in the German case not everything worked out either, because one big limitation was the financial disparity between remote areas and the urban centre.

The ACT Government is showing a great deal of commitment and honest intend (strategies are in place)- let’s just hope that on implementation level structural disparities can be bridged and good outcomes achieved by a) acknowledging the spatial differences and b) achieving a good governance model that embraces and supports collective community wisdom.