Health, city's livability go hand in hand
Tennessee Voices
Can a place be healthy? Surely we think so — we are always comparing one place to another when new statistics come out about infant mortality, obesity and cancer in our city and state.
Personal choices about diet, exercise and tobacco account for a huge part of what makes us unhealthy, but willpower doesn’t really distinguish one place from another. The choices we make as families, religious communities, employers, educators and communities do. It is the choices we make about “our” health and well-being that make a place healthy.
Organizations get involved
Fundamental to health and well-being are education, economic development and public safety. These are Mayor Karl Dean’s core priorities. If we succeed with the mayor in improving education, economic opportunity and safety for everyone in Nashville, we will save lives, live better and live longer.
As the mayor says, however, it’s all connected. Health is interwoven with his priorities and with the things that make a place livable. For example, active children who eat nutritious food pay attention better and learn better. A healthy, livable city attracts individuals, families and businesses. If people feel safe when they go out, from crime or from the neighbors’ dogs, then children are more likely to play and adults are more likely to walk.
Nashville has taken significant strides toward better livability and better health.
In recent years, Nashville’s system of bikeways and greenways has grown, and Mayor Dean has endorsed a vision of a more walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly city with the creation of a Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee coordinated in his office.
Miles of sidewalk have been created. Even children are starting to recognize mixed-use walkable communities when they see them. Metro Parks has new, spectacular community centers that get lots of use.
