I think the Building Healthy Communities approach is both retro and revolutionary. It leads me to ask myself what would happen if we were actually self-governing people in the most basic sense. We have bodies at many levels whose roles are to act in the common good. But what if we were allowed, at the local, regional, state and national levels, to decide what our priorities were.
How healthy would our housing be? What would our streets, schools and parks look like? How and where would we find healthy, affordable food? How would we access medical care? How would we get around? How would we all be employed or otherwise occupied? Who would watch the children, those with disabilities and the elderly? How would we pool our resources to get what we really wanted?
Would we have grinding daily commutes? Would any of us choose to get our food from either liquor stores or over-priced yuppie-marts? Would we accept ourselves or others becoming isolated beings serving no functions in our communities? Would we pool our resources as we currently do, or would we have a smoothly scaled tax system with rates from zero to 95%?
Maybe representative democracy as we know it has had its day.
COMMENTS
BY Bart
ON August 21, 2015 02:48 AM
I completely agree and I think that a positive mindset really helps with the overall health of the body and household.
BY Celine
ON October 14, 2017 02:17 PM
I think the Building Healthy Communities approach is both retro and revolutionary. It leads me to ask myself what would happen if we were actually self-governing people in the most basic sense. We have bodies at many levels whose roles are to act in the common good. But what if we were allowed, at the local, regional, state and national levels, to decide what our priorities were.
How healthy would our housing be? What would our streets, schools and parks look like? How and where would we find healthy, affordable food? How would we access medical care? How would we get around? How would we all be employed or otherwise occupied? Who would watch the children, those with disabilities and the elderly? How would we pool our resources to get what we really wanted?
Would we have grinding daily commutes? Would any of us choose to get our food from either liquor stores or over-priced yuppie-marts? Would we accept ourselves or others becoming isolated beings serving no functions in our communities? Would we pool our resources as we currently do, or would we have a smoothly scaled tax system with rates from zero to 95%?
Maybe representative democracy as we know it has had its day.