Allotment gardening and health: a comparative survey among allotment gardeners and their neighbors without an allotment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The potential contribution of allotment gardens to a healthy and active life-style is increasingly recognized, especially for elderly populations. However, few studies have empirically examined beneficial effects of allotment gardening. In the present study the health, well-being and physical activity of older and younger allotment gardeners was compared to that of controls without an allotment.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A survey was conducted among 121 members of 12 allotment sites in the Netherlands and a control group of 63 respondents without an allotment garden living next to the home addresses of allotment gardeners. The survey included five self-reported health measures (perceived general health, acute health complaints, physical constraints, chronic illnesses, and consultations with GP), four self-reported well-being measures (stress, life satisfaction, loneliness, and social contacts with friends) and one measure assessing self-reported levels of physical activity in summer. Respondents were divided into a younger and older group at the median of 62 years which equals the average retirement age in the Netherlands.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After adjusting for income, education level, gender, stressful life events, physical activity in winter, and access to a garden at home as covariates, both younger and older allotment gardeners reported higher levels of physical activity during the summer than neighbors in corresponding age categories. The impacts of allotment gardening on health and well-being were moderated by age. Allotment gardeners of 62 years and older scored significantly or marginally better on all measures of health and well-being than neighbors in the same age category. Health and well-being of younger allotment gardeners did not differ from younger neighbors. The greater health and well-being benefits of allotment gardening for older gardeners may be related to the finding that older allotment gardeners were more oriented towards gardening and being active, and less towards passive relaxation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These findings are consistent with the notion that having an allotment garden may promote an active life-style and contribute to healthy aging. However, the findings may be limited by self selection and additional research is needed to confirm and extend the current findings.</p

Infrastructure, planning and the command of time

​Governments in many countries have sought to accelerate the time taken to make decisions on major infrastructure projects, citing problems of ‘delay’. Despite this, rarely has the time variable been given careful empirical or conceptual attention in decision-making generally, or in infrastructure decision-making specifically. This paper addresses this deficit by analysing decision-making on two categories of major infrastructure in the UK – transport and electricity generation – seeking both to generate better evidence of the changes to decision times in recent decades, and to generate insights from treating time as resource and tracking its (re)allocation. We find that reforms introduced since 2008 have done relatively little to alter overall decision times, but that there are marked and revealing changes to the allocation of time between decision-making stages. While public planning processes have their time frames tightly regulated, aspects led by developers (e.g. pre-application discussion) are not; arranging finance can have a bigger effect on project time frames, and central government retains much flexibility to manage the flow of time. Speed-up reforms are also sectorally uneven in their reach. This indicates how arguments for time discipline falter in the face of infrastructure projects that remain profoundly politicised

Berlin: Stadt in Planung und im Wandel

Berlin has always been a city in a process of change. Since the reunification, however, the transition has gained pace. Berlin has reclaimed the status of the German capital city and become a target of international direct investment. Despite prestigous developments such as the Potsdamer Platz or the new central station brought forth in the earlier years after re-unification, the economics recovery has not gained strength until recently. The historic center has re-established itself as the center of the unified city while at the same time, the City West, despite several ups and downs, is thriving. The new international major airport is finally close to completion. Not least, the city has become a research lab for e-mobility and a center of IT and creative industries. At the same time the economic recovery has started to eliminate excess supply of space, which was characteristic for the city over the recent decades, giving rise to affordability concerns and social conflicts. This city tour introduces into the tensions between ambitions and anxieties of planners and residents that are associated with the ongoing transition