Diminishing health benefits of living in cities for children and teens
Mar 2023, phys.org
The new Geoffrey West:
The research, by a global consortium of more than 1,500 researchers and physicians, analyzed height and weight data from 71 million children and adolescents (aged five to 19 years) across urban and rural areas of 200 countries from 1990 to 2020.The new study found that in the 21st century, this urban height advantage shrank in most countries as a result of accelerating improvements in height for children and adolescents in rural areas.Also, on average children living in cities had a slightly higher BMI than children in rural areas in 1990.But the reality is too complex to be summarized in a sentence: "The issue is not so much whether children live in cities or urban areas, but where the poor live, and whether governments are tackling growing inequalities with initiatives like supplementary incomes and free school meal programs."
via Imperial College London: Rachel Heap & Conrad Duncan, Diminishing benefits of urban living for the health of children and adolescents, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05772-8.
Collective forms of governance, infrastructural investments, collaboration all help societies last longer, study finds
Mar 2023, phys.org
Researchers examined 24 ancient cities in what's now Mexico and found that the cities that lasted the longest showed indications of collective forms of governance, infrastructural investments, and cooperation between households.
Early efforts to construct dense, interconnected residential spaces and the construction of large, central, open plazas were two of the factors that the authors found contributed to greater sustainability and importance of the early cities.
via Anthropology Field Museum in Chicago: Gary M. Feinman et al, Sustainability and duration of early central places in prehispanic Mesoamerica, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1076740
Image credit: AI Art Hybrid Prabhu B 5 - 2022
Post Script:
Bordeaux town hall set on fire in France pension protests
Mar 2023, BBC News
More than a million people took to the streets across France, sparked by legislation raising the retirement age by two years to 64. ...
I was intrigued by the way they (English-speaking BBC reporters translating French protesters) use this term -- The Street -- as if it were a bunch of people, like a badass crew: "The street has a legitimacy in France," said a protester in Nantes. "If Mr Macron can't remember this historic reality, I don't know what he is doing here".
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