The interview guest on Living on Earth this weekend made a
comment that I think is true on many levels.
He said something to the effect of that the thing we could do that would
have the greatest impact on improving the world is to focus urban
planning/development to get rid of commuting.
He was talking about creating more work/live/play neighborhoods. Similar effects could be achieved by enhancing
telecommuting. But think about all of
the benefits this would give us:
- Better for the environment by reducing gas used and smog created.
- Save money by using less gas, less maintenance needed on your car, less tax revenue needed for road building and maintenance.
- Save time that used to be spent commuting.
- Reduce stress by eliminating road rage and the other stresses of commuting in traffic.
- Reduce accidents from people trying to be productive by texting, reading, eating, etc on the way to work.
It seems to me that this would have more of an impact on our
lives than world peace, balancing the deficit, and all the other things that
take up the news headlines. The
happiness research shows that what really makes us happy are the day to day
details. I suspect that combining all of
these day to day benefits would be huge.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment