A recent news article pointed out that a study published in Science Advances found that people with access to green spaces were found to be on average 2.5 years biologically younger than those who do not.
The study followed more than 900 white and black people from four American cities – Birmingham, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Oakland – over a period of 20 years, from 1986 to 2006. It used satellite imaging to assess how close the participants lived to surrounding vegetation and parks, and then paired that data with blood samples taken in years 15 and 20 of the study to determine their biological age.
It found that people whose homes were surrounded by 30 percent green cover within a 5 kilometer radius were on average 2.5 years younger biologically than those whose homes were surrounded by 20 percent green cover.
That’s a big argument for having public green spaces in our communities, isn’t it?
But we all know by now that there’s no we are getting any public green spaces, especially in “growing” cities where the priority, especially in the busiest areas of town, is all commercial interests. The only green spaces we have are the town plazas, which usually have a bit of greenery but a lot of ukay-ukay.
If you come to think of it, we do have green spaces here in the Philippines, lots of it actually here in Negros Island because we are mainly agricultural, but the problem is the greens we have are mostly in farms or behind walls of private homes. The only public greenery we actually have, aside from the very few and small public parks available, are whatever trees we have on sidewalks and maybe on some islands between roads. If you ask me, that won’t be enough to make anyone biologically younger by an average of 2.5 years.
We don’t have green public spaces. What we have instead are shopping malls, left right and center. We can’t blame the mall developers for putting up malls because it is their business, a very profitable one at that, to take advantage of our government’s lack of interest in providing free, green, and public spaces for its people. However, we can blame our public officials for failing to give us those options. They’ve been spending billions upon billions to pour concrete everywhere, even where it isn’t needed, but when it comes to building parks, there seems to be neither the budget nor any political will for it.
The only public spaces we have are town plazas or around government centers, and if you come to think of it, most of those places can’t even be defined as proper parks, which should be more than just some grass, a couple of trees, benches, a playground, and a water fountain. Being in the Philippines, there will most likely be a covered court as well, but that shouldn’t be part of the park anymore, if you ask me.
One example of a poorly conceived “park” is that weird one at the median island of the national highway near the Northbound Terminal in Bacolod City. It’s in the middle of the highway, near a flyover, but there are benches, lights, and some park-like amenities. I can’t imagine why people would want to relax there, especially with families, when it requires crossing a busy highway to get to a narrow strip of greenery. But for me, it’s an example of the mentality our public officials have when it comes to parks, which to them is mostly an afterthought.
The benefit of allowing people to be biologically younger by an average of 2.5 years is something that we simply cannot buy in malls, making it an amenity that any well-meaning and responsible government must strive to provide. With that in mind, it is still not too late for the leaders we put in power to serve our interests by acquiring precious land in and around city centers that can be used as properly designed and well thought out public parks. This is a challenge these days, as most local governments are actively doing the opposite, which is selling prime but idle government land which could be turned into parks, to commercial interests.
One thing the best cities in the world have in common is the quality and quantity of their public parks. New York has Central Park, London has Hyde Park, Bangkok has Lumphini Park, while all we have are our town plazas and the Provincial Capitol lagoon, with no plans whatsoever to add any more, probably because all our government is interested in are highways.
Will we just be content with losing an average of 2.5 years of biological age in our communities where green public spaces don’t seem to be a priority?*
