Beautiful, Comfortable Shared Space ~ Lund, SE

Culture of Activity Newsletter
Vol. 1 No. 6
Welcome Everyone!
Thanks so much for joining us.
We’re delighted to have you along for the ride.

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Thank You!
That’s A Wrap! Before we highlight our recent original content, touch upon some highlights from 2016 and profile the year ahead we’d like to say Thank You to everyone out there following along with the Active Towns Initiative as a subscriber to this newsletter as well as on our various social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and through our Culture of Activity Channel on Vimeo

Also, we want to once again express our sincere appreciation to our generous donors and sponsors. As a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, we simply could not do this work of profiling the people, places and programs that promote and sustain a healthy culture of activity without your support.

Making a Donation is easy and tax deductible 🙂 just visit our Fundraising page on our website.

Active Towns Original Content
Our Most Recent Films

Austin, TX
After a few days of uncharacteristically cold days in Austin, things warmed up and when they did, the people came out in force.

We produced this shortie, Episode 33 – An Activity Friendly Day, from some iPhone footage shot while John was out for his morning run.

In a Roundabout Way
We also produced a couple of new shorties for our new side project Facebook page In a Roundabout Way which highlights and celebrates the benefits of people friendly, slow speed roundabouts (especially those with protected bike and ped facilities), small footprint traffic circles and shared space.

Episode 34 profiles a Protected Path Roundabout in Vail, CO.

Episode 35 takes you for a ride through a People Friendly Roundabout in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Flashback Films

In this, our final newsletter edition for 2016, we thought it would be appropriate to highlight our most popular films of the year. By a wide margin it was these four videos:

Episode 13 – West Palm Beach A Pop Up Activation Story about a little bike rack and how it helped transform the character of and activate a neglected space.

Episode 21 – Boulder Tube to Work Day An Activity Promoting Event Profile of this fun annual tradition in Boulder, CO that attracts hundreds or participants, while enhancing awareness about alternative modes of commute transportation. We might just have to shoot this next year from the perspective of an inner tube.

Episode 25 – Creating of Culture of Activity A Video Montage from our Active Towns Tour which highlights some of the amazing places we’ve visited and things we’ve learned.

Episode 22 – Estes Park Bike Parade An Activity Promoting Event Profile of this engaging community roll through the middle of Estes Park, CO. The goal of this annual event is to promote awareness for a more people friendly environment within this small town that is the gateway to the Rocky Mountain National Park and can often feel very intimidating to anyone not in a motor vehicle.

Other Interesting Content
Here are several recent articles that have caught our eye and were quite popular on the “interwebs”

Placemaking’s power to build healthier, happier communities outlined in new report: The Case for Healthy Places connects community building with wellbeing and was published on Curbed by Patrick Sisson on December 9, 2016. It highlights some critical findings on the relationship between health outcomes and location from a new report by the Project for Public Spaces

America’s Best New Bike Lanes of 2016 by Michael Andersen was posted by the People For Bikes organization on December 19, 2016. It’s encouraging to see the momentum around the creation of protected bike lanes across the country… and even a few protected intersections. In our opinion, next generation steps should include the implementation of slow speed, protected roundabouts, more small footprint traffic circles and people prioritized shared spaces where motor vehicles are welcome, but only as guests.

A video review of my 2016 posts and videos by Bicycle Dutch by Dutch Cycling Ambassador Mark Wagenbuur gives a wonderful retrospective of his work from the past year and provides some helpful opportunities for communities and cultures from around the world to learn from the efforts being put forth in The Netherlands.

2016: The Year the Placemaking Movement Went Global by Ethan Kent with the Project for Public Spaces provides a helpful glimpse into the worldwide movement that is placemaking. Ultimately Active Towns are partly a result of effective placemaking which manifests in inviting, invigorating and inclusive Activity Assets.

Potential Content Profile: Let us know if you see any relevant articles, interesting research or thought provoking blog posts – just drop John an email at: john@activetowns.org

Final Thoughts ~ Looking Forward

Farewell 2016

As we say goodbye to the year 2016 and reflect back on the challenges and accomplishments, when it comes to making people oriented places which encourage a healthy culture of activity, we acknowledge both that the road may indeed be rocky and that we have some encouraging momentum, who knows, maybe even enough to roll right over some of those rough spots.

Welcoming in 2017

At the Active Towns Initiative we’ll be continuing to seek out, document and profile the people, places and programs that are making a difference by creating and sustaining a healthy culture of activity.

Our big goal for the year is to make substantial progress on a full length documentary celebrating the stories and learnings associated with established and emerging Active Towns from across the country. Please consider helping us achieve this goal by making a donation today at: www.activetowns.org/fundraising

Purpose
The primary goals of this periodic email are to keep our subscribers up to speed on recent Active Towns original content and review relevant curated content created by others.

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