Investing in Community

This week The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is sponsoring The Shape We're In, focusing on why nearly two-thirds of Americans are out of shape.

The series kicks off with Experts plotting America's new diet: Less sprawl, less fat, less frenzy. From the article: "Right now, 75 percent of all trips less than a mile are taken by car. About 25 percent of people are physically active. Another 50 percent do a little activity. And 25 percent do virtually nothing."

Here's my take on it. If you've got nothing to do and nowhere to go, then of course you'll do nothing and go nowhere. It's all about having choices, and unfortunately the industrial, mass production economy doesn't provide much. However, the good news is we're transitioning to an information-based, mass customization era of multiple choices, and that means more of us will get to live in cool towns where we have ten options each night to entertain ourselves within walking distance, rather than two (watch TV or surf the internet).