Chicago: most caffeinated US city
“Chicagoans eat more chocolate and drink more cola than other U.S. urbanites, and are among the top consumers of energy drinks and coffee.”
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Anti-pigeon movement takes flight, wants bread
Cities in Europe are discussing methods for reducing their pigeon populations.
Scientists, city officials and animal welfare activists met in the western German city of Essen on Tuesday for Germany’s first Town Pigeon Conference to discuss how to deal with the growing pigeon population which is expected to rise by around 50 million to up to 400 million worldwide in the next 10 years as a result of growing urbanization.
There are around one million of them in New York, and Venice has the highest pigeon density with an estimated three birds per human inhabitant. In most big European towns, there is around one pigeon for every 20 citizens.
What are the risks?
[T]he birds can and do spread diseases, allergies and parasites to humans. Haag-Wackernagel says many everyday illnesses including allergies can be attributed to human proximity to the birds which carry salmonella, lung illnesses, fleas, ticks and a host of other ailments — something to think about when surrounded by flapping pigeons in town squares or outdoor cafes.
How do we get rid of them?
“Killing makes no sense at all,” says Haag-Wackernagel. “The birds have an enormous reproduction capacity and they’ll just come back. There is a linear relationship between the bird population and the amount of food available.” A pair of pigeons can produce up to 12 fledglings per year.
“The best way to reduce the population is not to feed them. People say it’s cruel to deprive them of food but in the wild the sudden absence of food is a completely natural occurrence and animals adapt to it.”
Photograph by Pensiero.
Designing away climate change and fat people.
Britain’s health secretary, Alan Johnson, proposes the “10 eco towns already being planned by the government should now be built and designed to confront the UK’s obesity crisis.”
“We have to look at ways of improving the built environment, doing more to help people make physical activity a normal part of everyday life.”
Mr Johnson is leading a cross-government drive to put the eco towns concept at the cutting edge of the fight against obesity. Each new town is planned to house as many as 20,000 people. He has also been looking at tackling some of the least healthy cities in the north or London boroughs to see if progress can be made in redesigning existing towns.
Obesity is estimated to cost the UK £1bn a year and is projected to rise to £45bn by 2050.
Forbes: America’s most sedentary cities.
Forbes: America’s most sedentary cities.
Forbes added together three scores for each city. These scores measured body mass index, physical inactivity, and television viewing. They derived the first two scores from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the television viewing score came from Nielsen data.
Memphis came in first and five of the top ten are cities in the southeastern United States (I’m not counting Miami).