More Wisdom from Unlikely Sources

"Research suggests walking or cycling for just half an hour a day can have a significant improvement on our state of health. But why don't we do it more? Often... because our towns and cities make it nearly impossible, and because it might help if the built environment was more attractive and appealing to the pedestrian... We are perhaps not far behind our American cousins in the 'supersizing' epidemic."

And who might this wise man be? None other than the pretender to the throne of Great Britain & Her fair Dominions, Charles Philip Arthur George.

Now, as astute readers may have already guessed, I am a trifle sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. Nonetheless, I am prepared to give credit where due, and Charles has been a strong critic of the beauty-bereft utilitarianism of contemporary architecture and urban planning. His point is strongest when we consider the transportation necessary for suburb dwellers to carry on their day-to-day activities. Virtually everything one must pick up, buy or attend to is likely beyond the comfortable reach of walking- and it is thus no wonder that society is becoming increasingly obese, not only in America, but in lands which have thus far avoided the scourge of republicanism.

A quick word about government's role in all of this- while I am by and large a fan of the Austrian School of Economics, I question whether urban planning is not an exception. The public good of aesthetic worth is so often undervalued by developers that a role for the government would seem to be appropriate.

“Among our ancient mountains, And from our lovely vales, Oh! Let the prayer re-echo: God bless the Prince of Wales!”