Case study: round suburb walk starts to wake indigenuity

PLACE: Stockholm, Sweden

SITUATION:  The local cultural center, with its youth theatre, music school and library is taking on a new challenge: to find creative ways to bring local citizens closer to sustainability.

Like charity, sustainability begins at home. Although for most people in a suburb, home functions as a place to sleep and be whilst away from work. Yet people need to engage as Stockholm is getting ready to embrace a fossil-free future. It intends to be fossil-independent already by 2020. Walking cities are surely in that vision.

FRAMING QUESTION: How can a suburb creatively engage residents in a way that fosters a sense of place, a sense of the challenges involved as the city moves away from fossil fuel dependence?

SOLUTION:  Create a round suburb walk, publish a map and connect the map to a web-based discussion forum.

Premièring on Sunday the 30th March, the Suburb of Farsta, Stockholm, Sweden gets its own round walking route. Designed to give residents a feeling for the size and scope of the place, its creator, Stephen Hinton of Stephen Hinton Consulting, hopes that the walk will encourage people to get to know the area and its assets and challenges a little better. He also hopes that local associations will find uses for the walk and even schools will be encouraged to do a little environmental mathematics, like working out how much carbon dioxide they can save by walking.

The round walk might even encourage people to get out and exercise more. And there is no excuse that the walk is too long- there are plenty of bus stops and underground stations to hop onto as well as some really pleasant cafes to stop for a coffee.

Indigenuity: living in a place in a way that provides your needs whilst stewarding it so it can continue to do the same for generations to come.

There is a real need to work with things that foster indigenuity in people: living in a globalised economy as we do, the very place we live in can get drained of resources and unable to support us as conditions change.