Mapping Connections Between Healthy Communities, Planning, Placemaking and Asset Based Community Development

Now that New Community Paradigms (NCP) has a more effective map with which to find new pathways it is possible to go back and reconnect with some that may have been missed or left behind. In general, the trend has been away from institutions or more institutionally based systems and toward more complex systems of greater community involvement but this does not and should not mean abandoning institutions entirely. A greater emphasis on ground-up community placemaking should not mean an abandonment of a more traditional role of planning. It is the relationship between the two that should be redefined.  

This goes to a wider issue of the difference between complicated top-down management systems and complex community governance systems. Despite an obvious preference, at least if you have been following this blog, for the later, the need and benefit of the former are still recognized under the proper circumstances. It is the correct relationship between the two that needs to be defined. 

One area in which this could be seen as being helpful is Planning for Healthy Communities, a new page under the NCP wiki. We are using the term “planning” in the sense of the American Planning Association, the foundational, professional, educational oriented organization behind city hall planning departments across the USA. It is able to suggest policy on a national scale and in the case of the Planning and Community Health Center, focuses its efforts on projects and policies that prioritize active living, food systems, and health in all planning policies.

Many local governments have begun Planning for Public Health by including goals and objectives that promote healthy choices of where to live and how to get around, the ability to access healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity, which affect broader issues of social equity, clean air, and water, and more into their comprehensive plans. More specifically, Plan4Health Projects and Initiatives are launching across the United States in neighborhoods, cities, and counties. Plan4Health supports creative partnerships to build sustainable, cross-sector coalitions.

“Local coalitions consisting of American Planning Association (APA) chapters and American Public Health Association (APHA) affiliate members are committed to increasing health equity through nutrition or physical activity with each coalition seen as being dedicated to meeting the needs of residents where they live, work, or play.”

The American Planning Association’s Planning and Community Health Research Center has also partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Healthy Community Design Initiative, on the CDC - Healthy Places - Healthy Community Design Checklist Toolkit. This toolkit, which can help planners, public health professionals, and the general public to include health in the community planning process, is composed of four elements that work together to achieve this goal:

1. Healthy Community Design Checklist.pdf
2. Healthy Community Design PowerPoint Presentation.ppt
3. Creating a Health Profile of Your Neighborhood.pdf
4. Planning for Health Resources Guide.pdf

It is still, however, a generally top-down application of policy and may never be initiated or fully realized without the intervention of grassroots efforts as well as, as suggested by Paul Born, grass-top organizational efforts.

“In the early days of a collective impact approach, we often find that one of two mistakes is made. One is that we gather only the grasstops. That is, we think somehow it’s about shifting power. So we bring the powerful players into the room. The other mistake, almost as common, is that we don’t engage any of the power players because we’re afraid that it will be perceived as a grass-tops initiative.”

There is underlying data that can be gathered and used to inform all perspectives, Health-Impact-Assessment-Can-Inform.pdf, the State-of-Health-Impact-Assessment-in-Planning.pdf, and the HIA-Toolkit.pdf. 

Additionally, Project for Public Spaces (PPS) recently released an extensive report of peer-reviewed research and case studies, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, demonstrating the power of placemaking to improve health. 

"The Case for Healthy Places is already taking the public health world by storm, and we are confident that this is just the beginning of the Healthy Placemaking Movement!"

Before proceeding further, it should be advised that one could reach all of the following points on the Kumu maps and all others from within the New Community Paradigms Wiki Kumu map itself rather than open in multiple tabs or windows from here. Information on how to navigate through the map can be found through the New Community Paradigms Wiki Map Tour.

A new Planning for Healthy Communities wiki page means a new element on the New Community Paradigms Wiki Map. Wiki-pages are collections of resources related to that topic though are by no means exhaustive. In truth, they are merely gateways into essential, more in-depth studies of the area in question. Their corresponding map elements in conjunction with other elements graphically illustrate possible relationships. It will be noticed that some relationships are more explicit in feeding back to each other.  The idea underlying these mapped out relationships is to expand upon the concepts and avoid the siloing of policy thinking. 

More precisely the Kumu map Planning for Healthy Communities is within the Health Communities Kumu map. One can click on the map’s white space to reveal the fuller map underneath. Other Healthy Communities wiki page links are then displayed in the narrative section. 

Planning for Healthy Communities can be seen as a bridge between Healthy Communities and Community Places within the Places map. Clicking the map’s white space again reveals the numerous wiki pages, bridge pages and other related wiki pages from other wiki maps under the full Places map.

One returns to the collection of web links found on a particular wiki page using the URL within the narrative section of that map element, say Community Places, which focuses more on the community (as a geographic place) planning of building by the community (as social structure). 

Mousing over the highlighted Community Place element of the Places map or any map element shows those wiki pages most directly associated, other overlaying concepts of Place, the wiki focus page of Community Design, the closely related Project for Public Spaces, along with Soul of a Community, and the bridge to Healthy Communities through Planning for Healthy Communities. 

A similar set of relationships exists with the Healthy Communities element within the Healthy Communities map, including the bridge Planning for Healthy Communities and the related Asset Based Community Development or ABCD. It is the relationship of ABCD in this context that calls for the greatest need for future exploration. 

A short Twitter-talk with Cormac Russell on the CityLab article, The New Front Line of Public Health, on the growing number of community health workers taking a 360-degree view of the barriers that stand between their patients and better health, revealed an ABCD perspective.

“Relative to current malaise it's a quantum leap; relative to what's actually required, it's a mediocre shuffle in the right direction.”

According to Cormac, a significant shift requires seeing beyond healthcare and the proliferation of initiatives like Every Block A Village-Chicago Westside Health Authority.

All of these perspectives can be expanded structurally even further by going to the Wiki Bridges Map in which Planning for Health Communities can be found under *Places of the map’s narrative section. Again, click any white space to reveal the full map. 

More dynamic, complex relationships can be followed as pathways under the Wiki Bridges Pathways Map. Selecting Places Wiki Bridges, one can mouse over the narrative highlighting relevant pathways within the map connecting Places and its elements to other areas of the complete New Community Paradigms map. There isn’t any predetermined route, each group, organization or community determines its own course, preferably by making its own maps.  

NCP - Looking for Coherent Context in Complexity

The last blog post introduced the new Kumu map of the New Community Paradigms (NCP) Wiki. This has been a long-term project and this was not the first attempt. A complex undertaking, resulting in an admittedly complex display so an introductory tour was also provided on the first page of the Kumu project map. Complex, because the multiple topics can influence each other through multiple connections and pathways in ways not usually seen in standard top-down pyramid configurations of local government. 

The resources collected within the NCP wiki pages are not typically found in institutional settings but they are established and viable. They are even less likely to be configured into an overall system. New Community Paradigms, as an overall set of concepts, are somewhere between “Crazy Ideas” and Erasmus Darwin on a continuum of paradigm development.  

Erasmus Darwin was cited previously in Exploring with the Dialogue, Deliberation and Systemic Transformation Community to Discover New Possibilities Part 1 of 3:

One, presented more fully here, is that we are not likely at this point in time to find one overarching answer to all of our challenges or a grand theory of community engagement as Charles Darwin did with evolution. Instead, we are in the period preceding in which work was being done by numerous persons mostly remaining unknown by history. One exception though as he seems to have been instrumental in Charles Darwin's development is Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, for noting the importance of the evolutionary-intergenerational perspective. Erasmus Darwin is the one who is made to look like a monkey in the drawings from that time. The analogy being that what may appear to be crazy, or a monkey’s uncle ideas today could be an important aspect of creating, what I am calling, new community paradigms in the future. 

He was also cited in Using Deliberation and Systems Thinking to Address Healthcare Costs, along with George Box, whose declaration "All models (or maps) are wrong, Some models are useful” has become a foundational principle for NCP. These efforts through explorations and experiments are seen as small steps in small spaces, slowly building relationships and bridges between different conceptual arenas. I have little faith in grandiose global transformations.

What they all have in common is that they are limited, not only in terms of George Box’s principle, "All models are wrong, Some models are useful” but also in terms of applicability. They are narrowly focused experiments in applying systems thinking to questions of direct community governance. An analogy might be to see them as attempts to match the work of Erasmus Darwin, and others, in the natural sciences prior to his famous grandson’s theory of evolution. They are opportunities for trial and learning.

Also in the last post, Sailing Complex and Wicked Seas with Icebergs (Systems Thinking) was cited for the insight into combining both longitude and latitude in thinking about something. 

Both are needed, like using both longitude and latitude to keep a ship on course. Both are part of the same global grid but each is determined differently, together requiring new means of navigation. The danger is not in getting lost east and west or north and south but being either marooned by one's own limited perspective or being lost in a complex sea of interactions. 

An idea that came from one of my favorite PBS shows, How We Got To Now with Steven Johnson / Time (Emmy Winner). Changing the direction of one’s perspective to one based on a different set of premises can open an until then unthought of a world of possibilities. With the blog, one is able to build upon the foundation created through past discoveries. With the system's thinking models, one is able to explore and test concepts and with Kumu mapping, one can begin to think laterally putting different ideas together.

Though, admittedly, this navigation metaphor is not being applied exactly in the same manner in the two instances. It is more of a meta idea, using Kumu or any mapping to expand one’s perspective and find unrevealed connections, as discussed in Dancing through the Complexities of Thinking Systematically about Systems Thinking  

In addition to thinking about the particular specific issues, when looking at a system and establishing our boundaries of what we consider the system to be, we also begin thinking about meta-issues, the meta is the thing to focus on as higher level of abstractness or about (its own category). 

Sailing Complex and Wicked Seas with Icebergs (Systems Thinking) also considered the concepts behind the Systems Thinking Iceberg Model, which has been referenced a number of times in this blog and utilized in a variety of different ways. The Kumu project map of the NCP Wiki conveying the Structural level of the Iceberg upon which the Event level plays out over time through the Patterns level. As mentioned in the last post, these blog posts are seen being part of the Mental Model level, though recognized as being only a very small part of a community mental model. 

"Taken a further step, the organizing principles of the Systems Thinking Iceberg model can help us to better understand and utilize or leverage the feedback loops making up systems. It has been used by this blog in attempting to explain abstract principles of how external causal loops could influence a specific system to the extent that it becomes, in reality, part of a larger system needing to be addressed as with Complexity Assailing Our Communities, to develop deliberative systems to understand multiple, intertwined issues across multiple sectors as with Healthcare Costs, and to organize diverse entities to take action across different sectors to address common concerns through Collective Impact efforts."

The effective use of modeling, especially through Kumu relationship mapping based on systems thinking has become an integral part of New Community Paradigms. Moving over a year between beginning to see Systems Thinking as a disciplined process for Community Governance, as a means of scaffolding direct deliberative democracy, to Getting Deep into ST - Systems Thinking Certification, which asked:

"...you to shift your perspective of the world from how it is usually presented as a machine subject to being broken down into smaller pieces and therefore controllable with the right levers. It asks you to look at your world as an interrelated system or a series of systems. The emphasis, at this point, is not on whether the world is a single system or multiple systems, rather it is how we approach the nature of such a system."

The greatest shortcoming of the New Community Paradigms Wiki Kumu Map project is that I built it myself and it would be far better for others if they built it or their own version of it for themselves as explained in Enabling a Better Tomorrow through New Community Paradigms via Systems Thinking

An experiential truth, one that you have to go through yourself, is that these different perspectives between the different systems being examined and system thinking itself, and between the various types of systems thinking and the different levels at which they operate are not as separate and distinct as they seem.  

They may appear so when presented on the pages of this blog but in their consistent utilization, there is a tipping point at which the complexity begins to become more coherent. The uncertainty may remain because that is always a factor within the complexity and some may prefer to ignore both the complexity and the uncertainty. Unfortunately, this is usually unsustainable and leads to unintended and invariably bad consequences. 

The ‘Moonshot’ challenge then is getting the members of your organization or community willing to work past the hurdles to reach beyond that point.

This assessment does not consider my own shortcomings but even in that case, Kumu mapping allows one to not only return and correct mistakes resulting from too quickly moving on with new explorations and experiments but also reevaluating based on new insights. At this point in the journey, establishing the pathways is more important than establishing the destinations which are seen as better being left to individual communities to determine. 

The desire is that if New Community Paradigms ever achieved its intended potential that it would then be as useful to a tea-party based community as it would be to a progressive green community. The two communities would use different resources in different manners but there could still be an underlying set of principles developed. The real challenge is when the two communities and versions in-between are conjoined together into an even more complex whole. 

NCP endeavors to search for new ways of Connecting Complexity with Community using Systems Thinking as scaffolding for a Bridge between Democratic Issues and Democratic Principles. The latest exploration is learning more about Asset Based Community Development, Social Networks and the Commons connecting Associational Life as another possible replacement for top-down political control by the invariably privileged few.

It is upon this basis, a system of associational relationships to develop community wealth that Asset Based Community Development seeks to help communities find solutions to community challenges. This requires not only connections but diversity as well according to Professor Scott E. Page, an assertion that has a mathematical basis. 

The community working instead on developing its own new community paradigms. 

Asset Based Community Development Lessons for Systems Thinking

In the last post, Cormac Russell, faculty member of the ABCD Institute at Northwestern University, Illinois, now DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois and Managing Director of Nurture Development, the leading Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) organization in Europe, was introduced by this blog. He was contrasted with a more ‘Collective Impact’ approach to ABCD. In this post, we will look at the approach taken by Cormac and Nurture Development and contrast them with the approach taken by this effort, especially Systems Thinking. Such contrasts are more in the nature of different sides of a dice rather than mutually exclusive opposites. 

As was mentioned in the last post, Cormac seems far more likely to write about 'collective' in terms of, “direct collective energy towards collective action” or, “a way that is inclusive and supports people to generate disparate energy into collective democratic power", rather than the often top down methodology of Collective Impact. A problem with Grasstop oriented Collective Impact is that citizen leaders can often be stuck in silos as readily as government departments can. 

At the recent TEDXExter 2016, Cormac gave a talk on Sustainable community development: from what's wrong to what's strong, arguing that we need to start with what's strong within a community instead of trying to right what we see as wrong. We can grapple with humanity’s toughest questions by helping people in discovering what gifts they have and using those gifts to enrich those around them and help people to define and to live a good life. For more background there is John McKnight Keynote Speech about the history, practice and future of Asset Based Community Development from the 2016 ABCD Festival and What is Asset Based Community Development? (in under four minutes)  (more videos).

Now the videos will provide you with a pretty clear, concise and complete idea of what Asset Based Community Development is and what it tries to accomplish, so if you are still reading and haven’t watched yet, you should. If you have watched then you might want to stop and reflect a bit then come back.

In Cormac's TEDXExter video, he uses a familiar term in Systems Thinking, 'unintended consequences'. In this case, of our current institutional, often bureaucratic attempts at helping people in our communities, listing four of them.

The first unintended consequence is defining people not by their gifts, capacities and what they can bring to the solution but by their deficiencies and their problems. The second unintended consequence resulting from a top-down obsession is that money doesn’t go to those who actually need the help.  Instead, it goes to those who are paid to provide the services to those who need help. The third unintended consequence is that active citizenship, the power to take action and to respond at the grassroots level, retreats in the face of ever-increasing technocracy driven by professionalism and expertise and finally. 

With the fourth unintended consequence, Cormac mentions another Systems Thinking term or tool, mapping. Entire neighborhoods, entire communities which have been defined as deficient will start to internalize an imposed a negative 'map' and believe that the only way that anything is going to change for them is when some outside expert with the right program and the right money comes in to rescue them these so-called unintended harms.

At this point, I may have a tendency to start having some different perspectives from Cormac. Before making too much of this though, I should state my own perspective that maps should be seen as raising questions, not providing answers. Maps are launching points for exploration, one can always provide more detail and deeper understanding or one can move beyond the edges. It is easy enough to take maps for granted which is invariably done all the time but that is merely intellectual laziness. 

A viable way to be collective and inclusive from the bottom up, according to Cormac and those with a similar mind set, is to work through the concept of the communal Commons to enable some type of Coalition of the Doing in determining the relationship between Capitalism And the Commons. Such an approach encourages communities to ask questions such as, does growth equal success? (Hint - no it doesn't).

ABCD has the capacity to encompass a rather expansive view of community. It can take a neighbor to neighbor approach as did Tamarack's Abundant Community Edmonton which is part of its campaign to work towards the promise of deepening community. It can also take an institutional city government approach, as with Our London is a city of Neighbourhoods, London, Ontario, Canada that is.

Cormac is concerned with institutions using asset mapping to build data about the assets of communities, like an inventory, instead of supporting those communities by first building relationships and then connecting the assets. Even so, he provided a practical and fun way to start a conversation about community assets without any theory. The point according to Cormac is remembering asset mapping is an inside job focused on relationship building not data collection. Similarly with Systems Thinking, it is the relationship between people and assets that brings about the potential for emergent capacities of the community. The challenge is keeping the focus on the community. 

One possible way of keeping the focus on community could be through a digital community and virtual collaboration. The later is one area I am currently working on through a Systems Thinking approach. The Leeds Digital Festival is one example of a real world community, working as a digital community, leading the process to understand themselves, rather than depending upon others to do it for them. This, however, presents a whole new set of decisions according to Usman Haque. 

Being that we are focusing on community, it seemed that there should be a potential but true synergy between the work of Placemaking, as in the creation of Community Places (wiki-page) done by organizations such as Project for Public Spaces and Asset Based Community Development (wiki-page) work being done by Nurture Development and other organizations, if one takes the view that Placemaking is to places what ABCD is to people. Having admitted not knowing that much about ABCD, I asked the experts. Project 4 Public Spaces told me Placemaking is indeed inspired by and connected to Asset-Based Community Development and the good folks at @ABCD_Global agreed.

The area of greatest interest is in the creation of Healthy Cities (wiki-page) and communities. Cormac Russell is seen as a sort of Medical Heretic, in a good way, by the Home | World Health Innovation Summit's blog. In particular with efforts at Place Based Health through which community social work moves away from an assessment/case management approach and shifts from what's wrong to what's strong. This approach promotes the concept of 'social prescribing' and other ideas redefining, the Future of Medicine.

"We have to build circumstances to allow General Practitioner practices to engage with local community and support asset-based community development,” according to  Dr. Amir Hannan of the Haughten Thornley Medical Centres (another Cormac fan site) in Hyde, Cheshire, United Kingdom, and chairperson of the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS).

This seems in keeping, from a lagging distance, with ideas raised in Using Deliberation and Systems Thinking to Address Healthcare Costs and Pathways to Healthy Communities, particularly, the concept of Communities Creating Health through the vision of the Creating Health Collaborative as a means of transforming our system of health in the Twenty-first Century, though it isn't quite ABCD based. 

Simply claiming, "Improving health? Start local" does not align with an ABCD framework and misappropriating the name does not change that. Fundamentally because Asset-Based Community Development is not an alternative to Services. The differences, beyond a tendency to want to ‘fix’ somebody, are though suspected to be more complex than I am appreciating not having enough specific knowledge of the issues under consideration being, 'Across the pond.' More importantly,  As Cormac's Black Swans White Swans and Ugly Ducklings article states, "Mapping people’s journey towards wellbeing in this way is deeply problematic, especially if we harbour aspirations towards deeper democracy. It obscures from view the capacities that exist within and around people that can be used to secure what is required for a good life in any and all climates."   

According to Cormac,"With ABCD efforts when you aim to scale; prepare to fail. Instead, try focusing on proliferation of deep practice and abandon fidelity to model,” because 'What Communities Build For Themselves, They Won't Destroy’. This may appear an antithesis to Systems Thinking (wiki-page), it is generally acknowledged that, "All models are wrong, some are useful". However, while acknowledged, part of the rationale for this post is that while often professed it is not as often followed. Taking a rather different perspective can assist in bring such models closer to the truth of the world.

Pathways to Healthy Communities

The following comes from a presentation on, “Developing a Systems Thinking Perspective of a National Deliberation Project on Healthcare Costs” as part of the “How Can We Reduce Costs and Still Get the Care We Need?” Kumu project which was featured in the last blog post, “Using Deliberation and Systems Thinking to Address Healthcare Costs”. They are the three concluding statements arrived at after the completion of a systematic inquiry into the NIFI forum on healthcare costs.

1. We should not approach issues of Healthcare Costs in terms of "Cost Savings". Instead, we should approach it in terms of "Reinvesting and getting a Better Return”.
2. We should endeavor to bring Healthcare concerns, both health, and costs, closer to community-based approaches. The positive aspect of such an approach is that there are already numerous efforts going on. These need to be prioritized to a far greater degree. (and made to have a Collective Impact)
3. Community-based efforts should focus first on health then find cost-efficient means of implementing programs, not the other way around. 

The salient point for this post is, “The positive aspect of such an approach is that there are already numerous efforts going on. These need to be prioritized to a far greater degree.” This means moving our attention away from the deliberative process of deciding issues of healthcare costs to creating and implementing programs in a community based on those decisions.

This then would be a part of a process of creating what will be called Healthy Communities (wiki-tag). Below are several new websites recently added to the New Community Paradigms Wiki, all of which have some focus on health and community.

Healthy Communities involves building Healthy Cities (wiki-page) as well as focusing on Community Design (wiki-page), Geographic Based (wiki-page) community change agencies, and rethinking our Streets (wiki-page).

Healthy Cities approaches working toward community health from a variety of different perspectives and levels. Some are more functional and could be applied in a variety of settings, like a toolbox. This particular Community Tool Box | Table of Contents is a service of the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas.

“The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change. Our mission is to promote community health and development by connecting people, ideas, and resources.”
Others like the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index provide important health data.

“The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index® is the first-ever daily assessment of U.S. residents' health and well-being. By interviewing at least 1,000 U.S. adults every day, the Well-Being Index provides real-time measurement and insights needed to improve health, increase productivity, and lower healthcare costs. Public and private sector leaders use data on life evaluation, physical health, emotional health, healthy behavior, work environment, and basic access to develop and prioritize strategies to help their communities thrive and grow. Journalists, academics, and medical experts benefit from this unprecedented resource of health statistics and behavioral economic data to inform their research and reporting.”

Another similar site is Rankings | County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which "allows you to Look up your county’s Rankings, learn about their methods, and download the data you need."

An example at a local city level of a community focusing on health is Davidson Design for Life.

“Davidson Design for Life (DD4L) is an initiative of the Town of Davidson to foster healthy community design through the use of health impact assessments (HIA), public participation, and collaborative efforts in Davidson, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region, and North Carolina.”
Even though a small community of 11,750 people (2013) with Davidson College nearby with 1,920 students, the site provides information on Health Impact Assessment: What is it?, for the surrounding region and information on HIA in the US.

At a state level for Minnesotans is Alliance for Healthy Homes and Communities.

“All Minnesotans should have the opportunity to make choices that allow them to live a long, healthy life, regardless of their income, education, or ethnic background. Everyone wants good health to be productive at work and to succeed in school and to have affordable medical and housing costs. To make this opportunity a choice for all Minnesotans, we all have to do our part in creating and maintaining healthy homes and communities. Every person and every organization have a role to play, small or large.”
Closer to home is LA2050 - Shaping the future of Los Angeles, which involves though a major city with a population of over 3.8 million and a focus that expands beyond healthcare concerns to other areas, so it has been placed under Geographic Based community change agencies.

“LA2050 is a community-owned mechanism to create a shared vision of success for Los Angeles in 2050 and to track progress toward that vision.”
At a state level is The California Endowment which is also involved in the Creating Health Collaborative and in the related Stanford Social Innovation Review presentation on “Organizing Communities to Create Health”.

"The California Endowment was established in 1996 as a result of Blue Cross of California's creation of its for-profit subsidiary, WellPoint Health Networks. Since then, we've invested in health broadly, from strengthening the safety net for families struggling with poverty to diversifying the health care workforce. The lessons learned from early investments were the genesis for Health Happens Here and the 10-year, $1 billion Building Healthy Communities plan, in which residents in 14 places are working to transform their neighborhoods."

The sites cited above involve data and organizations. There is also a need to consider at a more foundational physical level in the promotion of health through design, which is what the Center for Active Design does.

“The Center for Active Design is a nonprofit resource for design professionals, policymakers, real estate developers and community advocates, committed to promoting and expanding the Active Design Guidelines published by New York City in 2010. We maintain a multi-disciplinary perspective in the translation of health research into design solutions that amplify the role of architecture and urban planning in improving public health and well-being.”

"Rethinking the Automobile", a project created to raise awareness around the negative impact of the automobile on our world by livable streets advocate Mark Gorton no longer seems to exist. The presentation, associated with the site, still exists on Vimeo. 

Elsewhere, from a more creating health perspective, is the StreetFilms video Carmaggeddon Averted as Broadway Comes to Life, in which "Mark Gorton takes us on a tour of Broadway's car-free squares and boulevard-style blocks, where conditions have improved dramatically for pedestrians, cyclists, and, yes, delivery truck drivers," putting forward the counterintuitive truth that taking away space for cars improves traffic and makes the city safer and more enjoyable for everyone on foot, based on established theories like traffic shrinkage and Braess's paradox that help to explain why this happens.

These are not the only websites in the NCP wiki related to health or healthcare, in fact, most can be related, at least indirectly. They are the most recent and have not been featured previously.

Laying out a few possible pathways to creating Healthy Communities does not lay out the entire required journey. Moving from the primarily deliberative process to actual implementation of programs still, means overcoming any fundamental differences in perspectives or mindsets within the community (which will exist even if everyone is familiar and adept at systems thinking) and crossing the Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I Sutton as discussed in previous posts. There is still lots more work to do but this does make it all the more possible.