Somerville on front page of Sunday NYT

[francescadavis.livejournal.com]

Interesting article about the happiness survey in the census forms, curious how this will evolve over time:

I realize that most people don't read newspapers broadsheet anymore, so here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01happiness.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=somerville&st=cse

Comments

[oonh.livejournal.com]

And yet, with all the parking ticket revenue, the city of somerville is too cheap to get some sort of government bulk postage dealie on the census form return envelope. grumble

[ron_newman]

But you can drop the census form off for free at libraries, fire stations, and various other city buildings that are listed on the form.

[squirrelitude]

I went up to the Teele fire station but couldn't figure out how to hand in my census form. Am I supposed to go up and knock on the garage door or something?

[ron_newman]

I don't know the answer to this, since i dropped mine off at the West Branch Library. I thought the fire station had a regular door too, which people use when it's a polling station?

[ceo]

That would be what we call a slow news day.

[ron_newman]

Which, as it turned out, preceded a very fast news day.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, they will look closely at the psychology work that was done on human motivations starting the mid-twentieth century by Maslow. We know with the utmost confidence that physiological needs are the number one priority of people feeling healthy (mentally and physically) which is what we generally think of as being "happy". When these basic physical needs (food, water, air, warmth, light, and the freedom to move/rest) are threatened, people move rapidly down the negative-positive emotion scale.

Given that most people in Somerville are consistently worried about being able to meet these most basic needs, due to problems with housing (rent is extremely high, and housing can be difficult to find unless you have lots of money, and even can be challenging if you are middle-class and above), the economy, job security and pay rates, transportation challenges (lack of good T access, justified fears of being hit by bad drivers while traveling on Somerville's roads and sidewalks, cost of gas, etc.), a totally horrible legal system that approaches problem solving with abuse (not just physical, but emotional and intellectual abuse as well). That poor mentally disabled woman who got shot by the police is more than enough of an example of the abusiveness of the system, though everyone has also probably got their own stories of themselves or friends who've been at least a little bit screwed by abusive, intentionally harmful practices by traffic and parking, or property tax collection, zoning laws, the drug war, or some other set of government regulation.

So yeah, real happiness (as opposed to feeling "not bad" right now) will come when Somerville's government prioritizes supporting people in being able to unconditionally get their basic, physiological, needs met so that they are able to have a stable basic platform for living a healthy, productive, creative life. Because if using our collective resources to better serve the community's needs isn't the government's primary purpose, than I don't know what is. :-)

If we chose to slowly and mindfully restructure government programs to focus on making sure that every human has easy access to at least enough fresh whole nutritious food (in whatever form of diet they feel healthiest eating) to physically function well, enough clean water (honestly clean, not fully of industrial chemicals), enough fresh air (more trees, fewer oil/gas powered motor vehicles), enough warmth (shelter is a primary element of this need), enough sunlight (not feeling forced to be inside all day), and enough freedom to physically move/rest (transportation, sleep, talking, crying, yelling, dancing, walking, etc.) we will find that happiness (health) levels go way, way up to where the community is joyfully, and voluntarily jumping into the more complex work of things like rocket science, disease prevention, truly awesome education, and an honestly effective legal system.

How soon do you think this more wise and systematic approach (http://www.thewiseturtle.com) to government will be employed in Somerville now that they are actively interested in the overall health (as measured by happiness levels) of it's residents?