Internship Anne-Marie Gout, Malmö, November 2011

Anne-Marie Gout visited Malmö for 4 days in November 2011, to learn more about creating healthy living environments (in Utrecht the Public Health Department has an advisory role in urban planning) and developing a local food strategy.

She was inspired on many subjects other than the subjects she visited Malmö for.
Here you can read what she learned and expercieced about two subjects:

1. The development strategy of the city is very strong.

Malmö wants to be a sustainable city. Sustainable in a ecological way (the development of Western Harbour, Hyllie), but also in a social way (and economic way). The city has high ambitions, which generate a lot of movement and energy. This strategy is a clear and strong context for working in a connected and integrated way in spatial, economic and social domains: everyone works from his or her field to create a more beautiful and better place for everyone.

This is very different from the Utrecht strategy City of Knowlegde and Culture, which is more static and directed to preservation in stead of change.

For my own work on developing a local Food Strategy , this context helped me. In a lot of cityfarming activities people are motivated by making the world more ecological sustainable with locally produced food, organic food, etc. From the Public Health Department we have social goals to reach (healthier people, more participation in society, a better life for the socio-economic weaker people). To see social sustainability as part of sustainability as a hole, brings me close to my collegues in other departments like the Environmental Dept or Urban Design, which means that by working on urban farming, we all work on the same goals (a better, healthier, more equal, sustainable and more beautiful city). It also means that the Public Health Department has to revise its policy on healthy food and adopt sustainable food as a policy too.

 

2.  Diminishing social-economic health inequilities is high priority

In Malmö the goal of diminishing social-economic health inequilities is very high on the agenda and widely acknowlegded to be important. To diminish social-economic health inequalities is seen as creating a social sustainable city! There are large differences between strong and weak neighbourhoods in de city, also in life expectancy, and the immigration of 5.000 refugees per year enlarges the necessasity to do something.

To combat the inequilities, area based programmes have been started in the most vulnarable neighbourhoods. What struck me (in a positive way) was that there was little extra money for the programmes; changes have to come from directing regular money to what the neighbourhood really needs. This makes the area based programmes less vulnarable, because they don't depend on extra funds that will end one day. I was also stunned by the results that were visible after such a short periode (14 months).

Anne-Marie Gout, May 2012

Do you want to read the full report of all the subjects Anne-Marie was inspired by in Malmö? Contact us and we will send it to you.