How will we live in the future? People are expected to continue migrating to cities. By 2050, city dwellers could increase by 70 per cent. Growing cities offer great opportunities for economic growth and social innovation, but they also pose new challenges.
Malta is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Maltese people are already far too familiar with crammed roads and polluted air. Urban planning, communal recreational spaces and planted areas are overlooked. So how can we ensure that the cities of the future will be worthwhile to live in?
VARCITIES is a Horizon 2020 EU-wide project with the objective to improve economic growth, and environmental, cultural and social sustainability in European cities. It puts the community at the centre of progress.
However, what works in one country cannot work in all of Europe; a nature-based approach in Scandinavia is unsuited for a Mediterranean climate, a successful social programme in Sicily might fall on deaf ears in the Netherlands. Instead, VARCITIES embraces the diversity of the European Union. 25 Institutions from ten countries are contributing to the project, including the University of Malta.
Research in Malta will take place in Gżira, around the busy Rue d’Argens road. With constant traffic noise, few green areas, and plentiful plans for high-rise buildings, the area exemplifies many of the problems in Maltese towns.
As part of the VARCITIES project, four University of Malta faculties are working together with tech company Dartekk Ltd., several NGOs and the Gżira Local Council to work with citizens to improve their quality of life. The researchers will measure traffic flow, air quality and noise pollution, also taking into account environmental factors such as wind and temperature along the street.
To achieve this, VARCITIES will be working with a team of traffic experts at the university and government authorities using the PH-1 operational framework. However, the most important component of the venture are the citizens themselves. Because a city should be built by and for the people who live in it, much of the work is focussed on collaboration with citizens, and collaborative design processes to enable Maltese citizens to change their lives and their cities for the better – the future is bright!
Did you know?
• A person sheds around 700 grams of skin particles per year
• And between 18,000 and 36,500 hairs
• In botany, plants that contain both male and female parts in the same flower are called ‘perfect’
• The world’s oldest edible cured ham is 118 years old and has its own twitter account
• Christmas trees can survive temperatures as low as 196 Celsius; scientists suspect they do so by temporarily turning into glass
• All people with blue eyes have a single common ancestor
For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think
Sound bites
• 7-billion-year old stardust was found inside a meteorite in Australia. The Meteorite fell to earth about 50 years ago, and the stardust inside is the oldest solid material that has ever been found. It offers a rare glimpse of how stars form. The stardust is distributed within the rock of the meteorite, which has to be ground up and dissolved to reveal the particles. The scientists also report that the crushed up meteor smells like rotten peanut butter.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200113153306.htm
• The brains of adults and babies “sync up” during play. Researchers from Princeton University developed a new type of neuroimaging system in order to look at the brain activity of adults and babies playing together in real time. They found that when they were singing, reading, or playing with toys together, their brain activity rises and falls together, especially in areas associated with learning, planning, and executive function.
http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200109163956.htm
For more science news, listen to Radio Mocha on Radju Malta and www.fb.com/RadioMochaMalta/