this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Solarpunk Urbanism

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A community to discuss solarpunk and other new and alternative urbanisms that seek to break away from our currently ecologically destructive urbanisms.

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Swimmable Cities (www.swimmablecities.org)
submitted 3 months ago by ex_06 to c/urbanism
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[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 21 points 3 months ago

At first I thought this was a joke about how global warming is going to turn walkable cities into "swimmable cities".

The idea is awesome though, why do polluters have more rights to our waterways than human beings who have always used local water to swim and bathe.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Interesting! It's always been a grievance that none of Chicago's many public waterways are swimmable.

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 months ago

I mean, those specifically were so polluted for decades that they thad good reason to believe no one should ever want to swim them again. Same is true for a lot of cities.

[–] LibertyLizard 10 points 3 months ago

I’ve been dreaming about this for decades. One challenge is that cities can’t directly control upstream pollution on rivers, which is generally the most common form of accessible swimming area.

We need better governance structures for rivers and other systems where selfish actions by people can cause harm distant to where it originates.

[–] dumples@midwest.social 10 points 3 months ago

What a great idea. I live in the twin cities and love swimming in our urban lakes but they get shut down often with Algae and E. coli. Great initiate to swim more. I would love to swim in the Seine.

[–] houseofleft 5 points 3 months ago

I though this would be some kind of scifi future Venice type thing, and was pretty stoked. Even more exciting that it's a real project!

I surf and it's amazing just how many beaches aren't always safe to swim at, let alone city rivers and lakes. I think we forget how surreal it is how little lives in those waters.