Today, about half of the world’s eight billion people live in urban areas. Many of them don’t have access to a green area that is less than a 10-minute walk from their dwellings. By the year 2050, the United Nations estimated that 70% of all people will live in the crowded concrete jungles of urban environments.

Why does it matter? According to the Colcom Foundation, people living in densely populated cityscapes are 30% more likely to be depressed and need medication than those who live in more natural, green locations.

Furthermore, city dwellings have been well documented to produce 30% higher rates of anxiety disorder and a 40% spike in various mood disorders when compared to people living in rural areas.

These sobering statistics are just part of the reason officials with the Colcom Foundation are raising public awareness about the enduring and long-term detriments of shaping social and economic policies that promote bigger and bigger cities over living in small towns or rural settings.

A primary position of the Colman Foundation is that human beings have a fundamental right to have access to natural areas that are uncrowded, free of urban noise and offer greenery, fresh air and a slower pace.

Thus, the Colcom Foundation is working toward social policies that support the conservation of undeveloped areas, promote the creation of inter-urban forestry, environmental stewardship and the stabilization of human population growth in the U.S.

The Colman Foundation has its origins in the work of Cordelia S. May. She was 23 years old in 1953 when she realized that our planet Earth is a system of delicate balance and complex interactions between all species, including vegetation, animals and people.

She began working toward creating an organization that would work on family planning and population sustainability. The Foundation became fully funded in 1996. See this article for additional information.

Learn more about Colcom on https://www.colcomfdn.org/democratic-values/