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Swimmable Cities

swimmablecities.org

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Re: Swimmable Cities

#91

Post by botanical »

beAbU wrote: post #22

I'm tickled by the African contact email address at the bottom of the page. "Roomys" translates to "Ice Cream" - and with Nandos being a South African fast food chain, and well known for their razor sharp marketing department, I wonder what the story is there...

Lol, I searched it found it's somehow the email for the "Jukskei River Revival Collective". Also, I'm surprised to see Joburg but not the other cities; it's not really notable for rivers, at least in the city centre areas. At least it's a the biggest metro not built around a river or something like that.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#92

Post by hk__2 »

MaxDorkroom wrote: post #80
elric wrote: post #78

In Belgium, we don't even have swimmable pools. There are too few of them, their opening hours are worthless, going for a swim is stupidly expensive (~8eur), and many pools now require that you show them ID before you're allowed to enter. In all, it's become extremely unpleasant. The results are as depressing as expected: more drownings (especially in the north sea) every year, and kids can barely stay afloat anymore…

[flagged]

For comparison, in Paris it costs €3.5 to enter one of the ~40 public swimming pools.

> The idea for showing ID, which happens in other countries too at least for events, is probably to keep the undocumented and migrant ones out.

For which reason would you want to prevent undocumented/migrant persons from swimming in a pool?

Re: Swimmable Cities

#93

Post by nayroclade »

The_Colonel wrote: post #34
sakjur wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lake can be unsafe for people to swim in yet have a healthy ecosystem and vice versa. Or, if your reading is correct, redundancy might be an aesthetic choice.

> yet have a healthy ecosystem Interpreting "healthy" as "healthy ecosystem" doesn't really make sense in the context of an initiative focused on people being able to swim. This thread gives me the vibes of arguing for the sake of arguing. The first point mentions "safe" and "healthy", of course this initiative cares about both good water quality and safety from drowning, because those are quite important things for…

> This thread gives me the vibes of arguing for the sake of arguing.

You must be new around here

Re: Swimmable Cities

#94

Post by hk__2 »

Paris is kind of partially swimmable in the Summer: a little portion of the Canal Saint-Martin is open to bathing under supervision during the months of July and August, only during weekends. This is because otherwise the canal is a dangerous place to bath because of the locks. The city plans to open the Seine to bathing by 2025, as well a small lake in the Bois de Vincennes. Things move slowly, but in a good direction.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#95

Post by 0xbs0d »

coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

Living in Copenhagen as well. Came in the comments to find exactly something like this :) We are privileged more than most in this regard.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#96

Post by hk__2 »

nayroclade wrote: post #93
The_Colonel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet have a healthy ecosystem Interpreting "healthy" as "healthy ecosystem" doesn't really make sense in the context of an initiative focused on people being able to swim. This thread gives me the vibes of arguing for the sake of arguing. The first point mentions "safe" and "healthy", of course this initiative cares about both good water quality and safety from drowning, because those are quite important things for…

> This thread gives me the vibes of arguing for the sake of arguing. You must be new around here

> You must be new around here

The commenter you respond to joined HN 4 years before you, with 10 times more karma points.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#97

Post by AdamN »

gchadwick wrote: post #68
AdamN wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[OT] how long have you been in Copenhagen? Are you learning Danish or do you get by with basic Danish and just use English?

Not OP but my partner lived in Copenhagen for two years. As with all of Scandinavia fluency in English is very common, practically universal in cities so you can happily live there without speaking a word of the local language. Also unlike most of Europe it's a lot more acceptable to just assume English is spoken and lead with that rather than stumbling through in the native language to start with. That said it's sti…

> you will want to learn Danish for social purposes Are non-Danish speakers really going up to B2+ Danish, even if they live in Copenhagen for a decade? It seems like Danish people would still speak better English and non-Danish people would almost certainly speak better English.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#98

Post by piva00 »

groundthrower wrote: post #37
hopsworks wrote: post #31

In Stockholm, you can swim in most of the city center - except where the large ship lanes are. Thousands of people out swimming on a hot summers day.

I have some questions on this. Living on west coast of Sweden, our family went to Stockholm this summer and as the temperature rose, we asked were to go and swim and basically no one knew and we didn’t see people doing it either.

That's rather weird, it's one of the most popular summer activities in Stockholm. I personally swim almost everywhere around the city with friends during almost the whole summer, just need to check beforehand on Havs och Vattenmyndigheten daily updates if any bathing areas have been considered inappropriate that day [0].

Most areas are considered appropriate for most of the summer in the inner city, while lakes are everywhere outside the small centre, and quite many are private enough that you can find spots to go skinny dipping without a second thought.

[0] https://www.havochvatten.se/badplatser-och-badvatten/kommune...

Re: Swimmable Cities

#99

Post by eesmith »

cassepipe wrote: post #7
ben-schaaf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally the first thing in the list of foundational values. > 1. The Right to Swim > Safe , healthy and swimmable waterways should be accessible to all people.

I guess they mean safe water as in water you will not get ill from swimming in whereas I think parent is talking about safety as in safe from drowning

"safe" means "safe", which should include:

Will you get ill from the water? (As you mentioned.)

Is it separated from watercraft traffic? (I've been to swimming areas with buoys to mark off where motorboats are not allowed.)

Is there enough safety infrastructure? (For faster rivers, people can get pulled downstream too far. Is there a rope at the end of the bathing area to help people catch themselves? If the river has steep banks or walls, are there ladders for people to get out? Are there life rings and poles so people on shore can help those who get into trouble?) While this could lead to drowning, other possibilities can include hypothermia, or if someone managed to get onto small island but is exhausted and can't get off.

Are there appropriate cautions posted or even closures for things like (this shows my beach background) unusually strong rip tides or jellyfish swarms?

Is the area physically appropriate for swimmers? (I'm old enough to live through the pull-tab era, where people would toss the sharp-edged tabs into the sand, then someone else would step on it and cut their foot, eg, https://pulltabarchaeology.com/archaeology/ . Or read about the "syringe tide" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringe_tide .)

Re: Swimmable Cities

#100

Post by bounder »

This is a great initiative. It is weird if you think about it. Why are our waterways in many cities so polluted and dangerous that you can't use them safely as a human(or any animal)? We should take more care about making the environment we live in safe and accessible for everyone.

Amsterdam (and many other cities in the Netherlands) have swimmable parts. I'm coming from Groningen myself and there the government made a beach on one of the canals: https://www.visitgroningen.nl/nl/locaties/2159964091/stadsst...

In Amsterdam, you have the Amsterdam city swim, a yearly event where participants swim through the canals.

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