By Ted Schnell • BocaJump | Jan. 18, 2012
WTTW in Chicago has not given the producers an air date yet for the PBS series Designing Healthy Communities.
A producer of the series, Harry Wiland of the Media Policy Center in Santa Monica, Calif., urged those attending Tuesday’s premier of the series at Gail Borden Public Library to call and email WTTW asking when it will air. Frequently, he said, local or regional stations will respond to public inquiries by setting a date.
He said the documentary series is worth seeing, because it looks at the flaws of humanity’s “built environment” and seeks to find remedies to the problems it creates.
After the episode featuring Elgin was shown Tuesday night, Wiland lingered to field residents’ questions and to discuss the four-part series further.
“Before we ever shot a foot of film, we spent a year researching … networking, hearing about cities, interviewing people,” he said. “It is expensive to do a project like this — to try to get a cross-section of what is going on.”
The series looked at elements in Denver, New York City, Los Angeles and other communities, including Elgin. This is real and these are real communities.”
“We (Media Policy Center) are very interested in health care … looking at best practices around the world,” he said. “We really don’t have a basis for comparison” because there is no community that got it right.
“It’s all about (finding the) best practices,” he said of the series’ attempt to offer solutions. “We’re very interested in demographic change, dialogue on public health.
Tom Armstrong, president of Elgin Community Network, one of the event’s sponsors, called for volunteers to work with the Elgin Sustainability Commission to advance these efforts.
The premier’s other sponsors were the city, ECCO, Gail Borden Public Library, School District U-46 and the Media Policy Center.
Related:
- Story: Elgin takes spotlight in PBS series episode
- About the PBS series: Designing Healthy Communities
- Episode focused on Elgin: Episode 2: Rebuilding Places of the Heart
- About: Media Policy Center in Santa Monica, Calif.
