One of my favorite sayings of late is this: “Nothing will work, but maybe everything will.”

I met that phrase in an Atlantic article about the future of newpapers, which most would agree are in need of saving. There is no single magical solution that can fix them, the article argues, but a combination of lots of little things just might do the trick.

There’s a story in the paper today about the Virginia Lottery: the Mega Millions jackpot has climbed to $330 million. The lottery story reminds me that often when we consider a problem we get hung up waiting to win the idea lottery–to hit some imagined jackpot of a solution that will resolve a problem quickly and, we hope, nearly painlessly. We might be sitting on a pile of smaller ideas and not implementing them because it seems like doing a lot of work for a little bit of gain. But over time the effect of those little ideas accumulates, surrounds the problem, and swallows it up.

I applaud the city of Portsmouth for taking the many small solutions approach to contend with the obesity epidemic.

Tackling the obesity epidemic

The Pilot covers the developing effort in Portsmouth to “Get people to move more, eat better and pay closer attention to their health.”

Amy Paulson is the director of the Consortium for Infant and Child Health at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Paulson and a coalition of city leaders and health advocates have come together to work on the obesity problem. The closest thing they seem to have found to a magic bullet is “walkability.” Getting more people to walk more places in Portsmouth would help build exercise back into the daily lives of residents. But the challenge of achieving walkability is itself a good example of a problem that requires a host of small solutions.

The coalition members got on a bus and drove around Portsmouth, examining walking routes and assessing the condition of sidewalks. They found places where the sidewalks ended abruptly, where they were cracked and unusable and covered with grass, where they passed through areas that were unsafe and poorly lit. Not the kind of conditions that encourage walking.

Signs to promote walking? New to our area, but done in London since 1990.

So they got a sidewalk improvement grant. And they came up with the idea to create “destination-oriented walkways.” They plan to map out the most important walking routes and then work with the city to repair sidewalks, and the police to step up patrols. They’ll even put up signs, they say, to help pedestrians find things and see how far it is to various destinations.

Let me just repeat that last one. They plan to put up signs for people who are walking. What a simple but brilliant little step. It’s the kind of detail that, when added together with better sidewalks and more police, better lighting and more grasscutting, increased trash cleanup and everthing else, will actually make a difference. It might even get people walking.

The project is called “Portsmouth Walks,” and I’m looking forward to the results. Of course, there are a number of other anti-obesity initiatives underway as well, including suggestions for “healthy meeting practices,” promotional messages to encourage taking the stairs, etc.

Amy Paulson has a different way of describing the same multi-point approach I’ve been talking about. “It’s the ‘drop in a bucket’ theory,” Paulson said. “If you make one change, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference. But if you make lots of changes in lots of places, soon the bucket will overflow.”

Sunk

Takedown should have been the headline. It’s another in a series of takedowns at the Pilot, a string that includes Michael Townes and Regina Williams. This is a paper that wants you to know it’s here. This story about the mischievous misdeeds of Commander Owen Honors has put the Virginian Pilot‘s name on CNN, NPR, Fox News and other national outlets. That’s a good thing, if a little scary. Follow the link if you want to see the videos (if you somehow haven’t seen them yet).

3-year-old Sandler Center doing well, backers say

Best line in this story: the Virginia Beach Town Center is “a micro-climate of urbanity in the Beach’s sea of suburbia.”

Norfolk homeless shelter driving to raise $75,000

If you have an extra $10, please consider giving it to The Dwelling Place, a Park Place homeless shelter that primarily serves children and families. It’s a better way to put your money to work than buying a Mega Millions ticket.