Urbanism and future cities – Dec 2
-Report calls for radical redesign of cities to cope with population growth
-Part 5: White Horse Village turns into a modern city
-Russia considers biggest population redistribution since Stalin
Act: Inspiration
Voices – Dec 2
– Paolo Bacigalupi’s SHIP BREAKER: YA adventure story in a post-peak-oil world
– New issue of Transition Voice: Holiday of crumbling cash
– Thank You for Seven Years of Worldchanging (a farewell)
– Transitions Towns and the Post-Carbon Future of Albury-Wodonga (podcast)
– Code Green Communities – radio interview
In Vancouver, a ‘crown jewel’ of local food is in the works
If you found yourself on the southern shore of False Creek at Westminster Avenue (now Main Street) on Saturday, Aug. 15, 1908 you would happen by opening day of Vancouver’s City Market. The grand building with dual bell towers and a generous waterfront promenade is plastered with signs advertising retail and wholesale “farm products” for sale and a restaurant serving “meals at all hours.” Could B.C.’s biggest city today bring back to life so vibrant a public space, building a key component in what could be one of North America’s most robust local food economies?
SEWA: A movement to transform women’s lives in India and beyond
In India, 72 percent of women are involved in agriculture. But often, these small-scale farmers confront numerous economic barriers, including lack of access to training, markets and productive inputs. In a society where gender biases are deeply ingrained, women farmers also lack access to bank accounts and land tenure. And, women are also underrepresented in farmers groups and associations, making it harder for their voices to be heard.
Peak Moment 185: Claiming the commons — food for all on Haultain Boulevard
Rainey Hopewell’s crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking — to anyone, anytime — with messages chalked on the sidewalk noting when particular vegies are ready to pick. Neighboring children and adults are joining in to work on the garden, harvesting fun along with food, and even handing fresh-picked vegies to passers-by.
Should Americans cut and run?
I’m not a patriot in the political sense, but I derive a great deal of attachment to the material reality of my country, to the literal earth in which I am embedded.
Cancun, and more consequential C words
Considering climate change, Copenhagen, Cochabamba, the coming calamity, and most controversial: capitalism.
City Living 1 – Tales from London 8-9th November 2010
How do we transition a city? The answer to that is perhaps, simply, for each of us look at a size that is manageable, and I don’t for one second mean by this that a city is too large, not at all, but what I do suggest is that we each ask ourselves a question; “What size of place feels manageable to me, personally?”
Literature and limits
What is missing from most modern stories is the notion of physical resource limits. Such limits imply a tragic trajectory, the possibility of failure and punishment for overuse of the physical world. In the last half century the scientific literature has been infused with increasingly ominous warnings about such limits. But popular stories accessible to the mass of humanity, at least in rich countries, still most often champion explicitly or implicitly the ideas of a limitless material future.
From Black Friday to a better way
Our modern economy is structured such that its stability depends upon ever increasing consumer spending. In my first economics course in college in 1961, the professor told the class to go out and shop because it is good for the gross national product (GNP). Then and now, mainstream economics continues to treat the Earth as if it were a business in a liquidation sale.
The “Transition Town” movement’s initial genius
The genius of the “transition town” movement is that it starts with a positive vision, focuses on local scenes, teaches skills, invites people to develop plans, gives them other obviously useful things to do together, and thus provides the added-value of intensifying community. You can find this in its handbook, of which the second edition will soon be published.
Growing the Local Bounty: A Tale of Two Farmlands
People are hungry for change. But the reality is that consumer demand alone won’t create the kind of food system we want. What will it take? What are the ingredients of truly local, sustainable and equitable food systems? These are the questions that we seek to answer with this series produced by The Tyee Solutions Society.
