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Place Matters
Amy E. Whitesall, metromode
Gauri Thergaonkar and Giri Iyengar have lived in downtown Ann Arbor’s Armory building for eight years, and Thergaonkar, a former Ford Motor Company engineer-turned- Zingerman’s Deli retail manager, often walks around the corner to Monahan’s Seafood Market in Kerrytown to buy fresh fish.
“What am I cooking for dinner tonight?” she’ll ask owner Mike Monahan, enjoying a familiarity she can’t imagine herself finding at, say, the nearest Kroger.
“That’s the magic of community,” she said. “You form that network; you form those connections.”
Thergaonkar, 36, and Iyengar, 43, both earned engineering degrees at the University of Michigan and both landed good jobs with Ford Motor Company after they graduated. Despite a commute that took 45 minutes on a good day and two hours on a bad one, the couple chose to make their home in Ann Arbor because of that small town feeling amid big-town amenities.
Where you live says a lot about how you’ll live. That’s why more and more young people are settling in or near downtowns like Ann Arbor’s – choosing their lifestyle first, then finding a job that will support it.
…The common thread in communities that are now drawing the entrepreneurial, 25-40-year-olds, says University of Michigan architecture and urban design professor Christopher B. Leinberger, is walkable urbanism.
“From an urban planning point of view it means a place where, within a quarter-mile to a half-mile radius, you can get pretty much everything you need and maybe even walk to work,” said Leinberger who’s also director of the graduate real estate development program at U-M and a scholar at the Brookings Institution.
…”In order to get a walkable community you need density, and in order to get more density you need a regional mass transit system,” said city of Birmingham planning director Jana Ecker, who grew up in Toronto.
(5 September 2007)
Nice article, combining human interest with background on an important trend. Original is longer and has attractive photos.
And the other hand … any efficiency gains are defeated by having commutes of 45 minutes to 2 hours as does the couple described. -BA
Transition Town Maidenhead in the News
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
Here is a rather interesting article about the work of Vinnie McCann in Maidenhead getting Transition Town Maidenhead up and running with some rather prestigious members of his initial steering group! It is always interesting to see how the Transition model translates into different places. Sometimes articles appear that don’t really seem to have ‘got it’, but this piece has really grasped the concept and its “What is a Transition Town?’ bit from the Fact File is excellent.
“Maidenhead’s Future is in Your Hands.”
From Business Monthly.
MAIDENHEAD MP Theresa May is backing an initiative to protect the town’s future by turning it into one of the first “Transition Towns” in the country. The Shadow Leader of the House of Commons has joined forces with environmentalist Vinnie McCann who is getting backing for the scheme which encourages businesses and communities to plan for climate change and a future when oil wells run dry.
The marketing manager of Waltham Place Organic Farm says oil reserves have almost reached their peak and it will be down hill fast. Concerned for the future, he won the support of the MP when he told her how a handful of towns have already embraced it and 50 more are lining up troops to join the battle.
(6 September 2007)
How is it that Transition Towns get such good press? It would be worthwhile for someone to study the secret. Some guesses: a methodical, non-confrontational approach that emphasizes local groups and traditions. -BA
To teens in the first decade of the 21st century
Some unconventional advice
John O. Andersen, Unconventional Ideas
You are at a major crossroads. You are not yet vested in the adult world. As such, you are likely more capable of making rational and wise choices than many adults. Does that surprise you? If so, note the perceptive words of Upton Sinclair:
“If is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
That’s the problem with too many adults (even well-meaning and otherwise intelligent ones). Their perspectives are clouded by self-interest and ego.
As a teen, on the other hand, your perspective is relatively uncluttered, enabling you to be in the unique position to make positive choices that will have long term implications not only in your personal life, but also in your community, nation, and the world.
I urge you to ponder for a moment the significance of this critical juncture in your life.
Instead of blindly copying the materialistic, self-centered American Dream of many adults, why not make your American Dream non-materialistic?
For instance, you could make it a life overflowing with learning, and service.
Be part of the solution, not the problem. Rather than chasing after stuff, why not dedicate your life to chasing after a cleaner environment, better health care, stronger communities, or better policies to insure the dignity of the elderly, and the safety of children?
Do you really need a drivers license and car the instant you turn 16? Does your city need yet another car on its already over-congested roads and bridges? Could your transportation needs be met with a bicycle or a pair of shoes? Could you rethink your life and priorities to make that happen? Granted, some teens need a car because their parents’ home is too far away from everywhere the teen must go each day. Just remember this is not the ideal, and determine to avoid that trap when you are an adult. Choose a walkable neighborhood with a Walk Score of 70 or higher. Better yet, get a career in which you design walkable residential communities.
Attending college should not be a foregone conclusion. College has become a major industry, and students are its customers. And, to make matters worse, it’s far more expensive (even after being adjusted for inflation) than it was for any previous generation. College is not the best choice for a significant number of young people who attend.
(17 August 2007)
Voluntary simplicity with a unique Thoreauvian twist. John O. Andersen has been writing essays for years at his site Unconventional Ideas (“Counter-Mainstream Thoughts on Living Meaningfully in the 21st Century”).
Writer Andersen has an interesting background. Andersen was an Air Force officer, who left a promising career to earn a graduate degree in German literature. Poor job prospects in the field motivated him to seek a different way to earn a living. He settled on carpet and upholstery cleaning, a job which enabled him to chisel out a unique way of life – full of travel, learning, family and community. The conventional corporate career looks sad and barren in relation to the rich life he describes in his essays. -BA
Restoring Native Landscapes – From a Dump to a Park
Janaia Donaldson, Peak Moment via Global Public Media
A closed landfill in Santa Barbara county is not just being restored with native plants. It also has a pilot project growing oil-rich jatropha for biodiesel. Restoration horticulturists Karen Flagg and Don Hartley of Growing Solutions do restoration education and remediate damaged landscapes — bringing them back to life. Episode 71.
Janaia Donaldson hosts Peak Moment, a television series emphasizing positive responses to energy decline and climate change through local community action. How can we thrive, build stronger communities, and help one another in the transition from a fossil fuel-based lifestyle?
(5 September 2007)
