Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Urb-i was founded initially by four urban designers. Dealing with urban projects, creating new quality public space was imperative to our projects, however we felt that we could not influence or change existing public spaces, which were relatively easy to transform into better spaces for people and not only car oriented. That is when we decided to create Urb-i.
If these were ordinary times, progressives might get away with casual images of our political opponents. Those who disagree “lack information,” or “remain prejudiced,” or are “gripped by an emotion like hate.” Reassured, we can return to informational outreach or protests or confrontations and hope that makes a difference.
For many months I’ve intended to write an article on the Commons Space at the World Social Forum (WSF) which took place in Montreal in August of 2016.
The wall signifies a desire to reduce the number of newcomers and to preserve a way of life that is threatened economically and culturally by the globalism embraced by the country’s bi-coastal elites. Stop the invasion of newcomers and you will stop the forces bearing down on a threatened way of life in flyover country; so goes the visceral logic.
For the last year, some residents of Boulder, Colorado, have been locked in a heated debate about whether the city should allow housing cooperatives. Advocates argue that cooperative housing counters gentrification, adding that electric, gas, and water consumption of co-op house residents is significantly less than the average resident.
I was twenty-five years old when I started working for Transition US almost four years ago, and since then one of my strong desires has been to engage more young people in our movement. I’ve seen the energy and passion young people bring to social change work.
As climate change intensifies, the ecological implications of growth-based “development” are now alarming if not fatuous.
It’s important to say that there are certain things that individuals, families and communities can do that are irreplaceable, that there is no government proxy for. The difficulty with Noam Chomsky’s approach is that actually one of the things that people do really well, is to help each other in times of crisis.
Everything is either local or supports American-based enterprise. The wool, after all, is shorn directly from the sheep roaming the hillside below or comes from neighboring farms throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Lifelong friendships often start with a simple conversation with a stranger. BenchesCollective, a grassroots community organization, wants to spark those conversations by inspiring and teaching people how to create outdoor living rooms.
It is a great joke, that the deepest commons have been passed on in daylight, unnoticed by thought police, secret police and dragoons. No disguise, samizdat, remembered whisperings; no underground… These commons are bequeathed in a code that anyone can read – elegance of architectural design, fine lines of a boat, laughter and tears extracted by good verse and prose…
When a local organizer for a new adult education project in Austin, Texas, asked me to teach a course on politics in January, it was tempting to focus on the potentially disastrous short-term consequences of the election. Instead, I decided to frame the course around the disastrous long-term forces that shape the contemporary United States, no matter who is in office.
