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DIY Urban Design, from Guerrilla Gardening to Yarn Bombing (slide show)
Gordon Douglas, Good Cities
Citizens have always made their marks on cities—graffiti has been an urban presence for millennia—but land use and city planning have long been the province of professionals and bureaucrats. As a result, many urban spaces today lack human scale and sensitivity. In recent years, however, there has been an increase in the unauthorized, creative alteration of public spaces for the common good. Enterprising citizens are repurposing abandoned phone booths, installing public furniture, painting their own bike lanes, and even reclaiming entire intersections. More targeted and purposeful than most graffiti, yet more personal and place-based than a political campaign, this is do-it-yourself urban design.
(12 April 2011)
The antidote to apathy (video)
Dave Meslin, TED talk
About this talk
Local politics — schools, zoning, council elections — hit us where we live. So why don’t more of us actually get involved? Is it apathy? Dave Meslin says no. He identifies 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care.
About Dave Meslin
Dave Meslin is a “professional rabble-rouser.” Based in Toronto, he works to make local issues engaging and even fun to get involved in.
(April 2011)
“Sustainable Development vs Historic Preservation” Is A False Dichotomy
Lloyd Alter,treehugger
Over at Triple Pundit, Royce DuBiner of the Sturm College of Law discusses the issue of preservation and energy conservation. He writes:
One inevitably wonders why we are building new “green” structures when we could just use the ones we already have. Reusing an old water bottle instead of buying a new one is a great idea. Why not reuse the old building instead of building a new one?
He discusses a battle over the installation of solar panels on a house in the French Quarter of New Orleans, describing the challenge of finding the balance between preservation and green.
These two schools of thought clashed recently in New Orleans. Against the wishes of the Vieux Carré Commission (a preservationist group that works to protect New Orleans’ famous French Quarter structures), the New Orleans City Council approved the first use of solar panels on a house in the French Quarter. The Council required panels to be black and angled in a particular way to best blend in with the house’s roof. And despite the protests of the Vieux Carré Commission, many New Orleans residents remarked that the Council’s decision is consistent with the goal of making the French Quarter a vibrant, livable community. One remarked, “The French Quarter is not some sort of outdoor museum.” People live and work in New Orleans and it should not be made into Williamsburg, Virginia.
I would suggest that preservationists who are against the sticking of green gizmos on the roofs of historic buildings are using the wrong approach and fighting the wrong battle. What can those solar panels provide in terms of energy, that could not be saved in other ways?…
(23 March 2011)
Projects: Small is Successful (report)
Ecological Land Cooperative
REPORT: Small is Successful – Creating Sustainable Livelihoods on Ten Acres or Less
Our report – Small is Successful – examines eight smallholdings with land-based businesses on 10 acres or less. The smallholdings demonstrate that economically viable and highly sustainable land based livelihoods can be created on holdings of this size. While the incomes generated would be described as modest, none of the smallholdings receive subsidies, and the income we have examined does not include money from non-agricultural activities, such as any courses, consultancy work or B&Bs that the smallholders also provide. By comparison, English farms lost an average of £19,000 in agricultural activities last year, remaining in business largely due to subsidies from the Single Payment Scheme.
The full report can be downloaded from here!.
If you would like to purchase a hard copy, please send a cheque for £5 made payable to Ecological Land Co-operative Ltd. at the Hub, 5 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ.
PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK. This report is free. However we are currently fundraising for our next research project via a “crowdfunding” campaign. We would be tremendously grateful if you could show your support. We are offering some really great benefits in return. Please see http://bit.ly/dE44AR for details.
(April 2011)
