Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The European example should give us great pause on this side of the Atlantic. It is perhaps the clearest illustration that beyond a certain level of energy consumption, the quality of life rises almost imperceptibly or not at all. In fact, high energy use may even be correlated to a lower quality of life in the United States.
An article published in the New York Times Science/Environment section Sunday points out something that many U.S. bike insiders and advocates have known for a long time: The reason European cities (and in the case of the article, Zurich) succeed in transportation policy and outcomes is because they’re not afraid to challenge car dominance head on.
A very large fraction of the alternative energy projects being proposed these days are large, expensive, and designed to perpetuate the specific technological and economic forms of the present. A very large fraction of the equivalent projects envisioned and tested during the energy crisis of the Seventies, by contrast, were small, cheap, and presupposed a significantly different way of dealing with concepts of energy, technology and wealth. The former may be more popular just now but the latter have much more to offer in the future into which our present actions are backing us.
I am perplexed by the almost complete lack of pedestrian streets in North America. Why is it that car-free commons—designed for pleasurable strolling, shopping and hanging out—which have become as typical as stoplights or McDonalds in European city centers, are almost non-existent here?
-Back to the Future
-Behaviour change, not technology, is key to cutting vehicle emissions
-The great land grab: India’s war on farmers
This timeless book from Christopher Alexander was released back in the seventies, and it’s just as much a book on philosophy as on architecture. Still, the main purpose of the book is as an introduction to A Pattern Language. Alexander’s architectural writings at the same time develop a philosophy of nature and life. He proposes a more profound connection between nature and the human mind than is presently allowed either in science, or in architecture.
Web-based news sources occasionally reveal the normally behind-the-scenes editing in an intriguing way. Take an article to be published in the June 1 New York Times.
– Ken Greenberg On How Jane Jacobs Was Right (Book Review)
– Great places: dense, wired, and sustainable
– What’s So Great About Portland?
– Expanding Bike Programs Makes Sense in a Time of Shrinking Budgets and Soaring Gas Prices
– Bicycling and the art of being broke
– Wealthy Nations Maxed Out on Travel?
– How drivers can put a brake on the world’s petrol crisis
– New report and map chronicles the visceral reality of 47,000 preventable pedestrian deaths
– Never too old to bike to work (video)
– Plugging High-Speed Rail Into Germany’s Power Grid
– Bikes are the future, not cars
– E-cars won’t solve congestion, says president of Bicycle Association
– Cars & Capitalism
Turn a century-old Seattle house into an efficient, energy-producing home using repurposed materials. Owner-builder Jim Bristow’s creativity extends to reclaiming dead spaces, jacketing his house with exterior insulation, and modernizing the kitchen with sleek previously used cabinetry and low-power LED lights. But he’s not stopping there. Along with maintaining a prolific front yard vegie garden, this green-minded guy is working with neighbors and the city to construct a storm water drainage and traffic circle at the nearby street intersection.
At a recent conference, I saw the potential for blending two of the most exciting emerging movements of our time—the living building and the living economies movements. A vision of the combination of these two movements energized me with renewed hope that we humans can end our isolation from one another and from nature—that we can move forward to achieve a prosperous, secure, and creative human future for all.
