News, March 1st, 2010
Because of the enormous impact of agriculture on climate change, pick up any book about “green” solutions and you’ll find the suggestions that you grow a vegetable garden. Bang into the “we can’t go on as we are” end of the environmental movement (mine), and you’ll see the general assumption that growing food is part of any process of adaptation to lower resource use.
Ecological Intelligence: Do Humans Have What it Takes to Survive?
Modern life diminishes such skills and wisdom; at the beginning of the twenty-first century, society has lost touch with what may be the singular sensibility crucial to our survival as a species. The routines of our daily lives go on completely disconnected from their adverse impacts on the world around us; our collective mind harbors blind spots that disconnect our everyday activities from the crises those same activities create in natural systems
Gridlock and Growth: The Effect of Traffic Congestion on Regional Economic Performance
How reducing traffic congestion can add billions of dollars in economic growth to local economies
NOT! Study: developers need to start organizing online; opponents are!
Saint Consulting, recently conducted a study to assess the extent to which community groups were utilizing Facebook to oppose real estate development projects. The results should provide a wake-up call to developers.
Using a set of strict research criteria, Saint Consulting found a significant number of community groups conducting well-organized opposition campaigns online. Not surprising to us, we also found that these opposition campaigns outnumbered support campaigns by a ratio of 9 to 1. These virtual campaigns consist of many of the same elements of traditional offline grassroots campaigns.
New Report: Road Funding From Non-Road Users Doubled in 25 Years
The myth that U.S. roads “pay for themselves” thanks to user fees is a subject that’s likely familiar to many Streetsblog Capitol Hill readers — but just how much of the nation’s highway funding is provided by charging drivers?
The answer may surprise even active critics of the current asphalt-centric transportation system. Between 1982 and 2007, the amount of federal highway revenue derived from non-users of the highway system has doubled, according to a study released today by Subsidyscope.
The Fat Lady Has Sung
“Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 911 for a medical emergency. But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year, which allows them to call 911 as many times as necessary. Or there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.”
And it gets worse!
Cities Shortening Yellow Traffic Lights for Deadly Profit
And …Chapter 9 Cities on the Rise
The country of the future may finally be arriving
Imposing in territory (world’s fifth largest country) and population (fifth most populous, at 190 million), Brazil has never come close to fulfilling its potential, having been mired for decades in authoritarian governments, hyperinflation, staggering inequalities and a curious ambivalence about the rest of South America and, indeed, the rest of the world.
Now, maybe for the first time, the future that Brazilians always believed would be theirs – as a country of moderate prosperity, international influence and global respect – might slowly be unfolding.
Does It Really Matter Whether Your Food Was Produced Locally?
Counting food miles can lead to wrong turns: Instead of worrying about how far our food has traveled we should look at the way it’s produced and hauled.
Dissatisfied Ontario no longer happy camper of Confederation
..The Mowat Centre conducted new polling to determine whether these features of Canadian political culture are changing. They are, and if they continue to change, the implications for the federation could be far-reaching.
Our survey tracks the evolution of Ontarians’ views on a number of key polling questions that were asked in the late ’90s through until 2004. Those surveys asked Canadians whether their province received its fair share of respect in the federation, fair share of federal spending and fair share of influence on national decisions. From 1998 to 2004, Ontarians were unique among Canadians in being satisfied that their home province was well-treated on all three of these dimensions: respect, money and influence.
Today, however, Ontarians resemble other Canadians in believing that there are inequities in the federation that must be addressed.
The New Ontario: The Shifting Attitudes of Ontarians toward the Federation
Slow economy leaves Ontario ample power
System regulator says unprecedented array of electricity options offers nuclear wiggle room
Labour shortages are not a thing of the past, but an impending reality: Canadian Chamber
In a report entitled: Recession, Recovery and the Future Evolution of the Labour Market which was released to coincide with the federal/provincial/territorial meeting of Ministers responsible for Labour, the Canadian Chamber cautioned that an aging population and low birth rate will exert significant strains on Canada’s labour market.
“Canada will have too few workers to meet the needs of its economy and of society,” says Perrin Beatty, President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber. “We need to expand Canada’s labour force if we want the Canadian economy to continue to grow.”
Want to Foster Walking, Biking and Transit? You Need Good Parking Policy
A report released today by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [PDF] highlights the new wave of parking policy innovation that could pay huge dividends for sustainable transport and livable streets. If your city aspires to make streets safe, improve the quality of transit, and foster bicycling, then your city needs a coherent parking policy.
Geothermal Gardens and the Hot Zones of the City
For their “Reykjavik Botanical Garden,” Rice University architecture students Andrew Corrigan and John Carr proposed tapping that city’s geothermal energy to create “microclimates for varied plant growth.”
The Sidewalks of Today and Tomorrow: Is Concrete Our Only Option?
For most American cities, concrete is the go-to choice for building sidewalks. It’s relatively cheap to install — only about $12 per square foot — and it’s very solid. Its pale color reflects light, reducing nighttime illumination costs for cities compared to darker-hued alternatives. Plus, if adequately maintained, concrete can last up to eighty years.
Yet concrete also has its downsides: Manufacturing it has a high carbon footprint, since its fabrication requires the energy-intensive heating of limestone; it has a tendency to crack when tree routes grow underneath it; and it has no porosity, depriving the ground under it of essential ground water and increasing runoff problems.
Just the headlines!
Post Feedback
On food and the importance to a city, consider this. A people enslaved by the disconnect between the production and consumption of food are enslaved by the same people who control the distribution of that food. Local food production shakes the food bondage cycle.
It is the same for energy. Russians without food and energy were a broken people. Feed and fuel the people and they are free to innovate and overcome. Starve them and freeze them and they are enslaved.
Except in the 1930’s when Stalin purposely starved over 20 million Ukrainians to death as part of an official pogrom, the Soviet’s problem wasn’t so much a design to withhold food rather than a consequence of centralizing the means of production. The State could not adequately coordinate needs and production even in the best of the 5 Year Plans.
Collective farms were an abysmal failure especially when compared to production from the slips of land from which peasants were allowed to grow food for personal consumption. In those villages rarely was there food shortages as inhabitants freely distributed the excess that was superfluous to their needs. Compare that to the images of long lines at shops with bare shelves.
It reinforces Josh’s statement that local food production shakes the food bondage cycle. True that.