Rachel Maddow Show

I was watching the Rachel Maddow Show last night.  Rachel was interviewing Robert Frank, an economist from Cornell University, and discussing the issue of the lack of jobs in the US.  He was saying that the reason that there are so few jobs and lack of job creation was due to the fact that people were not spending enough.  Since people were not spending and the economy is not improving, companies have no reason to expand and hire more workers.  I was surprised that the economist was saying that the solution is to spend more when we have discussed in class that overconsumption is the cause of your current environmental and economic problems. The lack of jobs is a serious problem and I am worried about all of us once we graduate because the economy and the availability of jobs is not going to change that fast.

Governing Sustainable Communities

Government and Governance mean to different things. Government is centered around delivering services and keeping order.  Governance is about leading society, spurring people together to work towards common goals.  The ideals of a sustainable community can be put into reality through governance.

I have a personal story about an example of governance that promotes a sustainable community.  There is a group in my hometown called the Little Falls Creek Clean Up which my mom is a member of.  This groups promotes the health of the Little Falls Creek that runs through out the neighborhood.  The group hold Creek Clean Up days and is active in restoring the banks, removing invasive species and planting native plant species.  The group is an act of governance by promoting conservation, restoration and a healthy neighborhood.  The creek clean up days have become very highly attended and is now a large social event.  The Little Falls Creek Clean Up acts a guide to show people what actions benefit the community, such as picking up trash.  This group and it's members are public participants that are critical more creating a sustainable community.  We need to combine ideas with action to have a successful sustainable community.

Development

America today has many problems, one of which is the fact that our industry is operating in the same as it's been since modern industrialism.  During modern industrialism there were fewer people and plentiful natural resources.  Due to the successes of industry and capitalism during the industrial revolution it has lead today to a situation where things are reversed.  Where today there are more people and fewer resources.  Industry is still operating by the same rules that worked during modern industrialism, by using more resources to make fewer people more productive.  This results in creating huge amounts of waste of resources and people.  Natural capitol is being destroyed by industries because historically industries has benefited by doing so.   We need to change the manner in which industries function to account for population growth and the depletion of natural resources. 

One way that we can change the behavior of industries and the way in which markets and our economy functions is to create prices and markets on the environment.  Environmental resources have no market, meaning they are not bought and sold.  With no market on environmental assets we see that economic activities downgrade the environment and sometime ignores it altogether.  In general with the absence of price, zero price or when things cost nothing to the user they tend to be abused. This can be seen as with the tragedy of the commons.  Having markets for environmental assets will create incentive for people to maintain natural resources, nurture the environment. Once the environmental and it's assets have prices attached to them people will take good care of the them in order to sell their assets and make a profit.  Since no one would want or could use a degraded environmental asset.  

As our population grows we are developing more, meaning more land will be overtaken by pavement, more people will will jobs, places to live and food.  All of theses personal needs is part of what economic development is trying to generate.  Currently economic development in the US is run by our economy by focusing on growth, global trade and currency.  An alternative to this is sustainable community economic development (CED) is focuses on development, people and ecosystems.   The emphasis of CED is on social equity, environmental responsibility and increasing local economies.  Bloomington is instilling a local economy by having local non-chain businesses/restaurants, holding a farmers market, having food co-ops and having a local and organic grocery store (Bloomingfoods). 

Themester Event

From a Culture of Consumption to a Culture of Conservation:

I went to the public lecture where Scott Russell Sanders spoke about one of this books "A Conservationist Manifesto" and about the current consumption of the United States. In Sanders book he talks about underling cultural and economics ideals that lead to our current situation and how lead towards a conservationist future.

Main challenges in US:

            Climate disruption

            Loss of biodiversity

            Loss of arable lands

            Pollution and scarcity of fresh water

            Pollution and depletion of the oceans

            Exhaustion of key material recourses

            Loss of ecosystems services: photosynthesizing, soil fertility, water.  
  Sanders told me of some unsettling facts:
-The loss of 80% of big commercial fishes. 
-There is 10 times as much plastic as much plankton. 
-Species extinction 100 or 1,000 faster then the last mass extinction time of the dinosaurs.

 Is our consumption accidental? That may not be so due to the quote below:

“Our enormously production economy demands that we make consumption our way of life that we concert the buying and use of goods into rituals that we seek out spiritual satisfaction our ego satisfaction in consumption. The economy needs things consumed, burned, work out , replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate” (Victor Lebow The journal of retailing 1955)

Sanders reply to this quote is a task and target for the US to work towards to change from being an consumptionist to a conservationists. Sander's Key task for the US is to dramatically reduce the rate of extraction of materials from the Earth: oil, coal, metals, minerals, etc. and to dramatically reduce the amount to waste, toxins, and green house gases dumped into the soils and waters and atmosphere. We should aim at zero throughout and zero waste. 

Wendell Berry

We are DESTROYING our Country!


Wendell Berry preaches and I agree with this sentiments.  Berry emphasizes that once the land is destroyed the rest of our country, economy, lifestyle will crumble.  We depend on the land for our livelihood to access food, shelter, energy and clothing.  From the necessities we extract from the land we have created our present world with our lavish lifestyles and advanced technology. As well we are dependent on oil and other natural resources and minerals from the earth. We cannot continue our way of life and still expect to live in the fashion that we do.  Our country/land is being destroyed through many venues, some examples are: mining, mountaintop renewable, soil erosion, water and air pollution,  deforestation, logging, litter, urban sprawl.  

We are being pressured to help the economy by spend more on things that are generated by destroying the land.  So we are ending up in a vicious cycle of our economy being down due to the land being destroyed, then government pushes people to spend more to build up the economy but what we buy destroys the land so we are back in the same predicament.


It was a honor to have Wendell Berry in our class, I enjoying hearing his views on current issues. I like his idea that sustainability was once called thrifty, and should focus on making things last as long as possible.  I feel that my family it still thrifty or cheap in some way being sustainable.  I am Jewish and there is a stereotype that Jews are cheap and it usually have a negative connotation.  But  after hearing Berry speak being cheap or thrifty should not be a negative thing, but viewed as way to conserve.

Housing, Community and Environmental Justice

In class we have been discussing what makes a sustainable community and have viewed many types of communities, and the issues centered around them such as amount of resources used, environmental and human health, pollution, waste.  We have a lot thought about what a sustainability community environmental and for personal prosperity.  For the environment a community should have such as utilizing renewable resources and not taking more from the land that can be replenished.  On the personal side, its good to have communities that are walkable, with centralizing meeting places that foster connections and communication.

New ideas about how to form and build communities and housing developments are being generated. We have talked about some such as new urbanism and an urban village.  Another alternative housing development strategy is co-housing.  Co-housing is where residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own community. Co-housing communities consist of private houses with public/ common house can recreation center.  Future residents participate and making their community to fit their needs.  This leads to a tight nit community as people get to know each other over the course of building their community,  I think co-housing is a great idea because then people and architects can work together to form an ideal community.  Also the residents can set standards for the community such as the houses or public facilities  be made sustainable such as with used and recycled materials. Or high efficiency products and amenities can be implemented to the houses to reduce energy usage.  Co-housing accommodates people with varying income such as some houses in the community can be shared housing. I think that co-housing should have specific themes or ideals, that future residents have to keep and mind and uphold while developing their community. Such themes or ideals could be having LEED buildings, carless community, or using renewable energy sources.   

I think co-housing is a great way to foster community and a sense of place. Since the residents help build the community they will have a sense of ownership about it can take care of it.  I think one of the best features of the co-housing is that you will know your neighbors.  Whether you live in the city or suburbs without a sense of community, even though you are surrounded by people you fee alone.  From experience growing up in my neighborhood, I hardly new anyone in my neighborhood, and for that matter on my street.  I knew the people who leaved to the left and right for me, but not the people across the street.  I think due to the lack of shared common areas or facilities or the lack of community itself lead to me growing up no knowing my neighbors.  Today it is a bit different because I live in an apartment complex with a high percentage of SPEA graduate students. I leave in fountain park and know about 8 people in the complex.  I have gotten to know then in just around 3months. Compare that house I grew up in,  in which after living there for 18th years I think I knew 8 or less people in my neighborhood.  

Sumner is the name of the neighborhood i grew up in, which is located in Bethesda, MD.  I only just today found this website for the neighborhood to see how it tried to make Sumner a community.  I was curious to know about how my own community compares to what we have been discussing in class. To me i think the main barrier is my community is the lack of communication.  Alternative housing/community development should think about how to foster good communication among neighbors  and other community members.  

Here is a picture of my house to get a feel for my community:

View Larger Map

Land Use and Urban Design/Form

Reading: Roseland – Chapter 10 – Land Use and Urban Form

Reading: Wheeler – Land Use and Urban Design (pp 87-111)

Transportation and Land Use are related, the form of transportation people use reflects the how the land or build environment was constructed. Take for example the dead worm suburbia subdivisions where there are lots of end end streets, no grid and not all streets connect.  It is impractical for buses to be weaving around in subdivision so there are usually no buses that go out to many suburban areas, resulting in people owning and driving personal vehicles.  If theses suburban areas were constructed differently maybe buses could go through them and have less people driving to and from cities.  Sprawling cities and places with sprawling urban development is an inefficient use of land and promotes the use of cars and personal vehicles.  New Urbanism is emerging to combat sprawling areas. New Urbanism is a set of planning principles to have walkable, affordable, transit-oriented neighborhoods.  I also like the idea of urban villages that Roseland mentions.  The term urban village to me means having a suburban-like feel within the city the emphasizing minimal car dependence and high use of rail/ public transportation systems. 

Suburban sprawl increases pollution, decreases inner-city development and generates huge costs.  A great form of land use is mixed-use zoning to have food, residential and offices all intermingling.  This will increase intensity of land use and ideally minimize private transportation. Along with mixed-use city planners should think about where they place key buildings such as schools, churches, stores and shopping malls.  Ideally all theses places should be walkable to a majority of city residents.  Like the term from Wheeler that Calthorpe use which is Transit-Oriented Development.  Personally, since i grew up there, I think that Washington D.C does a tremendous job of land use that is transit-oriented. 

We live the majority of our lives indoors, breathing stale air. This because we have walled ourselves in houses, office buildings, schools, religious centers, cars,   and the list can go on.   A main thing that is lacking in more neighborhoods and cities are centralized green spaces and meeting areas.  This can bring nature into the cities and give people a breath of fresh air.  

Before the reading I had not heard of the term "infill", which means the construction of new housing, workplaces, shops and other facilities in existing urban and suburban areas. 

A major roadblock that I see with trying to re-develop or re-consturct sprawling areas in to urban villages or new urbanization neighborhoods is that what do we do with all of the people that are currently living in the sprawling subdivisions.  We can't force everyone to move out, yet we want to get rid of these sprawling areas.  Once these new urbanism and  urban villages are created, i wonder if the government can give subsidies or other incentives for people to move back towards the city.  This way the sprawling neighborhoods can revert back to natural environments or be used for agriculture. 


There is a documentary called Subdivided by Dean Terry that talks about the issues of Suburbia. Below is a trailer of the movie: