[Sosfbay-discuss] Fw: Ecocities Emerging - February 2010 Issue

[Caroline Yacoub]

So are we hooked up with all these people? Do we have anybody going to the Ecocities conference? Do they have some literature we can use for tabling?
Caroline



----- Forwarded Message ----
From: shane que hee <squehee at ucla.edu>
Sent: Wed, February 17, 2010 8:04:58 AM
Subject: Ecocities Emerging - February 2010 Issue


Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:21:04 -0500
>From: kirstin at ecocitybuilders.org
>Subject: Ecocities Emerging - February 2010 Issue
>
>
>Link to webpage version of this newsletter http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs072/1100594 
>Ecocities Emerging
>To support humanity's transition into the Ecozoic Era
>Ecocity Builders 
>February 2010
>
>Greetings,
> 
>Welcome to the February 2010 edition of Ecocities Emerging, an initiative of Ecocity Builders and the International Ecocity Conference Series.
> 
>As the consequences of climate change and resource depletion manifest themselves more and more clearly, the way we have built our cities, particularly in the past half-century, has come into question.
> 
>While many in city planning circles use the term "ecocity" interchangeably with "green" or "sustainable" city, Ecocity Builders uses a definition of "ecocity" conditional upon a healthy relationship of the city's parts and functions, similar to the relationship of organs in living complex organisms. We believe "ecocities" need to take healthy organic, ecological and whole systems lessons seriously to be able to reverse the negative impacts of climate change. A set of principles, standards, and metrics, as well as good models demonstrating ecocity elements is vital in bringing clarity regarding the definition of an "ecocity".
> 
>To that end, in partnership with our international network of ecocity colleagues and associates, Ecocity Builders is launching the International Ecocity Standards (IES) project to define "ecocities" by developing a set of standards, criteria and metrics against which to evaluate and guide new and existing cities' progress towards becoming an "ecocity." International Ecocity Standards will evaluate different scales of development, from the small neighborhood scale to the regional scale. Similar to LEED green building standards, the Ecocity Standards will rate urban development at various levels of attainment.
> 
>The first exploratory meeting of the IES will take place on February 20th in Vancouver, Canada, and will include representatives from Ecocity Builders, City of Vancouver, British Columbia Institute of Technology, University of British Columbia, One Earth Initiative, Simon Fraser University, Urban Ecology Center of Montreal, University of Quebec at Montreal, Novatek, Urban Resource Systems, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, Gaining Ground, and the British Columbia Real Estate Foundation. Our timeline will be rigorous, with steady work on the project leading to a public unveiling of our progress at Ecocity World Summit 2011, The Ninth International Ecocity Conference, Montreal, Canada. Please look for our continued updates and reports on progress towards our goal.
> 
>Recent studies in evolutionary biology point out that it is collaboration and synergy rather than competition that provides species with an evolutionary advantage. Our species is now facing a dire situation requiring a gigantic conscious step forward. For our own survival, must quickly and collectively create new models for the way we build and live on this planet. Only by working together can we successfully transform our civilization and purposefully emerge from the Cenozoic period into the Ecozoic Era. This is our task, our purpose, at this moment.
>
>Thank you for all that you are doing to help accelerate progress toward a civilization in balance with living systems. 
>
> 
>Sincerely,
>
>
> 
>
>Kirstin Miller
>Executive Director, Ecocity Builders
>339 15th Street, Suite 208
>Oakland CA 94612 USA 
>www.ecocitybuilders.org
>
> 
>Keeper of the International Ecocity Conference Series
>
>ECOCITY MEDIA
>Posts, projects and people
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>The Ecozoic Era refers to a vision, first promoted by cosmologist Thomas Berry, of an emerging epoch when humanity lives in a mutually enriching relationship with the larger community of life on Earth. 
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>Will we be able to make the transition in time to retain a biosphere healthy enough to regenerate living systems now under extreme stress? Our role in exploring ecocities is to clarify a vision of cities that can. And then go out and build them. There is no way to be certain we will succeed, but our position is that there's no time to just sit around and wonder about it: now is time for action. 
>
>Maybe one day all cities will be ecocities.
>
>Announcement 
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>Ecocity Builders, along with our advisors and partner organizations, is working to define "ecocities" by developing of a set of standards, criteria and metrics against which to evaluate and guide new and existing cities' progress towards becoming an "ecocity." International Ecocity Standards will evaluate different scales of development, from the small neighborhood scale to the regional scale. Similar to LEED green building standards, International Ecocity Standards will rate urban development at various levels of attainment.
>
>What's Unique about Ecocity Standards
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>Bioregional/ecological indicators
>We propose that urban systems, cities, have the potential to become not just less damaging but "net contributors" to restoring global biodiversity, productive agriculture, and energy independence. International Ecocity Standards will measure net energy and materials input/output, appropriate locations, and impact of external trade and will be selected in a way to address basic principles of ecologically healthy whole systems design.
>
>Emphasis on the whole system and "end-point" indicators
>An ecologically healthy city is in many ways analogous to complex living systems, like our human bodies. Ecocities are lean and compact, with their complex parts interacting three-dimensionally and in relatively close proximity. International Ecocity Standards integrate means of judging the functionality of the whole system as well as "end-point" positive measures such as clean air, energy conservation, biodiversity  restoration, and agricultural productivity. This emphasis shifts the focus from judging the individual building - subject of most design and construction standards to date - to assessing the whole built community while continuing to acknowledge the importance of the building itself.
>
>Access to minimum basic needs 
>International Ecocity Standards distinguish between amenities  and necessities, and incorporate "plain good and solid" indicators of urban health, such as those used by the United Nations' Human Development Index including poverty rates, food and water security, infant mortality, longevity, and basic literacy.
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>Social justice
>Programs and policies that promote social justice will be evaluated, such as the distribution of health, wealth and consumption. International Ecocity Standards will deeply re-consider the meanings of "prosperity" to include both human and natural wealth.
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>Target Users
>International Ecocity Standards (IES) will be targeted towards local governments, municipalities, regional agencies in charge of development strategies including transportation, land use, housing, watershed management, agriculture, resource management, and regional development goals. Additionally, larger governmental bodies and organizations, including the United Nations, and countries developing long-range strategies to address climate change, would be potential customers. We expect that developers, environmental nonprofits, think tanks, educational institutions and community groups would want to use the IES as a tool for developing and evaluating proposals and seeking approvals for proposals. Community groups and advocacy and watchdog organizations would likely use the IES to weigh in on development proposals and planning/political processes, and help shape them from an advocacy perspective. Finally, we believe that the IES could be useful to any one
 person or organization wanting to build awareness and partnerships around complex issues within the nexus of humanity, nature and the built environment.
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>Collaboration & Synergy vs. Competition
>We see collaboration and synergy as opposed to competition as the course we will pursue in developing the International Ecocity Standards. We will learn and incorporate as many of the principles expressed by other related standards and become synergistic with them where possible. We are inspired and will consider collaboration and synergies with The Living Building Challenge initiative, the Ecological Performance Standards for Cities being developed by HoK and the Biomimicry Guild, The Natural Step methodology for the Sustainable Canadian City Index and the like.
>
>For more information contact:
>Kirstin Miller
>Executive Director, Ecocity Builders 
>Kirstin at ecocitybuilders.org
>http://www.ecocitybuilders.org 
>Ecocity Builders is a United Nations accredited NGO and IRS certified tax-deductible non-profit corporation
>
>Climate Action Plans Must Lead with Land Use Basics
>Ignoring basic land use patterns is ignoring social justice and access to the city
>by Richard Register, Ecocity Builders 
>
>This article is based on notes taken by Richard for AC Transit Board Member Chris Peeples following a breakout session they both attended at a local conference on clean energy and cities.
>
>Chris, thanks for the tip on the 1913 Oakland plan that looked so much like an ecocity plan - derailed, figuratively and literally, by the car and sprawl. And some day I'd like to talk with you about why rail (besides initial high capital outlay) in the form of streetcars was dropped from consideration in the early 1990s by ACTransit, or so I understand, perhaps incorrectly.
>
>My contribution to the debate in our breakout session at the recent Clean Power, Healthy Communities conference in Oakland was that city and regional climate action plans need to adopt the equivalent of what we in Ecocity Builders call "ecocity mapping". Ecocity Mapping describes how centers-destined density-diversity shifting maps can helpfully guide the gradual opening up of urban landscapes to provide close-in agriculture, restored natural features, parks expansion, urban orchards and other necessities of an ecologically healthy city. Over time, neighborhood centers, larger district centers and the downtown add increasingly fine grained and more balanced development that works with walking, bicycling and transit. 
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> 
>Illustration showing the concept of Ecocity Mapping for Oakland...the darker circles indicate pedestrian oriented "urban villages" emerging and the lighter and green areas show areas returning to agriculture, open space and natural habitat corridors. 
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>It was pointed out by someone in the breakout group that we will have to be very careful that such city reshaping does not work against the poor, or minorities, promote gentrification, or give all the benefit to well-off people. I didn't get the opportunity to follow up during the meeting unfortunately, but I need to emphasize strongly that indeed yes, the mapping and implementation should begin with the communities who are at the most risk. In fact Ecocity Builders' work on the approach has been focused in West Oakland in one of the city's lowest income neighborhoods. And we're getting really good results together by the way!
>
>This work as been funded to date by the Bay Area Air Quality District under their regional Climate Protection grant program. From the "bottoms up" community planning combined with the "top down" mapping and evaluation methods we've found something that's working. Likewise, Climate Action Plans could adopt ecocity mapping - and begin dealing with shifting development from the low densities created by the automobile to densities that support pedestrians, bicycles and transit and dealing with ecocity design from layout of infrastructure to architecture and the green technologies that fit, from city climate action plans all the way up to UN climate conferences. 
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>I also pointed out the enormous social justice benefit in reshaping cities so people don't even have to buy a car and spend in the range in the US of $7,000 to $12,000 a year on its associated expenses. If you multiply those numbers by the number of low-income people you get an absolutely enormous financial benefit. You can empower a whole community. Furthermore, if the higher density areas were made car-free by contract, few wealthy people would likely move into such neighborhoods, keeping the housing costs down. (The elite are very used to owning cars, can easily afford cars and are by habit particularly dependent upon them.) Car-free by contract housing also lowers the cost of construction of the buildings because building parking is expensive, especially interior parking. Fair pass through of revenue from rents or payments, then, would mean rents and payment lowered 15% to 20% from direct infrastructure savings (indirect savings would be the city's,
 not having to spend as much to support cars in the many ways they do).
>
>The basic danger with ignoring major land use changes to deal with energy and climate problems is not just that Americans - and progressively ever more people around the world, notably in China and India - are addicted to car habits and mind-sets but also that the alliance of labor and activists from the energy and environmental communities are playing the game of keeping the same old destructive product list going: cars, scattered development spreading the city out over vast areas, millions of tons and acres of paving poured every year and a demand thus created for massive energy flows from whatever source people come up with.
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>What organized labor should be doing, instead of promoting electric cars and expensive solar voltaics to scattered single family housing for better off people who can afford it, is planning on another three Rs: Remissioning, Retooling and Retraining to build the ecocity and all its components. The first step is understanding that density and diversity, apartment style buildings (including lower cost condos) and bikes and streetcars are the product list we need and they should get behind this NOW. 
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>The Oakland Oil Independent Oakland 2020 Task Force and other meetings before and since, covering more than 5 years in Oakland forums, have pointed out that the list of green collar jobs would be many times as long, going way beyond installing expensive solar electric panels, if they embraced ecocity mapping and its related infrastructure. Typical iron workers would have green jobs if what they were building downtown were added housing in ecocity design, to balance the heavy imbalance in employment there. Normal carpenters adding mixed use buildings of increasing density in the right residential neighborhood centers would have green jobs too. 
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>I show slides of this in my talks I've taken with me in the last year - to China four times, Korea, Canada twice, Israel, Turkey, Singapore, Brazil, South Carolina, Chicago and next Korea again, Spain, New York, and Massachusetts. I use a picture of the Good News Café on 17th Street near Lake Merritt around the corner from my apartment because everyone who works there has a green job they can be proud of because they serve people in a center where we have everything we need within a short walk. (Everyone who has the same kind of café job where people arrive by car at a gigantic parking lot does not have a green job.) In addition we in Ecocity Builders recycle their coffee grounds into a compost system and into the soil our urban orchard and creek daylighting project, but that's the icing on the cake. The real deal is that the land use and urban infrastructure works for people who create very greatly reduced demand for energy and climate changing
 practices across a wide spectrum of activities, including jobs when facilities are created in the right place.
>
>I close these notes with the reminder that discussion of this idea - of inserting ecocity mapping into Climate Actions Plans is a powerful and very specific proposal that addresses the nature and quantity of green jobs, effectiveness of Climate Action Plans in getting energy demand radically reduced and provides a very major leadership opportunity for anyone early in adopting it. 
> 
>Unfortunately there was no follow up discussion about the approach at the breakout session and we ran out of time for the meeting. Too bad. We can't afford to have Climate Action Plans ignore ecocity mapping and basic equitable structure of the city. 
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>Richard Register is President of Ecocity Builders.
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>Ecocity Builders is a member of the Local Clean Energy Alliance. For more information or to join, visit the LCEA website. 
>Car Free Journey
>by Steve Atlas
>
> 
>Here in Baltimore, we are in the middle of a snowstorm. I'm told that we are setting a record. A time like this makes you slow down, relax, stay home and spend time with your loved ones. Even our dogs have slowed down; our Australian shepherd revels in the nearly three feet of snow in our back yard. But, when the blizzard is over, we wish we didn't have to get back in the car and return to our frantic routines. But there is no alternative to driving...or is there?
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>It does little good to tell people they should get out of their cars, and walk, bike, or take transit unless this is realistic as part of their daily lives.
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>An important first step is to help people understand the value of public transportation, and dispel the myths about transit being too expensive and unrealistic. Rick Risemberg sent me a link to a great article that all of us should read-and give to our elected officials. Best of all, it is written by conservatives. It is called 12 Anti-Transit Myths: a Conservative Critique. Read this-and keep it on hand as a reference. It's that good. Here is the link:  http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/weyrich3.pdf.
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>Do you like to ski? Here are a few places you can enjoy without driving:
> 
>Read on
>Join Ecocity Builders!
>
> 
>Kirstin Miller, Executive Director, in Huaibei, China
>
>Join us and help rebuild cities in balance with nature. 
>
>Ecocity Builders and our network of members - 
>	* Pioneer ecological concepts in urban transportation, landscape design, policy, and planning 
>	* Engage with communities, government, and industry leaders in designing thriving neighborhoods 
>	* Convene movers and shakers in urban and regional planning and community building at our International Ecocity Conference Ecocity Builders nurtures great visions for healthier cities - for people and nature alike - and provides practical tools for building them. We are a nonprofit organization, and donations are tax-deductible. All levels receive a subscription to the newsletter, special invitations to meetings and events, updates and more.
>
>Ecocity Builders is seeking interns. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have 5-10 hours a week of time you would like to contribute to our efforts consistently, please let us know. We are looking for interns to assist with our various local and international projects and initiatives. We are a small office with a lot going on; we work quickly and as efficiently as possible. Ideal interns are self sufficient and capable, good communicators and flexible. If you are interested in joining us, please send us an email with your hours of availability, your areas of expertise and your contact information. Some of the expertise we're looking for includes: organizing and facilitating a lecture series, researcher for our standards project, secretarial and project assistance, grant writing and research, planning assistance for our events and fund raisers, design work, web development. Please send your inquiries to Kirstin Miller:
 kirstin at ecocitybuilders.org.
>
>CLICK HERE TO JOIN 
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>Strawberry Creek Plaza
>Ecocity Builders' local project update
>
> Our proposal for Center Street has enjoyed two and a half years of intense public process - multiple meetings with stakeholders, the public, commission reviews, city council presentation, articles in newspapers and magazines, key policy decisions, thousands of dollars on feasibility studies and design work by paid for by the City and private citizens. 
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>So the question at this point is: after many years of processes, dollars spent and over two years of focused planning, will Berkeley's City Council now commit to some action?
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>Stay tuned as we move forward towards our goal = moving out of process and on to results. Follow the project on Facebook at Citizens for a Strawberry Creek Plaza please become a fan!
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>Ecocity Builders' Heart of the City project page
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>More Center Street designs from Walter Hood/HOOD Design here.
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>Read the recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the proposal via Planetizen here.
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>Order Strawberry Creek at Center Street by HOOD Design and Ecocity Builders here.
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> 
>"The problem is the present design of cities only a few stories high, stretching outward in unwieldy sprawl for miles. As a result of their sprawl, they literally transform the earth, turn farms into parking lots and waste enormous amounts of time and energy transporting people, goods and services over their expanses. My solution is urban implosion rather than explosion." 
>-Paolo Soleri 
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>www.arcosanti.com
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>Paolo Soleri
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>An interview with Ecocity Builders' Richard Register will be part of an upcoming film on the life and work of Paolo Soleri. 
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>Click here to see the film teaser. 
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>The Power of Nearness 
>by Sven Eberlein
>Published 2/7/2010 on Daily Kos - Greenroots
>
>City planners aren't usually on the list of people we associate with paradigm-shifting embers of wisdom. Spiritual leaders, artists, and philosophers - yes - they have sparked our collective imagination and shaped the course of society throughout history. While Be the change you wish to see in the world and I have a Dream will forever be guiding lights in our journey through a complex and often confusing world, it's clear that each generation brings with it the need for new symbols and archetypes in response to the struggles of its time.
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>It was at last December's Ecocity World Summit in Istanbul that I thought I'd heard a concept expressed that reflects and encompasses so much of the millennial Zeitgeist, as a theme to embrace as well as aspire to: The Power of Nearness
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>It's slowly but surely seeping into our collective consciousness that the road to reversing climate change leads through cities. Cities cover less than 1% of the earth's surface but are responsible for up to 75% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. With almost 60% of the world's population and growing living in cities it is high time to inspire new story lines that shift our attention to the built environment.
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>While Ecocity 2009 presented a wide range of nuts and bolts programs and strategies by planners and policy makers from around the world, the most hopeful moments came whenever speakers were able to connect their planning ideas not only with why it's so important to rethink our cities but to the idea that high density living is about more than just reducing carbon: If designed right, cities can connect us back to nature, to each other, to our shared humanity.
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>For three days I was busy listening to speakers, facilitating breakout sessions, and interviewing visionaries. After reading through my notes and listening to my transcripts I realized there's no way I could do justice to all the compelling voices and ideas espoused at the conference in one diary. Instead, I'll be sprinkling this smorgasbord of urban foresight from Istanbul throughout various posts in the coming weeks and months. But what better way to start than with Brent Toderian, Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver, Canada, who not only gave us a great unifying theme to wrap our minds around but showed how to transform a strong vision into bold and concrete action.  
>
>THE POWER OF NEARNESS
>Brent Toderian knows about the power of bold thinking and changing conventional wisdom as he's been instrumental in implementing the Vancouver EcoDensity initiative recently adopted by his city. EcoDensity is a Charter that commits the City of Vancouver and its citizens to address change more proactively and adapt the city and its way of life to meet the challenges we all face. Based on the premise that strategically located, sustainability designed density can reduce the city's ecological footprint while making Vancouver more livable and affordable, Toderian said that they are now reviewing every existing rule in their planning department in order to identify possible carbon reductions.
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>This theme resonated so strongly with me because it compresses the complexity of the global ecological crisis into one powerful truth: There's nothing to fear from living closer to one another; just the opposite - we can and will gain from it. It's like the Yes We Can of climate change, impressing upon people that cities don't have to be the drab and noisy concrete jungles branded into our collective consciousness from a century of unimaginative city planning. It is up to a new generation of planners and architects to change this prevailing perception by showing that healthy cities are living, breathing ecosystems. Inverting the transportation pyramid as we currently know it is the structural cornerstone for creating that mental shift, and Mr. Toderian laid it out in very simple terms.
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>DENSITY DONE WELL
>Density done well is the key to livability/sustainability, and an integral part of this philosophy is to prioritize your transportation infrastructure in the following order: 
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>1. Walking; 
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>2. Cycling; 
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>3. Public Transit; 
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>4. Cars.
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>One of the big hurdles not only in making our cities more livable but addressing a whole range of ecological problems including climate change is an economic system that is based on perpetual growth and lack of accountability for "externalities." You know you're living on borrowed time and wealth when things like resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, and toxic emissions are not proportionally factored into your economic equation. While the concept of "We don't let the market dictate our planning" sounds like a Bolshevik plot to free-market fetishists south of the border, it was refreshing to hear an English-speaking decision maker utter these words as if he was ordering eggs for breakfast.     
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>      
>Brent Toderian, Director of Planning, Vancouver Canada
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>DON'T LET THE MARKET DICTATE PLANNING
>"We don't let the market dictate our planning," says Toderian, a strategy that enables the city to pour money into the kind of projects that make urban living desirable, like public art and cultural facilities. By encouraging candid, city-wide dialogue around an evolving urbanism, with bold opportunities around sustainability, creativity and architectural risk taking, Vancouver really sets an example for other car-centric North American cities on how to engage their residents in the process of enacting the structural change that is needed to transition into a low-carbon economy and experience the power of nearness.  
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>The way to think about it is that the market is like a toddler: He wants everything and he wants it now. The idea of a "free" market is like letting your toddler do as he wishes: Pull twenty books from the shelf, eat a pound of candy, run into the street. But we all know that just to survive the toddler needs basic supervision. If we want him to keep his teeth and grow up to be a healthy adult, we have to feed him vegetables even though he wants candy. And leaving everything sprawled out on the floor eventually hampers everyone's creativity because you're wasting energy digging through the chaos.
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>Or to put it into a city planning context:
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>What's going to encourage more innovation and creativity? -- urban sprawl and tract housing development enabled by free market forces based on mid-20th century ideals and economic models, or a vibrant and verdant inner city driven by plans that put community, the arts, and long-term economic/ecological health before short-term profits?
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>What I love about Vancouver's model is that it combines the strengths of the market with the strengths of good planning and basic ecological principles. It recognizes that building a dense urban ecosystem that appeals to our basic human instincts of wanting to connect with nature and with each other is an automatic boost to small business and local commerce. Rather than presenting ecological elements in city planning as sacrifices or restrictions, this forward-thinking approach transcends old ideological battle lines by showing how rich and fulfilling city life can be when vital services and cultural offerings are within walking or biking distance.
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>While each city has its own unique geographic, social and political challenges, the appeal to our most basic human needs and joys is a universal and unifying principle in our endeavor to transition to a low carbon world. On the surface, the Power of Nearness is a more relevant literal motto for a sprawling North American metropolis like Vancouver than dense and overpopulated megacities like Mumbai or Istanbul. But on a more visceral level I found it to be the perfect rallying cry to connect ecocity advocates from all over the globe: From Auckland to Freiburg, from Kathmandu to Rio, from Seoul to San Francisco, it was clear to everyone present in Istanbul that the ways in which we manage to live close to each other will determine our resilience and ability to adapt to dwindling natural resources and climate change.
>
>Author: Sven Eberlein
>Website: http://svenworld.wordpress.com
>Email: evolve (at) tubercreations (dot) com
>
>Author bio: Originally from Germany I've been a US citizen since May 10, 2005. I'm a writer, musician, ecologist, free spirit, and planter of seeds. Rebel to the core, but believe strongly in changing the world through kindness and understanding.
> 
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>
>SAVE THE DATE! 
>August 22-26, 2011
>Palais des congrès de Montréal, Canada
>
>The �rst Ecocity World Summit
>held in a northern climate city
>
>DES DATES À RETENIR ! 
>Du 22 au 26 août 2011
>
>Website
>Assessing Past and Future
>- by Richard Register
>  
>
>Well, I'm two thirds of a century old now and just returned from my introspective and extrospective (if that's a word) visit to my children and grandchildren in New Mexico where I grew up. I've been on this "ecocity" path since I was 21, which makes it approximately 45 years. I mean by that ever since I met Paolo Soleri and he pointed out the problem with cars and the solutions in the compact, three dimensional - not flat - complex living organisms we call the city. The ecological city was a way to make the most beautiful, sculpture-like homes for our communities I could think of and rich environments for everybody else too, meaning the other life forms. Like gravity, the notion seemed overwhelmingly obvious. 
> 
>Autobiography?!
>Meantime, 2010, my current partner in everything ecocity Kirstin Miller says, "You should really write your autobiography -  an artist right in the middle of the peace movement, back to the land, beats, hippies, environmentalist, solar energy pioneers... Lots of fascinating stories." Sounds awfully self-indulgent was my first reaction. Who'd be interested? was my second reaction considering how difficult it has been trying to get most of my ideas across. But people do tend to be more interested in lives than ideas... As I thought about it, you might say internal reminiscing, it began to sound like fun. Kirstin pressed on saying people would be interested in the people I'd met and my comments on them: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Jim Morrison among them. Specialists among readers would be interested in Jonas Salk, Jaime Lerner, Mario Molina, met more recently, who saved the world. Considering the current crisis in the macro-issues I've been involved with, from
 cities smudging out thousands of species and changing the planet's climate to their rapid draw down of fossil fuels and metals ores, soils, fish aquifers... Should I take a long time off from direct engagement with our Ecocity Builders issues? Kirstin was convinced I'd have a better chance communicating via personal experience.
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>Mine was a more than a little pleasurable life style in the worlds of arts and low-income luxury at the only ghetto by the sea on the West Coast, Venice, California. I could easily make rent at my storefront studio - $50 -with a rent party once every month or two. One block counted as an extremely short walk to sand, sea, sun and sensuality. Beautiful sunsets, midnight strolls with breakers rolling in half a block from the last of the Beatnik coffeehouses with poets droning on, dark glasses and bongo drums. In some premonition of a later life, I built a big wooden container on the roof of what would now be called my storefront "loft" or "work-live unit" and lifted buckets of dirt up to my mini rooftop garden where, with small olive tree, flowers and carpet swatch laid out, I entertained some of those gorgeous young ladies with bare feet and only recently gone shapely bodies, applying sun tan lotion whether needed or not.
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>Read on!
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>Principal Features of an Ecocity
>http://www.ecocityprojects.net/
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