We are seeking co-workers who are already involved with or are coming into an ecocity-related discipline which could include: urban design, transportation, building and architecture, energy, water, food, soil, air quality, education, community capacity building, quality of life, economics, equity and social justice, carrying capacity, biodiversity, media, technology and/or anything having to do with making cities, towns and villages, and citizens, healthier and in closer balance with living systems.

Our office is at 339 15th Street @ Webster, at the center of a vibrant neighborhood of restaurants, locally owned shops and other small businesses. The district has a Walkscore of 97, Transit Score of 85 and Bike Score of 88.

A dedicated desk is $425/month for those who join before July 1st and can commit to a 3 month sub-lease. We expect to open the doors August 1st and are now taking reservations in advance.

If you’re interested please let us know. We can set up a time for you to come see and the space and discuss, or if you are not currently in the area we can show you around virtually. If you already have your own small business, npo, or consulting service, you can work on your projects from the CoLab space and hopefully enjoy additional opportunities for collaboration.

If we receive enough interest we may consider expanding to the East wing of the third floor. But for now we’re just hoping to expand into the adjacent studio after the current tenant moves out.

Sincerely, Kirstin Miller, Executive Director  kirstin@ecocitybuilders.org

We are all in it together: we, our fellow travelers on this circling planet, the plants and animals, the very minerals and laws of nature in a constant dance of emergence and entropy, sometimes called evolution.

“As we build so shall we live” has been something of a mantra, slogan, directive, even philosophy for me over many long years. I’ve taken it to mean something rather simple, obvious, but, I’ve thought, profoundly important and worth thinking about quite seriously.

The notion is that we shape our constructed environment, and once we do, it locks us by influence and sometimes by force into actions and whole lifestyles that may produce results from wonderfully friendly to awesomely destructive. In our circles many of us see ecologically healthy cities as pretty wonderful, should we ever decide to build them, and the present city designed around cars and cheap energy to be more than a little damaging. We should build the ecocity choice for helping make us as full of life and appreciation of it as possible.

A little more subtly, beyond being either liberated to enjoy nature close in to our happily functioning life sciences-aware cities, towns and villages and beyond benefiting from a healthy environment and a creative, compassionate culture, our cities can deliver the awareness of a very friendly message: Those who designed, built and maintain the cities we live in did their work with love of us the beneficiaries as well as for their own money and hoped-for security. Or not!

In serious commitment to the future such as in building our long-lasting urban infrastructure, we have the opportunity to do it very rightly or wrongly. Or we might mush along somewhere in the middle. Imagine a city designed for cars – do we love them, that is the cars, more than each other? Imagine a city of brazen neon lights flashing, “buy, buy, buy” with no view to hills, water or even stars above in the nighttime haze and glare – do we love the things we can buy more than the gift of life itself and the glory of the heavens? Imagine the city to screw up our climate system and drive species around the globe into extinction while burning up the complex organic chemicals – fossil “fuels” – stored in Earth’s crust instead of carefully marshaling such gifts of past life for the highest uses we can sit down and think of – do we love ever faster, always “more” and impulsive “freedom” more than security and beauty for our children and the offspring of our fellow different species on our home planet, more than at least trying our hand at wisdom rather than whim?

I enjoy studying evolution, trying to learn where we all come from, maybe the better to understand how to get better into the future at whatever seems to make us, as a Yogi I once met called it, healthy, happy, holy. In my usage the “holy” means things done in “reverence for life,” as Christian theologian and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer might also interpret. In my study, among the most insightful books were two: Animal Architects – building and the evolution of intelligence by James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould and A Brain for all Seasons – human evolution & abrupt climate change by William H. Calvin.

Brain and building

Gould and Gould trace the growing and ever more complex awareness of living entities from the single celled critters all the way through to us. That’s we who dream, plan and build, consider ourselves to be aware with ever so deep memories, emotions and profound layers of logic and theory, able to experience and appreciate the agony and the ecstasy, the longing for love and desire for life everlasting that we think characterizes our kind of… whatever sort of electro/chemical percolating seems to be pulsing through us, most concentrated in nerve fibers and brains. Is that “us” in there, in the mind, the soul, the total wholeness (from the same Greek root holos, also for “holy”) of the matter and energy we seem to be physically in the product of our parents’ DNA, in the processes of growing and changing, of fully living, of being and doing in awareness, at least partial, whatever awareness really is?

Their conclusion is that the very act of building – tools as well as habitations like nests, hives and buildings – has a powerful effect on our own total evolution. So does simply exploring natural surroundings, though much of those surroundings are themselves changing over time while being effected by lots of whoever we are and whoever the other living actors on Earth’s stage are. In the case of you and I that’s us humans in our stunningly large numbers, affecting everything else in our environment much more than, say, detritus nibbling millipedes or sauntering African lions. They, the Goulds, follow a sequence that I think is very helpful in developing some real understanding.

They start out with the single celled organism. There is something neurologists and practitioners of neuroscience – people who study nerves and the signals that move through them – call Stimulus-Response or S-R reactions. Some string of molecules inside the organism or connecting to the cell wall, by the slow development of genetics producing variations in DNA, happen to be such that a slight electric and chemical change indicates some sort of change in the cell for good or ill, meaning for health or harm of the living cell. This becomes the earliest form of something like nerve tissue. As it actually does evolve into nerve tissue and retains some changes caused by the passage of the “signal,” something like the ghosts of early memory start to form. Of course the string of molecules or nerve tissue also connects with something that helps the cell in some way too, such as connecting with a contracting tissue – think muscle – such that a beneficial squeeze happens and, for example, the cell moves in an advantageous direction, toward food, say, or away from danger. All this is so painfully tiny in action, one would think such evolutionary progress would be next to meaningless. But the meaning, sure enough, does come when the staggering number of years involved sifts for changes to enrich the external and internal environments with ever growing complexity.

Beyond S-R reactions, very simple life forms might bump into a chemical that helps when absorbed. Call such chemicals proto “food” and the ingesting thereof the first effective “eating.” The same organism bumps into other things, probably similar organisms but with some differences, and gets damaged by them, maybe getting a chunk in the skin layer removed for someone else’s paleo-dinner. If nothing inside the cell changes in such a way that the organism can store some chemical/electric record of the stimulus there is nothing that could be considered some sort of interior “neurological map” or “sensory map,” terms the Goulds use more or less interchangeably. The genetic make up of the organism, including its DNA structure, may be such that the organism either accepts that which is good for it’s preservation until time to reproduce, and it either rejects or avoids somehow what it bumps into that is damaging or outright terminating. In the scenario where it somehow selects for the beneficial it may perpetuate its line into the future. If it fails in this its issue goes out of business – or, doesn’t even get started. In Darwin/Wallace terms, that’s one case of your basic “natural selection,” “survival of the fittest,” which is not the most violent and/or powerful, but that which fits into its total environment in such a way as to successfully reproduce and pass it’s DNA on down into the future, ever so slowly mutating thanks to rare cosmic rays and weird occasional chemicals.

The effective non-reaction kind of coasting on the accidents of what DNA has built that works up to reproduction time the Goulds call “Tier O.” Not much “consciousness” there. They call the next step up a rudimentary kind of awareness of some things going on inside and at the skin a “Tier 1” “neurological map” or “sensory map” – they use both terms. Imagine that the string of molecules I mentioned earlier or the nerve tissue that connects a stimulus with a response elsewhere in the living tissue is affected by a change that endures and you have the beginning of memory – I’ve already suggested that. More to the Gould’s point, in that that string of molecules or nerve tissue has a location in the cell or simple organism, it begins to taking on a literal shape in its configuration that records a positional pattern that evolves with ever more definition into something very much like a map – so they call it just that. Say a signal comes in from the left side. The nerve like transmitter of the signal toward a central location or toward a site for some sort of movement leads from where the S was received to where the R is affected. The result is a miniature representation of what’s going on in the larger body. That’s just the way it is with paper maps, or electronic for that matter, that represent a much larger geographic area. In this case we are talking internal geography however. So all this means something of the change caused by some form of stimulation is actually recorded in some way and of rudimentary usefulness. “Tier 0” to repeat has no “map” at all, just floats along as DNA has determined, maybe through many generations past, reacting S-R style.

“Tier 2” indicates there is a record in an internal neurological map of not just the body and skin but of the area outside the organism, now generally multi-cellular, that is, either internal signals or close enough to detect as a “tactile” stimulus. The Goulds also call Tier 2 the tactile tier. They like coming to understanding of their concepts from several directions at once so they also use the term “personal space” for Tier 2. Generally the boundary of Tier 2 is about as far from the body of the creature as the additional width and length of its body. You might call it wiggle room awareness, the beginning of some form of environmental awareness.

The boundary of “Tier 3” moves out into the environment beyond just touch and comes to include what can be received by touch remotely and remembered in the internal map, and what can be seen and heard as those two senses get off to a rocky start.

Interestingly however, the genetics of DNA just keep moving along, satisfied with the evolving internal map but in some ways oblivious to it. In many ways the organism just reacts to the environment and internal stimuli by route patterning that plays out, sensory input be damned. And often quite successfully. When things are happening fast and furious it often pays to react automatically without reference to experience and learning as there might be a brief period during which the organism decides it has to consider a few alternatives before acting – during which time the predator pops it in his or her mouth. Here’s an impressive example of a “motor program” as it is more often called these days, though closer to the time when it was first recognized to exist was called a “fixed-action pattern” by Konrad Lorenz.

Geese and some other ground nesting birds – ah-hah, we are now beginning to get to the built environment… – create a low mound to contain their eggs and male and female generally take turns incubating the eggs by sitting gently down on them with their soft down, utilizing their hotter-than-human body heat. If an egg rolls out of the nest the goose 1.) see the egg where it shouldn’t be at some distance from the rudimentary nest, 2.) gets up and waddles over to it, 3.) places its beak on the far side of the egg, and 4.) the egg rolls back toward the nest and over the slight hill of the nest’s rim by pushing the egg from its far side up the gentle slope of the nest and over and 5.) between the parent goose’s feet. Then the goose, 6.), scrunches down gently to continue warming the egg. The interesting part of the story is this: Once the goose has seen the egg in the wrong place a whole train of actions takes over determined by genetics, the “motor program,” and it goes through the entire sequence meticulously executing steps one through six even if at any point in the process the egg disappears. Experimenters have removed the egg just after first sight of the misplaced egg, and it’s a little spooky to watch every single step repeated with nothing there, finishing with settling down on the invisible egg and looking quite satisfied. Motor program happily completed. My observation, not the Goulds’, is that this may be the origin of dance and symbolism – not bad! Of course we like to see such higher levels of action and meaning of this sort as something only humans could engage in – if you fail to notice the impressive matting displays of countless animals, especially birds. So it goes way back, sometimes physically “actual” and sometimes “ritual” and can be either instinctual or well thought out and planned or both.

One differing example on our way up the Tiers: spiders can spy a target in front of them but have to find a round about path to get to it, say, an insect trapped far away in a complex web. Some species can look at the target, back up, move to one side, up and down and finally through a complex route make it to the morsel for lunch. The spider not only has an internal or “cognitive” map as to the layout of things seen but can make decisions that override the motor programs genetics installed. Here we have an arthropod with a level of neurological development, in this sense, though primitive in terms of when in evolutionary history it evolved, way beyond the “higher,” or at least later to evolve, vertebrate, the goose of our example.

Making cognitive maps that reproduce internal representation of the outside landscapes also apply to making cognitive maps of what animals end up building. Here too they can be produced either strictly by genetic command or by overriding such with giving priority to what is experienced from outside by touch, hearing or sight. Bees do their dance for communicating about where the nectar-soaked and pollen-rich flowers are located through engrained, encoded even, instructions about how to dance, while using an internal map just learned by the last successful foraging mission to manage the content of the instructions exhibited in the dance, communicating to the other bees where to fly for the happy honey hunting grouds.

Pipe wasp mud tubes
These tubes about three inches long, exemplify either “motor programmed” (by genetics) building exclusively, or, if the wasp species can grasp damage somewhere in the tube and fix it, motor programming to start, then a sense that something is wrong or off plan, and, working from such a “plan” in rudimentary memory or pre-programmed, adjust action to repair the damage. The latter represents another level in evolving of awareness encouraged by the activity of building. Source: Animal Architects.

That last example had to do with exploring the outside environment. Regarding altering it in the form of building structures for sheltering various activities of the various organisms in consideration we can see the same rote and “learned,” that is stored in cognitive maps gained from experience in different complex patterns of many animals. One hunting wasp species the Gould’s report, quoting an early researcher named Douglas Spalding writing in 1873, “brings grubs – food that the wasp has never tasted – and deposits them over the egg, ready for the larva she will never see.” That’s strict motor programming. Meantime the same wasp builds a mud tube in which to place the grub and the egg, sheltered from other critters that would eat either or both. That mud tube-building process is irreversible and proceeds quickly and methodically in the same old motor program. If an experimenter breaks off the top of the mud tube, or say a rock bounces down the hill and does the same damage, the wasp doesn’t notice and meticulously finishes the tube and places the grub and the egg under the sun and moon’s light, vulnerable to any insectivorous passerby. But… a wasp of a different species that builds mud tubes for the same protection notices the broken section of the tube and repairs it, responding to different genetic encoding and either setting off on a different motor program after noticing the break or actually accessing a higher level of overriding the motor program with higher priority altering of the structure. What is evident here is that the second species of wasp here noted has an internal map, literally knows what it wants to build and can actually “visualize” it and execute a “plan” based of action on it. This becomes another higher “cognitive Tier” of awareness and mental processing.

The details in all this are really fabulous and go on to the master non-human builders of all by the end of the Goulds’ book. These master builders are the beavers. In the book we learn that certain species, many species, would not survive at all without the shelter of what they build and that building comes from both genetics and learning, sometime called nature and nurture. One thing interesting here though is that beavers are way ahead of humans, modern ones anyway.

I’ve been promoting building towns and parts thereof on “elevated fill” or “artificial hills” for some years now. The Sumerians of the Tigris and Euphrates Valley figured this one out 4,500 years ago and beavers have know all about it for a few million years. But it is only just beginning to reemerge as an alternative for low-lying areas in the world of us humans. I was ignored in New Orleans advocating that solution after Hurricane Katrina. But after Sandy in Highlands, New Jersey the citizens there are finally beginning to take the alternative of raising the flooded section of town seriously thanks to an Environment Commission Member, Steven Szulecki by name. (He is our newest Board of Advisors Member in Ecocity Builders, by the way.)

What do the beavers do? Knowing the seriousness of the problem of water levels they meticulously adjust their dams to exactly the right height that their lodges, accessed by underwater tunnels, are exactly the right height above the water surface so that they and their kits can stay dry between swims. They do this by building their lodges at the right level, elevating them when necessary, for the eventual level of the water behind the dam. And if the dam is holding too much water, they alter it to release more water. If the level of water in the dam goes down exposing their otherwise secret passage to their lodge, they plug up leaks so that the dam can catch more water and raise the surface level. They even build side canals up across the landscape, some of them hundreds of feel long, and stepped with small dams of their own, to regulate the speed of water flow and keep careful control of the volume of water. They thus divert water, draining wet places to augment water behind their dams when higher levels are needed. In winter they alter their dams to let more water drain out to provide an air space under the ice for breathing when they venture out into their reservoirs. I think all this is amazing. Do the young learn from this that we might call care in building? You bet! They have some innate skills that appear to be in-born, but, according to those humans who study them, they also learn by watching and adopting trial and error as well.

Our brains evolving as we build tools and whole environments

Recent evolution chart
This chart is from A Brain for All Seasons and shows the pattern in the last 8 million years of evolution toward my brain that finds it easier to remember charts like this my marking them up.

William Calvin in A Brain for All Seasons – Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change traces evolution way back. There is a divergence from the main line of primate evolution about 8 million years ago when gorillas went off on their path and the ancestors of chimps and humans went off in another direction.

About six million years ago there was what’s called “Pan prior,” the theorized ancestor of chimpanzees and their close relatives the bonobos on one branch and human ancestors on the other branch. Like the gorillas, the chimps and the bonobos stayed in the forest. The other evolutionary branch, ancestors in our line, is known as the bipedal apes meaning the ones on two legs that began to walk about more than swing through the trees, which was kind of like four legged transportation, if in a three-dimensional environment, the mode of the chimp line. They and the bonobos are very closely related, by the way, the latter looking very similar to the former, but with pinker lips, longer hair on the head and parted in the middle. They are noticeably smaller, too. They also are less aggressive than chimps, spend a lot of time sharing sex almost conversationally and, unlike chimpanzees, would never think of warring with next door bonobos, killing and eating them, a practice that unnerved Jane Goodall when she got unpleasantly surprised but much more knowledgeable about chimps. One side of the species got stuck on the north side of the Congo River, the bonobos, and the other on the other on the other side and for 2.5 million years approximately, they slowly diverged – but not much.

Meantime on the other branch variations were greater, and our ancestors were relatively quickly getting larger and better shaped to walk about and throw things. One assumes something was cultivating better vocal chords as our prehensile toes were disappearing while the dexterity of our hands was improving.

We were just above describing six million years ago. Now in the next four million years those walking and maybe talking structures were steadily improving bipedal ape anatomy for our own later human anatomy, but rather suddenly in evolutionary terms things sped up. What happened? Much more rapid climate change as a series of ice ages commenced about 2.5 million years ago. About 20 big freezes developed lasting generally something under 100,000 years each with much warmer spells of 10,000 to 20,000 years between. These relatively sudden changes meant that warm wet environments of dense forests and even swamps and jungles turned into open savannas and woodlands, with much smaller residuals of the really wet warm areas taking up much less room. As glaciers pushed warmer ecological regimes south (the ice ages had much less effect in the southern hemisphere which has only about 1/9 of the Earth’s land area in it, that is, south of the equator) dry areas squeezed wetter acclimatized species into smaller and often divided zones. Like the split between chimps and bonobos by the appearance of an enlarging river, so many species saw their member separated and isolated one ice age to the next.

100,000 years begins to be significant for separated groups to do some significant diversion. The mechanism, though, is interesting. And the resulting period of speciation experimentation and fast changing results played into building tools and eventually buildings and cities. What Calvin points out is that the human brain in this period, the last approximately 2.5 million years, increased in size three times over.

First, he points out the mechanism for speedier speciation. Then he describes the influences that increased brain size and, roughly, complexity and ability to gain the full range of thinking abilities, “cognitive maps,” planning etc. all the way up the “Tiers” of consciousness.

Calvin emphasizes that in large populations, the genetic pool keeps averaging out; when a variation becomes emphasized among a small number of individuals in a particular area, mixing with others generally weakens whatever changes would have evolved. But when the larger population is fragmented by, say, advancing ice or deserts spreading across highlands isolating separate river valleys, something interesting happens. Some groups with shared traits diverging from the species “average” may be isolated and not diluted any more by mixing occasionally with others of the species, now on the other side of the arm of desert. He points out it is like random selection of a jury that turns up all women or all men, rather than a proportion closer to 50/50. Over many generations the new feature gets locked in and when the ice retreats and the climate changes again, the new variants have something advantageous to certain environments and many of them just don’t feel like crossing with the others for who knows how many various reasons.

As to the growth of the human brain, going back to Pan prior something more than the 2.5 million years before both our divergence from the chimps and the coming of the ice ages, our line began using broken stones with sharp edges as tools, or even learned how to break them for such use. Calvin hypothesizes that the evolution of such proto-tools into projectiles called “hand axes,” and their use in hunting, had a great deal to do with the selective pressures favoring brain growth and the development of the many forms of knowing explored by Gould and Gould. These factors all work in concert after receiving from the bipedal 4 million years:

1. The cognitive and creative needs for strategy in effective hunting, a most advantageous adaptation in a world of forests turning to grassland – that means meat eating from the grazers as much of the diet as fruits and vegetation was shrinking back to smaller areas, some going extinct.

2. The habits of sharing, aka appearance and development of altruism within the group, which has a great deal of utility in positive evolutionary selection and also is greatly facilitated by…

3. Development of language.

4. Then there is the making and use of tools for hunting, first the flung rock or stick, then the shaped rock with sharp edges, then the spear, the atal atal (spear accelerated to extra high speed and long range with throwing stick) then bow and arrow.

5. Uses of fire.

The altruism part is especially interesting and most important, remember that the multiple fragmentation of environment by climate change gave maybe just enough time for genetic and cultural adaptations and inventions related to all five factor above to stick. But enough already for a newsletter essay of reasonable length. You can always read the two books I’ve herein referenced, which I most highly recommend.

Emergence happens

I’ll end with a kind of wrap up in the concept of emergence, that “self-organizing” pattern in evolution for which Ilya Pirogine received the Nobel Prize. For those in the tradition of building cities, Tielhard de Chardin and Paolo Soleri loom large, de Charin in exploring the pattern, and Soleri in seeing what cities had to do with evolution, which is basically a description of how emergence works.

I remember in earlier times of my study of such things, back in the 1960s and 1970s say, evolution theory more or less accepted the dominance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, bowing to the mathematicians and physicists, that the universe was headed for a heat death of dispersed everything. Maybe we all felt intimidated and awestruck by their power – they had after all produced the atomic bomb just a few years earlier, which was hard to get out of our heads, living under such a threat.

Well, looking ahead maybe hundreds of billions of years and watching entropy play out might be educational but how about useful in the meantime? It’s a pretty long meantime. After all, evolution creates planets and life while stars burn like crazy cooking up all sorts of heavier elements and it turns out at least 61 elemental particles smaller than atoms all in the mix. Life careens on to ever more diversity and, short of encounters with asteroids and exterminating species like humans, the pattern of new entities is emerging biologically constantly, sometimes gradually and sometimes goosed into action by major climate changes or other events.

Robert B. Laughlin, another Nobel Prize winner, does something interesting in his book A Different Universe – Reinventing Physics for the Bottom Down by, finally, apply emergence to physics itself. Yes, at the “Big Bang” extrapolated as best we can from evidence, it appears most elemental particles, along with time, came into being (that’s a hard one to grasp, but let’s go on anyway – it remains very difficult to even grasp commonly experienced gravity, how what attracts a dropped ball downward also holds the planets, stars and even galaxies in their ever shifting, even hurtling positions). Exactly then as the Second Law kicked in, so also did the emergence of new phenomena begin. Sub atomic particles, mainly the protons, electrons and neutrons, took their positions in hydrogen and helium atoms and according to patterns that there would be no way of expecting by the preceding condition of matter and energy. Before the stars cooked up the heavier elements and exploded their contents into space, there could be no chemistry with the elements uniting and repelling in various ways. Until biological material gathered itself together in organisms, no biology. Until nervous tissue or strings of molecules with analogous function formed up, no interior “cognitive maps” leading outward through “tiers” of various kinds of awareness toward data accumulation, knowledge, planning, creativity, genius and wisdom. All these cases, down to the level explored in physics, says Laughlin, are cases of both physical matter in form and in action through time exemplifying emergence. Do-si-do, emergence and entropy – welcome to evolution and our role in it, inseparable from what we build.

With something of a sign of relief, maybe as early as the 1980s, I began to feel comfortable with the notion that the phenomenon of emergence, something of an ultimate creativity in the universe, exists with exactly the same reality and value for whatever we might think of as normal or healthy evolution, as entropy. I began cooking up an idea that there are “dimensional pairs” that define reality. “Dimensional pairs” are interesting because if they don’t both exist then there’s no such existence at all. Each without the other nothing. Here are some such pairs: time and space, matter and energy, the unique and the universal, among much living matter male and female and likewise entropy and emergence, and much else. This is no news to ancient Oriental thinkers debating the Yin and Yang of reality, but the mathematicians, physicists and astronomers were now joined by the biologically based and more intimately detailed whole systems theorists exploring emergence, which has many parallels with what on the human scale we tend to think of as creativity, the other dimension of which is destructive.

Beaver dams and canal
Beavers have a wide range of built structures for regulating water levels and a rich environment for their lives and work, notably, dams, canals and secret underwater tunnels to their high and dry lodges. From Animal Architects.

So what might all this mean when we start thinking of what we build and its influence upon us? And us upon it and round and round we go and what we build changing “each other” through time.  First, building is tools as well as buildings and the layout and design and operation of whole villages, towns and cities. I didn’t here get into much detail on the likes of the mud nests of cliff swallows up under roaring waterfall ledges, the towering termite mounds, to them as 14,000 foot tall buildings, seven times taller than anything we’ve constructed would be to us, the “motor programmed” shaping of the cells of the bee’s hive, the really specific bracing of the beaver’s supports for his or her dams holding back the water pressure of many acre feet or the effects those built environments might have on not just protecting the security and very lives of those who build such constructed environments. But I have suggested their importance in shaping life’s internal maps and our ability to manipulate such maps into planning tools and the fonts of creativity and perhaps even the self awareness that makes us think we actually exist, consciousness emerged, the idea of self and soul. The leads are all here; as usual the rest is, as I sometimes say at the end of my articles in this newsletter, up to you.

Richard can be reached at ecocity@igc.org

Emergence into existence of heavier elements
Dust and the Helix Nebula, a telescopic photograph from the University of Arizona Steward Observatory. We see here a star at the center and the heavier elements it has thrown out into space in a nova or super nova explosion (not differentiated in the accompanying text).

Yesterday I went to a panel discussion entitled A Story of Shuttles at SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. For those of you not living in SF (and the Bay Area), what’s come to be known as “The Google Bus” is a whole fleet of privately run corporate limousine buses that are shuttling employees in the tech industry from hundreds of pick-up places near their homes in SF to their workplaces in Silicon Valley. The premise, according to company representatives at the panel, is that their predominantly young, under 35 workforce is “nauseated by the suburbs” and would rather commute up to 80 miles round trip to San Francisco every day than live near their workplace, and so the companies’ job is to make that trip as comfortable as possible, to attract and retain their workforce.

According to the SFMTA, there are now almost 40 companies running these shuttles with over two hundred stops across the city. Google alone runs over 100 buses and 380 trips daily across the Bay Area, which has earned them the honor of being the poster child for the luxury liner phenomenon. However, the trend was first started about 7 years ago by some of the more established biotech companies in South San Francisco like Genentech. It wasn’t really a big deal when there were just a handful, but the last two years has seen such a rapid explosion of these behemoths into our neighborhood streets that it feels a bit like an invasive species.

Most of these buses are anonymous entities that often make everything and everyone else dwarf in comparison and clog up the streets…

but some of them are a bit more ostentatious in their destination…

They load and unload in the public transit (MUNI) bus stops, and quite frequently just double-park right in an intersection.

Two deep, about to unload “customers,” cars honking and pulling dangerous maneuvers to get past.

They are pretty much everywhere now, even on Valencia St, which has been transformed into a bicycle highway and people friendly walking corridor in recent years, but as a cyclist during rush hour you now have to contend with these guys turning on and off at random intersections. I guess this is one way to get big corporate billboards into a neighborhood that prides itself on protecting its small local merchants from chain store invasions.

There are some much touted benefits of reducing automobile trips on Bay Area roads, and I definitely appreciate and applaud the good intentions behind these buses, but as someone who has written quite a bit about sustainable urban design, these buses, while addressing one small transportation sliver of the whole livable city ecosystem, raise a whole range of other social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues that are basically being treated as externalities by the people who are enabling the flooding of these private “yachts on wheels” deep into city neighborhoods, without much public discussion.

SPUR’s description of the panel had me excited because I thought it would delve into some of the broader ramifications of this transformation:

Those big buses are tough to miss. As employer shuttles sprout up across the Bay Area, what do they tell us about our region, its workers and its employers? What are the benefits and challenges that accompany their increasing presence? This forum will take a closer look at how and why some employers manage worker transportation.

Alas, it did not live up to its billing, and my hope is that this letter will spark further discussion and perhaps another panel where this issue can be addressed on a more meaningful level, perhaps inspiring more integrative solutions to the unsustainable way of life we’ve created for ourselves.

o~O~o~O~o~O~o~

Dear SPUR,

Thank you so much for putting together the panel on the corporate limousine buses with the folks from Google, Genentech, RidePal, and SFMTA today. I appreciate you trying to address this new phenomenon that is so rapidly changing our city and our neighborhoods, giving us a chance to listen to Daniel McCoy, Brendon Harrington, Dominic Haigh, and Carli Paine’s side of the story.

That said, I felt that the way this panel was set up and the treatment of the topic was pretty shallow and far from integrative thinking. Right off the bat, Ms. Paine, who I suppose was the lone representative of the public interest on the panel, proclaimed that the discussion would be limited to transportation issues exclusively, not about any social concerns that may be arising from what Mr. Haigh coined the “collaborative consumption for corporate commuter shuttles.”

With all due respect, but for anyone who has seriously thought about livable cities and sustainable urban planning, having thousands of wealthy young professionals (and growing) escorted en masse into vibrant, often working class neighborhoods in supersized luxury coaches is more than a transportation issue. I say this partly as a concerned Guerrero Street resident who has seen the neighborhood I have lived in for over 15 years morph into a pricy boutique destination over the last couple of years — coinciding with the ascent of “The Google Bus” — but also as a core advisor of the International Ecocity Framework & Standards Initiative that outlines 15 diverse conditions that need to be addressed for any city to consider itself ecologically healthy.

5 of these 15 conditions fall into the socio-cultural category, from an equitable economy to community capacity building, and that is no coincidence. Pretty much anyone who has seriously thought about environmental issues in the last 10-20 years knows that solving the problems of climate change and resource depletion are as much, if not more, about social, economic and justice issues as they are about counting carbon or taking a few cars off the road without looking at the effects on people and the commons. There is a reason why the UN has put all its climate change and environmental policies within a sustainable development frame: you cannot solve environmental problems without addressing poverty, inequity, social injustice, and the well being of the most vulnerable among us.

In the context of The Google Bus, what does it say about these companies that they’re so fixated on reaching 30, 40, or 50% customer rates (Yes, both Mr. McCoy and Mr. Harrington kept referring to their employees as “customers”) while rents and housing prices in the neighborhoods that they’re encouraging and actively recruiting their “customers” to live in have risen by the same percentages, if not more (I see small 2 bedroom apartments rent for $4000 a month on my street, and the 1100 sqft condo next door is currently on the market for $900,000, with literally hundreds of buyers lining up). Perhaps even more puzzling to me is that the city, who is supposed to be serving its residents and not “customers” from corporations headquartered in the suburbs (presumably because it is so much cheaper for them than to operate in the city), is bending over backwards to accommodate these private luxury liners on its public streets.

Muni meets The Google Bus.

During the Q&A, we were basically told that there is nothing that can stop the rapid expansion of even more buses on more streets. The suggestion that maybe there could be only 10 pick-up and drop-off points was quickly dismissed by Mr. McCoy, who openly admitted that his only concern was with the growth of his private enterprise that would suffer if his “customers” did no longer have the convenience of door to door limo service. Furthermore, the suggestion that perhaps Google build a thriving ecovillage on their campus or invest in making Mountain View more livable pretty much got a non-response. The question whether these corporations should pay the city fees/taxes for road maintenance and using Muni stops wasn’t asked, but it would be an interesting one.

Basically, the Googles and Facebooks of the world are going to keep using San Francisco as a recruiting tool to attract the brightest and most expensive minds in the world but will invest nothing in any kind of public infrastructure to support civic life beyond their own corporate interest. The message here seems to be, tough luck for the old-time residents, the artistic and cultural backbone of the Mission, who are the very reason all the young and hip tech wizards want to move here in the first place; don’t worry about all the traffic every morning and evening, backed up behind growing fleets of diesel-spewing behemoths loading and unloading throngs of headset-clad twenty somethings staring into their gadgets, you’ll soon be priced out of the neighborhood anyway.

New kids on the block, waiting for The Bus.

I can understand the very narrow and self-serving motivations of these corporations — they are, after all, primarily in the business of making money. I don’t even question their good intentions in terms of wanting to reduce their carbon footprint. I just don’t think they’re quite as smart as they think they are, as their thinking seems to be painfully linear rather than rooted in a deeper whole systems analysis. And even their single-minded focus on transportation is not really yielding the kind of success their powerpoints claim, seeing that last year the Bay Area was one of the worst three congested urban areas in the U.S., on par with L.A.

I have a much harder time though understanding why the city is so single-handedly fixated on transportation stats instead of looking at sustainability from a broader cultural and socio-economic perspective, and why SPUR would fail to get anyone with a deeper knowledge of urban development on this panel. It feels like nothing was resolved at all, and the conclusion of the event was that this is just the way things are and how they’re going to be in the future, just more of it with better apps.

Not to sound too NIMBY about it, but for me as a long-time Mission resident with a starving artist income, that means not only more tinted-window buses double parked outside my house, but more expensive restaurants, more boutique shops I can’t afford, and never being able to move again if I want to continue to live in my city. As far as the highly touted reductions in CO2 from the corporate commuter buses, has anyone at Google ever done an analysis of the type of carbon footprint that comes with the expendable income of someone who can afford a million dollars for a tiny condo? Imagine all the stuff people with a million bucks can and will buy, and the fossil fuels burned to manufacture and ship it. That’s the kind of question I would like to hear addressed on a panel like this.

My hope would be that this discussion could be continued and broadened, talking about the broader social, environmental, and economic effects, a discussion about the meaning of the commons and shared civic responsibilities, the class division between the lavish luxury buses and scrappy old muni buses, the effects of the buses on Caltrain and other public transit, and other things of a more meaningful holistic nature. For example, why not invite someone like author and San Francisco native Rebecca Solnit, who has written a very eloquent critique about the socio-cultural and economic ramifications of The Google Bus? Or perhaps BART Board Director Tom Radulovich who could offer some very valuable livable city insights?

Just some thoughts from a concerned citizen and resident.

Sincerely, Sven Eberlein

Had enough of Winter? – Ready for a getaway? – Martha’s Vineyard Island may just be the perfect end of the winter getaway.  A popular summer resort, famous for its many beaches, it is also a good choice in the Spring and Fall before the crowds arrive or after they leave.

Temperatures may or may not be warm enough to swim during the Spring or Fall, so if swimming is essential, you should plan    your visit in the summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day). If temperatures don’t allow for swimming during your visit, the beaches can still be enjoyable.  Walking along the beaches, some stretching for miles, provides spectacular ocean views, abundant nature or the opportunity to just relax. In addition to beaches, activities of all types are plentiful – historic towns, hiking, bicycling, water sports of various types, farms, nature, lighthouses, shopping and spectacularly scenic vistas and these are just some of what you will find.

Most importantly, visiting Martha’s Vineyard doesn’t require driving.

The Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) offers bus service to most of the island.  A comprehensive network of bike trails and numerous bike rental shops offer another car-free
way to enjoy your visit.

Getting Here

“The Vineyard” is connected to the mainland by numerous ferry services from points in Massachusetts and Rhode Island as well as air service from Hyannis on Cape Cod and other cities in the Northeast.  Check each ferry service’s web-site for bus and train connections.

Smart Guide – Car-free travel guide to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Islands, including bicycle information.
Steamship Authority – Year round to Vineyard Haven from Woods Hole. Seasonal service to Oak Bluffs. 508-693-9130
HyLine Cruises – To Oak Bluffs seasonally from Hyannis MA.  800-492-8082
Seastreak – To Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs during the summer and early fall from New Bedford MA.  Operates only to Vineyard Haven during the spring and late fall.  To Oak Bluffs summer Fridays from New York City and Highlands NJ.  Returns on Sundays.  1-800-BOATRIDE (1-800-262-8743)
Martha’s Vineyard Fast Ferry – To Oak Bluffs from Quonset Point RI seasonally .  Connection in Quonset Point to Amtrak Shuttle from Kingston RI.  : 401-295-4040
Island Queen – Seasonal service from Falmouth MA to Oak Bluffs.  508-548-4800
Falmouth Ferry – Seasonal service from Falmouth MA to Edgartown.  508-548-9400
Patriot Party Boats – Seasonal service from Falmouth MA to Oak Bluffs. Also operates
a 24 hour water taxi service. 508-548-9400
Martha’s Vineyard Airport – Air Service is available to Martha’s Vineyard Airport year round from Hyannis, Boston, New Bedford and Nantucket MA and White Plains NY, and seasonally from Provincetown MA, Providence RI, New York (JFK) and Washington DC (DCA)    508-693-7022

Map of Martha’s Vineyard

Getting Around
Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) – The Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority provides year round transportation to all 6 of the island towns, stopping at or near all the important
points of interest.  Transfer points around the island provide convenient timed connections with minimal waits in most cases.

Flag stops are allowed on all routes wherever the bus can stop safely.  Be sure to pick up a copy of the “Riders Guide” which lists flag stop exceptions.  The free “System Route Map” includes maps of all routes, fare and pass information and a town by town guide to routes.  Fares are $1.00 per town, each way, including town of origin.  Passes are One Day $7.00, Three Day $15.00 and Seven Day $25.00.  A pass is your most economical option even for one round trip if you travel in more than three towns.

One day, three day and seven day passes may be purchased on the bus, at the Steamship Authority Terminals, or from Ticket Sellers at the primary Oak Bluffs, Edgartown and Vineyard Haven bus stops from Memorial Day through Labor Day.  Persons with disabilities and seniors 65 and over pay ½ fare.  Children 6 and under ride free when accompanied by an adult.  508-693-9440

Biking Martha’s Vineyard

Biking –
Biking on The Vineyard is popular and becoming more so, both with visitors and island residents.  A comprehensive network of paved bike trails in the down-island towns and lighter traffic in the up-island towns make biking easy for riders of all abilities.  In additional most of the island is fairly flat with some rolling hills in the up-island towns.

VTA buses are equipped with bike racks making a trip combining both public transportation and biking convenient. Bicycle Rentals are available in shops in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven.  Visit  http://www.mvy.com/BICYCLES-RENTING for a list of bike rental shops with contacts.

For a map of bike routes, visit http://www.mvy.com/WebContent/WebContentPage.aspx?
For more details on biking, visit the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce website.
http://www.mvy.com/Visitor_Information/Biking_on_the_Vineyard.aspx

Tours
Tour Martha’s Vineyard – Introductory tour (1hour), Full island tour (3 hours) covering all six towns on the island or customized tours.  508-939-1359
Trustees of Reservations – Natural History and kayak tours of Cape Pogue, Mytoi and Wasque on Chappaquiddick and Long Point Wildlife Refuge in West Tisbury.  508-693-7662

The Towns of Martha’s Vineyard – “The Vineyard” consists of six towns, each with their own unique personality.  Whether you want to visit historic sights, swim, hike, commune with nature, shop, or enjoy the nightlife, at least one of the towns will be just
what you want.  You will hear people referring to “up-island” and “down-island.

Down-island refers to the three larger towns:  Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven.  Up-island is West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah, because these towns are more hilly.

Edgartown – The oldest town on the island, Edgartown was the first non-native settlement, founded as Great harbor in 1642.  The town  became prominent in the 19th century as many whaling captains built impressive mansions, most of which still remain.

Edgartown is made for walking.  Browse or window shop at the shops and boutiques on Main St., walk along North and South Water St among the historic 19th century ship captains homes.

Head to Lighthouse Beach for a beautiful view of the harbor and Chappaquiddick, a swim in the calm waters, or a tour of the lighthouse.  Wander just about anywhere in Edgartown and you will encounter history, charm and beautiful vistas.

Information at the Visitors Center at the Church St. bus stop.

Best Read Guide Walking Tour - Edgartown
Vincent House (1672), Daniel Fisher House (1840) and the Old Whaling Church (1843) – Guided tours of these historic buildings are available daily at 11am, noon, 1pm and 2pm  Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust (508) 627-4440  These properties are located just a few steps from the VTA Church St. stop.
Memorial Wharf – Climb up to the rooftop viewing platform to see the parade of yachts passing through the harbor and views of the stately waterfront homes.  This is the departure point for the 3 minute ferry crossing to Chappaquiddick.  VTA Rt. 11 (seasonal).
Martha’s Vineyard Museum – A complex of two historic homes, a carriage house and the Fresnel Lens (1854) from the Gay Head Lighthouse.  An excellent opportunity to experience the past of this historic island.  Short walk from Church St. bus stop.
Katama – A beach-side residential area south of Edgartown, once the southern terminal of the Martha’s Vineyard Railroad.  As you near South Beach, the terrain becomes a flat plain of beautiful beach vegetation, know locally as the “Great Plains”.  VTA Rt. 8
Chappaquiddick – Part of Edgartown, Chappaquiddick is a separate island accessible by the “On Time” ferry via a 3 minute crossing.  The scenery changes dramatically once on the island.  Downtown Edgartown is busy and commercial, but once you get off the ferry, you are in a rural, sparsely populated area.  There is no public transportation on Chappaquiddick, but the small country lanes are perfect for bicyling.  Bicycles can be rented before you board the ferry from R.W. Cutley Bike Rentals, a few steps from the dock.

Three points are must sees:
Mytoi - Two and a half miles from the ferry, this serene 14 acre Japanese Garden is well worth the bike ride.  The name was conceived when the man who created this garden referred to it as his toy. 508-627-7689
Wasque – (“Way-skwee”) Five miles from the ferry near the southeastern tip of Chappaquiddick, Wasque was once connected to Edgartown when nearby Norton Point Beach stretched all the way to South Beach in Katama.  A 2007 storm breached this long barrier beach making Chappaquiddick a true island and resulting in major changes to the coastline, which continue today.  A wonderful place for nature lovers – small beaches, sand cliffs, water birds, short walking trails, marshes, fishing, oak and pine forests and grasslands.  Swimming can be hazardous due to the ever changing currents that resulted from the breach.  Caution is also necessary on and below the fragile sand cliffs.
Cape Pogue – A 516 acre wildlife refuge with a 7 mile barrier beach stretching along the entire east coast of Chappaquiddick.   Cape Pogue lighthouse is at the northern tip of the refuge.  The best way to visit Cape Pogue is via a Trustees of Reservation tour.  With advance reservations, transportation is provided from the ferry.

Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge Chappaquiddick Island, Martha’s Vineyard

Edgartown is served by VTA routes 1 (Vineyard Haven), 6 (Aquinnah, Chilmark and the Airport), 8 (Katama), 11 (Downtown Seasonally) and 13 (Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven).
The primary bus stop is in front of the visitors center on Church St.

Where To Stay

Edgartown
Harborside Inn – Across the street from the Lighthouse and Lighthouse Beach.  VTA – 10 minute walk from Rt. 11 Mayhew Lane stop – 20 minute walk from Rts. 1,6,8 and 13 Church St. Stop.
Clarion Inn - Upper Main Street.  VTA Routes 1 and 13
Winnetu - In Katama, a few steps from South Beach.  VTA Route 8.

Oak Bluffs – Oak Bluffs is a young town compared to Edgartown and Vineyard Haven.  While those towns were firmly ensconced in the whaling industry, Oak Bluffs was basically a wilderness until Methodist revival meeting were first convened in 1835.  These meetings continued to grow, the tents of the original meetings evolved into cottages and in 1880, Oak Bluffs, originally part of Edgartown, broke away and incorporated as Cottage City.  The name Oak Bluffs dates to 1907.

Oak Bluffs offers a sharp contrast to all the other island towns.  Compared to the rural towns of West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah, Oak Bluffs has the feel of a small city.  Shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues abound along Circuit Ave and around the harbor.  The dignified ship captain’s mansions and Cape style houses of Edgartown and Vineyard Haven contrast sharply to the whimsical Gingerbread Cottages and Victorian Homes in Oak Bluffs. Information booth located at the junction of Circuit, Lake and Oak Bluffs Avenues.

Best Read Guide Walking Tour – Oak  Bluffs
Circuit Ave – The business center of Oak Bluffs, Circuit Ave was named for the “circuit” that the Campground preachers rode.  Today it is lined with boutiques, small shops and restaurants.  VTA Routes 7, 9 and 13
African American Heritage Trail – African Americans, including slaves have been part of Martha’s Vineyard history since before the American Revolution.  Oak Bluffs became a summer retreat for a number of middle class African Americans during the early 1900s and continues to this day.  The trail consists of 23 sites scattered around the island.
Camp Meeting – Near Circuit Ave., this is the location of the original Methodist Revival meetings.  The 36 acre site has over 300 “Gingerbread” cottages and the wrought iron Tabernacle, an open air auditorium seating more than 3000 people, now used for concerts and special events.  On Illumination Night in August, (August 14, 2013), the Tabernacle and many of the cottages are decorated with hundreds of Japanese lanterns – a spectacular sight if you are visiting during that time.  Be sure to visit the Cottage Museum, the only cottage open to the public.  VTA VTA Routes 7,9 and 13
Flying Horses - Built in Coney Island in 1876 and moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1884, the Flying Horses is the oldest operating platform carousel in the United States, and is now a National Historic Landmark.  508-693-9481.  VTA Routes 7,9 and 13

More information about Oak Bluffs is available at http://oakbluffsmv.com/
Oak Bluffs is served by VTA routes 7 (Airport), 9 (Airport) and 13 (Vineyard Haven and Edgartown.  The primary bus stop is next to the Steamship Authority Dock.

Where To Stay

Oak Bluffs
Surfside Motel – Near Circuit Ave and ferrys, many rooms with ocean views.  VTA Routes 7,9 and 13
Wesley Hotel – Historic ocean front hotel near Camp Meeting.   VTA Rtes 7,9 and 13
For more accommodation options visit Best Read Guide.

What I have talked about here is only a sample of what you will find on Martha’s Vineyard. Visit the following web-sites for more details.
Marthas Vineyard Travel Guide
  Best Read Guide
Martha’s Vineyard Chamber-of-Commerce

In our next column, we will spotlight more towns and other highlights in Martha’s Vineyard. Would you like to be a guest columnist and write a short article about one of your favorite vacation spots that you can enjoy without driving?  E-mail me at steveatlas45@yahoo.com, and include your contact information, some information about yourself, and the vacation
spot you want to cover. I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible. Thanks.

Paolo Soleri two or three years before Richard met him, that is, around 1962 or 1963. He is working on his early structures at Cosanti in Paradise Valley, then some distance from Phoenix, now surrounded by urban sprawl.
Photo credit: Cosanti Foundation/Arcosanti Archives

Said a friend recently, “We hear about Paolo Soleri so infrequently these days, why do you keep mentioning him as a key person in your career, anyway?”  “My career?  Should be everybody’s survival and thriving into the future, not just one individual’s career.”

Paolo Soleri is one of the three most important people of the 20th century, and leading into the 21st century now.  Time Magazine got it backward deliberating on their two nominees when its editors and publishers chose Einstein over Gandhi as Man of the 20th Century.  Of course they missed Paolo entirely, for reasons I’ll contemplate below.

In “outward looking,” mechanistic Western tradition they chose Einstein over Gandhi because Einstein told us a great deal about the universe we are part of, the universe outside of ourselves, and how it works in terms of physics and mathematics.  Very important for sure, even beautiful in its way.  Gandhi, however told us about ourselves and how to survive deep into the future by way of non-violence and self-discipline, by the love and spiritual/psychological path that many equate with the “inward looking” Eastern tradition.  Of course!  Time Magazine is a western publication.

Gandhi, like Einstein, worked in the physical world but in a very different field of action, destroying the most far-flung empire the world ever saw and replacing it with the still-largest democracy on the planet – all with non-violence and appeal to the compassionate and spiritual.  It is amazing, and to our discredit and gathering danger, that he is talked about so infrequently these days.  On behalf of us Westerners avoiding self-confrontation, Time Magazine correctly represented the strong tendency of economics and science to embrace Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of economics and supposed objectivity of science leading the way, with little guidance from whatever it is humanity really is.  We float into the future following what is physically possible.  We blindly follow the pathetically under-examined and under-evaluated trends of economy.  (Should we really follow something that’s invisible?!)

Paolo in 1973 at his “Two Suns Seminar” at Arcosanti in which he suggested
designs for his ecocities that he called “arcologies” ­ an architecture of
cities on ecological principles ­ united with large scale passive solar
energy design. Should have been a revolution in both urbanism and energy
progress. We are still far from there.
Photo credit: Richard Register

Soleri figures in as providing the General Field Theory that Einstein sought unsuccessfully, because he, Einstein, didn’t identify one of those key items in the evolutionary process, namely us people with our ability to shape evolution itself, to provide another dimension of creativity to the full swath of evolution’s course through the universe – and destructivity.  What we add to evolution are love and hate, passion and robotic numbness, greed and generosity, good and evil and other elements of a wide range of “drivers” way off the radar screen of physics and math.  Soleri, though developing the theory in a language that most people couldn’t read – or didn’t want to think about – said it most succinctly in the title of one of his books: “The Bridge Between Matter and Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit.”  This sounds puzzling to most people but simply means that evolution delivers changes in a particular pattern in which people now play a crucial role giving rise to higher levels of integration, physically and thereby spiritually, if spirit means higher levels of consciousness and conscience in us humans and heading toward whatever may come in moving in that direction into the unknown reaches of future evolution

Presently, human impact on evolution is massively evident and has been understood almost solely in destructive terms, us two-legged, brain-bright exterminating angles sweeping across the planet with spears, atel-atels, bows and arrows and guns destroying most of the larger fauna of the biosphere, with axes and chainsaws, destroying most of the forests, with plows and bulldozers cutting through the soils… and so on.  Now massive amounts of CO2 from our sprawling cities designed on the measure of cars, not people, destroy the stability of the climate system of a whole planet.  That the Earth is experiencing an “extinction spasm” and collapsing biodiversity for all of the planet and evolution here into the many millions of years in the future is well known and accepted by anyone who studies ecological biodiversity, paleontology, evolution or just plain biology.  Most people don’t want to think too much about that, or if they do, just wallow in their vulnerability and lack of courage to fight back by doing something uncomfortably new, difficult, strenuous, systematic, disciplined and rewarding.  They fantasize instead about moving to a country farm, putting a solar “collector” on their roof, growing a vegetable garden while actually doing little to put even that dreamy effort in gear.

Richard and Paolo at his 90th birthday party, Arcosanti.
Photo credit: Susan Felter

But if we took up the challenge of rescuing evolution from the division between physics and us creative agents, who are people potentially in sync with Einstein’s universe and Gandhi’s notion of who we can be, they’d realize there is a very positive side to all this interference in evolution, which is our ability to build ourselves and our cities, towns and villages in a way to get evolution back on a healthy track.  We can, as Gandhi demonstrated, mold ourselves into agents of peaceful evolution.  We can, as Soleri proposes in his ideas for reshaping the built environment, help reshape ourselves at the same time we are supporting, not attacking, biodiversity in the way we build our cities, towns and villages.  Einstein was hooked into physics and math that were too limited, broad though they be, to give efficacy to the world we humans operate in, the world Gandhi was exploring, the world Soleri described pretty well and not only that but demonstrated in his attempts to build something capable of radical energy, land, time and other resources conservation, that is, lean and efficient “matter” organized for biodiversity and attaining higher human creative and compassionate potential.

People have not caught on to Paolo’s enormous and crucial contribution for many reasons, no doubt many reasons I don’t understand myself.  But I see a large part of the problem of ignoring his powerful contribution as having to do with everyone following each other around in a circle like a heard of sheep, everyone wanting to be accepted and everyone afraid of genuine change.  People wanting to thrive right now in material terms, cling possessively to every shred of “success,” people trying to be accepted into academic propriety, look smart and attractive, become an embodiment of business success, provide for the funding sources what the foundations and governments want, send the kids to the right schools, follow the “invisible hand” of the market place instead of the creative mind of… ourselves.  We follow the supposedly objective directives of science and go where it seems to be blindly leading us rather than saying, “WE decide to go there, but not there.”  Our stinginess in giving to the future, paying taxes and using them for the future, the fear of investing something in the future when we might be able to enjoy something else in comfort today is involved too, no doubt.  I have nothing against some comforts and pleasant habits, and we can have some of those.  But we need to face up to some real discomfort, embrace some serious even painful exercise, summons real effort and courage to grow into something “spiritual” from the material world we are part of, as Soleri suggests in that title of his book.  We need to do this to facilitate a healthy direction for evolution here on this planet and in our corner of the universe.

Kirstin visits Arcosanti in 2009 for Paolo’s Birthday.
Photo credit: Richard Register

Einstein was amazing but he didn’t get it totally right if a mere layman dare say.  There’s simply more to evolution and the universe than math and physics and there’s far more to life than that.  The attempt for a unified field theory based on such reduction was just too narrowly drawn.

Soleri alerted us to the direction evolution takes – moving toward more complexity and miniaturization in ever more harmonious whole systems – and suggested a methodology that would help enormously in that direction: the reshaping of cities in a healthy direction and at the same time, therefore, a reshaping of ourselves and all of evolution to follow.

Richard can be reached at ecocity@igc.org

I’m just back from France and helping with some planning for the 10th International Ecocity Conference/Ecocity World Summit in Nantes coming up September 25 through 27.

Thinking back over the last nine International Ecocity Conferences to the First International Ecocity Conference in 1990, not to speak of all the conferences in our series hosted by others I’ve participated in, a thought occurred to me. Clarification of what seems to work you might call it. And the notion of “takeaways” came up. (Pronounced “take aways” – the word looks a little peculiar…) There always seems to be a small number of highlights people remember that effect them into the future, often in important ways, a small number of things that lead to some sort of positive change in the real world we all share.  

For Ecocity 10 in Nantes? These three immediately came to mind:

• The role of elevated fill/artificial hill + ecocity design = best adaptation to climate change and rising waters AND prevention of the problems in the first place.
• A scheme for “natural carbon sequestration through holistic management” and how ecocities help with that.
• Linking – finally! – ecocities to the climate change debate and in particular to the next UN Climate Conference: COP 19 in Warsaw, November 11 to 22.

The elevated fill/artificial hill connection

What appears to be a rather small discrete item sometimes turns out to be a powerful point of leverage and the launch of major new alternatives.

Here’s one good take away that fits our times and could be a major objective of Ecocity 10: that the key to both solving problems of flooding from climate change, rising seas and more ferocious storms and the problem of transforming cities from dysfunctional to strikingly healthy might be in something as simple as building ecocity designs on simple mounds of earth. Make these high enough to rise above the floods. Simple.  

Readers of this newsletter and audiences at my talks have heard this at least a couple times from me in the last few years, but it works. That the Sumerian Civilization 4,500 years ago solved the problem of flooding in the Tigris Euphrates Valley by simply rising a few feet over the swollen waters shouldn’t be viewed as a – ho-hum – old, way out of style idea, but as something that actually works to save lives and preserve hard earned property, and given the expected disasters of climate change, massive improvement relative to knowledgeable predictions into the future. What’s new at this time in history is that tying ecocity design to elevated fill/artificial hill solves numerous problems all at once. Far from being old style, ecocities are the space age solutions brought down to Earth, a very new integration into something different and leading.  

Following too is that the transition from the car city to the city for people is already underway as more people in traffic jam-weary, money wasting countries are beginning to head for the lively centers. The only problem there is that such wonderful new living close to jobs, culture, friends, good food, etc. is driving the housing prices up. That problem could be solved but people haven’t yet figured out how to build more development of an ecocity variety in those centers, how to make those places truly delightful. We can show it can be done. But first…

First, no more flooding. You’ve simply risen above the waters. This is no small thing. Approximately a third of all humanity lives close to shorelines on their way up, in zones of hurricanes and in or along inland river flood zones. All can employ elevated community design in a simple strategy to be safe.

Second, ecocity design, in conserving energy in many ways, vastly reduces carbon waste going into the atmosphere and helps solve the problem of climate change and flooding at the level of causes. Get the energy demand down far enough, power your streetcars, metros and between-city rail with solar and wind electricity and why produce hardly any CO2 at all? Lester Brown in this month’s report to his internet list from his Earth Policy Institute points out that with automobile ownership and driving shrinking impressively since 2007 in the United States, again the US is in the lead in the world transportation trend, this time in the right direction. Actually, that’s a point I want to make. His point and that of his research staff was that as solar, wind and biofuels that do not compete with food production rapidly increase their energy production, we can imagine phasing out fossil fuels for both transportation and electricity generation much sooner than earlier realized. Check out “Falling Gasoline Use Means United States Can Just Say No to New Pipelines and Food-to-Fuel” by his policy and technical analyst Janet Larsen at www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2013/highlights38. Janet, by the way, has spoken for the Earth Policy Institute at two or our previous International Ecocity Conferences, #7 in San Francisco and #8 in Istanbul.

If we can find places where we can demonstrate a suite of ecocity features in new or replacement infrastructure on top of elevated fill, we can use the disasters of places like New Orleans in Katrina and Highlands in Sandy to wake people up to the even broader solutions of ecocities and hopefully inspire further exploration of the suite of ecocity features we are always championing which are, along with the shift of people back to the centers, beginning to come on strong. These include rooftop uses from gardens and promenades to restaurants and shops with fabulous views and bridges linking separate buildings’ terraces in higher density areas, solar passive design and best arrangement relative to public open spaces such as plazas, parks and pedestrian streets.

The rare double lighthouse that rises above Highlands, New Jersey on an icy
winter¹s day.

What’s Highlands? I mentioned it above paired with New Orleans. Highlands is a town on the New Jersey shore that has been plagued by flooding for decades. Highlands is too low. The otherwise ironic name comes from the 300 foot high hill that rises behind its downtown. Sandy really slammed the small city’s downtown leaving enormous wreckage and the need to rebuild or replace about 1200 to 1500 structures. What is special about its recovery effort is that the officials there are considering using elevated fill/artificial hill to replace downtown at a higher level: buildings, streets, sidewalks, docks and all.

A professor teaching about air quality and environmental acoustics at Rutgers University who is on the Environmental Commission of the city noticed that Galveston, Texas was rebuilt on elevated fill after the colossal Hurricane of 1900 that destroyed about half that city and killed more people than in any other American natural disaster. An aside here is that there’s a great book on the storm, one of the most exciting weather, and essentially a kind of adventure story, I’ve ever read where weather plays a commanding role. It’s called “Isaac’s Storm,” by Erik Larson (Vintage Books, 1999), about the weatherman on duty when the hurricane arrived with such fury it destroyed his wind gage at well over 100 miles an hour. Larson covers the rebuilding: they raised the salvageable buildings about 20 feet on manual screw jacks, filled in underneath them with mud and sand pumped in a slurry from the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay, let the water drain and evaporate out, built new foundations, graded new streets, also at higher elevation to match, poured a concrete sea wall to break the big waves and have ridden high and more or less dry in all the many hurricanes since. Even a cathedral was lifted and settled back down on a new foundation in an elevated position.  In a chilling note written years before Hurricane Sandy, Larson mentions this: “The Army Corps of Engineers discovered a curious quirk in the New York/New Jersey coastline and proposed, soberly, that even a moderate hurricane on just the right track could drown commuters in the subway tunnels under Lower Manhattan.” (Isaac’s Storm, page 273.) Notice the aqualung diver in the subway system in the accompanying photo.

Flooded subway in New York City.

But back to Highlands. The professor with the elevated fill idea is Steve Szulecki. I ran into his name in a New York Times article on Highland’s dilemma, looked him up at the on-line Rutgers faculty directory, called up out of the blue and he lifted up the receiver. He’s an Ecocity Builders Board of Advisors Member now and the rest will be history, hopefully, if we can help him raise, after razing much of Highlands, in ecocity design, and if he can help us convince the rest of the world, starting at Ecocity 10, of the powerful and very positive potential of elevated fill in ecocity design. It turns out he was already doing good solid ecocity work, having received a grant in 2010 to design an intra-borough bicycle path currently being developed. The town already “get’s it” with basic “green” infrastructure for buildings. Now if we can enhance that by adding some serious ecocity design features as well as helping to convince them to rebuild higher.

Natural carbon sequestration to cool the planet

We’ve all heard by now the high tech idea for pumping carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks back deep into the rock formations from which coal, oil and gas came. The not yet successful process is estimated to require as much as a third of the energy generated just to take care of the problem.

Meantime there’s what I think of as “natural carbon sequestration.” Remember first that the “pump it back in” solution relates to only newly created CO2 from newly destroyed (burned) molecules of fossil fuels. What about what’s already in the air? No good high tech ideas on that. But simple good old plants do it all the time: grasses, bushes, trees… We have heard many times that cutting the world’s forests releases immense amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and planting forests gathers that CO2 back into its biomass and soil. Up to a certain very large limit anyway.

Then I learned about Allan Savory and his “mob herding” of cattle in a technique he calls “holistic management.” Cowboys in our American West let cattle disperse leaving isolated cow pies stuffed with grass and flower seeds to burn most of those seed with hellof overdone fertilizer intensity while denuded dirt all around just sits there waiting for the next rain. The barren dirt, being grazed over, sends the water running off to cut arroyos and canyons or fill them with eroded sand. But what Alan noticed watching how predators herd hoofed herbivores was that the zebras and wildebeest clustered defensively in large packs, back hooves pointed outward against the lions and hyenas and their enormous muscles for propelling the heavy animals forward ready to strike out at any carnivore foolish enough to try and attack against the consolidated pack. The predators strategy: try to separate out or wait for an old or very young straggler to get separated out from the rest and attack that beast from an oblique angle, preferably around the shoulders and neck.

Allan Savory¹s ranch house porch in Zimbabwe with his herd passing by.

The overall effect, Allan noticed, was that the herbivores in their large closely packed numbers not only fertilized the ground with their manure and pee but they ground the material, well prepared seeds with half-digested shells just ready for sprouting, into a mix of earth and fertilizer perfectly evolved over millions of years to create vast landscapes of extremely high biodiversity: immense numbers of animals famous in Africa nature films on thick, rich savannas. When the animals move on, you’d swear they’d wrecked the place. Hardly a speck of green remains. But like a giant agricultural machine covering many acres and powered for free by the sun the herd in fact prepares the soil for the next rain and when it comes, up bursts a fabulous new and natural crop of plants and all its associated animals. The roots grow down taking diffuse carbon gas out of the air and deposit it concentrated in solid form deep in the soil. Water that used to run off causing both erosion and waterway-burying siltation now soaks in to replenish the water table, and as the water in the soil rises, creeks and ponds reappear supporting a wide diversity of insects, birds, reptiles, mammals.

The grasslands can be managed like this by ranchers who know what they are doing: imitating lions that herd wildebeest in Africa or imitating wolves that used to herd bison in North America. Allan claims millions of square miles world wide could be restored to high biodiversity sucking up much of the CO2 in the atmosphere, contributing the lion’s share (philanthropist predators) to solving the problem of climate change and global heating, rising seas and untold other disasters including malaria outbreaks, etc. etc. Unlike the techno-dreams of building new machines consuming lakes of fuel to squeeze carbon into the geological depths, bunch grazing of cattle could deposit carbon where it is useful in conditioning the soil and enriching the biological system rather than circulating the atmospheric system causing mischief or being uselessly locked (hopefully) in inaccessible depths (rather than burping out later through ruptured fissures).

Allan Savory’s even larger point: this system exemplifies his holistic management system. Note that his herds – and he has herds on his large ranch in Zimbabwe where he has brought back the kinds of grasslands and waters mentioned here above – are not primarily for carbon sequestration, though he probably should seek carbon credit payments – but also for meat and money. Eventually in preparing the land, and in a strategic partnership with nature, his herding could bring back the large natural herds as well, people not taking over everything, but leaving also great tracts for natures management, which also means money, this time for tourism. In fact this is exactly what’s beginning to happen in his part of Africa. All those benefits from his management approach, the approach that sees the interrelations of all the components of the environment in consideration, amount to a holistic approach: understanding how the whole system works, then managing it for healthiest outcomes. The result can enrich soils and biodiversity and create jobs for locals, food for markets, esthetic scenes and valuable education for tourists while reversing global warming. You’ve heard of win-win solutions. Holistic management is a multi-win solution.

Next I wondered about what other landscapes do in terms of carbon natural sequestration. Forests of course figure in and top out at very high carbon holding capacity both in their woody and leafy material and in their soils. Then I learned that bogs, fens and marshes can build carbon storing peat indefinitely. The basic sphagnum mosses and a few reeds that live in such areas can exist on the carbon rich dead material of past generations of roots and stems and chemicals from the air, poop from birds pretending to be farmer’s fertilizer-spreading small aircraft, and so on. They can continue building carbon in peatlands virtually forever with no theoretical limit. And that’s not all, similar processes happen in lakes, bays and oceans. Kirstin Miller found an excellent source on this when she met Stephen

Waterways return to dried out washes when Savory¹s ranch in Zimbabwe after
using his ³holistic management² system for restoring grasslands. Carbon is
taken out of the air and into the soil, water is taken into the soil raising
the water table to the surface and biodiversity is restored in a very high
degree.

Crooks, an English scientist working in San Francisco. He starts his report for the World Bank called “Mitigating Climate Change through Restoration and Management of Coastal Wetlands and Near-shore Marine Ecosystems” like this: “Ecosystems in the land-ocean interface are gaining increased attention for the carbon they store in biomass and especially in sediments. This makes them potential sources of significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if disturbed, but also valuable for nature-based approaches to climate change mitigation.” (Copyright World Bank, 2011)

Could humanity learn like Allan did developing his grasslands holistic management of all those living systems? Might we not be bold enough, doing the math that Savory thinks proves grasslands alone could turn the tied on global heating, but applying that math to the whole surface of the planet and come up with what you might think of as holistic management of holistically managed large subsystems covering the whole planet?

But what about the cities, central subject of our International Ecocity Conferences? In shrinking them back from their present massive sprawl, millions of acres of open lands can be restored to the kind of landscapes and waters described above.

Holistic management gets so big, that we have to also seriously consider all contributing factors as if they could be positive instead of environmentally negative, positive links in a whole and healthy system. The kind of agriculture – heavy in meat and run by excessive numbers of machines – needs to be shifted out to a much more carefully thought through organic approach. Savory’s herds are like a kind of surgery before a more healthy healing that phases out some of the cattle herds while phasing back in some of the large natural herds. And also while ecocity building is coming on strong and cities are shrinking back to a much smaller physical footprint and ecological footprint at the same time, we need to notice the sheer force of overpopulation and the spread of humanity across the surface of the earth, mostly for food production and gathering – farming and ranching – that is radically transforming the vast majority of Earthly landscapes, turning them into managed, but poorly managed, water and landscapes with few lonely survivors of the former wildlife ecologies and on the scale of almost the whole planet.

The conclusion for that conference takeaway, is that we might with such an approach begin to think in terms of reversing the trend of global heating while we figure out how best to partner with nature from now on: holistic management to the rescue via natural carbon sequestration.

Linking ecocities to world climate change awareness

A last key takeaway I’ll feature here: going straight from our conference to the United Nations Climate Change conference in Warsaw, Poland for COP 19 to wake people up world wide to the immense role the wrong kind of urban design has played in the many harms of climate change (as well as many other harms too), and the potential role of good ecocity design for solving most of the climate change problem (and many other problems too).

I can be brief about this just in saying there will be many international groups represented there in Nantes including our partner in a couple projects ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Together we can take the crucial insights we are working with straight to the highest levels of debate, and probably even more importantly, since debate among high representatives depends on the larger cultural mind set closer to the grass roots, to world consciousness through the media and the word of mouth that emanates out from all conferences, in this case the right word, the healthy word.

Richard can be reached at ecocity@igc.org

Whether you’re here for business or visiting as a weekend getaway, much of Big D is surprisingly transit-accessible and pedestrian-friendly. The best place to stay is in the heart of downtown Dallas, served by all four light rail lines of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART): the region’s public transportation system.

Every hotel in downtown Dallas is within blocks from a modern DART Rail station, and the sleek trains arrive every few minutes to whisk you to the city’s most popular dining, shopping and entertainment destinations. You can ride just about anywhere DART goes – all day long – for as little as $5.

With the recent opening of the Orange Line, DART now offers 85 miles of light rail service reaching 61 stations, complimented by a vast network of buses, operating seven days a week, plus commuter rail connections to Fort Worth and Denton. DART Rail will serve DFW International Airport directly in 2014.

You can access online trip planning and much more information at DART.org, From your cell phone, go to DART’s Mobile site: m.dart.org. DART also has a Spanish language site: TransporteDart.org You can also visit Google Transit at maps.Google.com. You can also call DART customer service at (214)979-1111. Telephone customer service is available every day (Central Time), Weekdays: 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

The easiest and most affordable way to use DART for your visit is to buy a Day Pass for $5, which is good on all DART trains and buses and the TRE as far as CentrePort/DFW Airport Station. Two-hour and midday passes are also available, but the $5 Day Pass is probably the best choice.

For a complete list of available fares, go to: http://www.dart.org/fares/fares.asp.

You can purchase your $5 Day Pass (remember to buy one for each day you will be here) on local buses and at the ticket vending machines (TVMs) located on every station platform. Signs on the TVM and instructions on the touch screen will help you and answer most of your questions about how to pay. Your day pass is good on the day you purchase it until 3 a.m. the next morning.

Getting Here

http://www.dart.org/travelagent/darttravelagent.asp?zeon=travelagentvisitandtravel#dallaslovefield

From Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

From DFW Airport catch a DART bus on Route 500 from Terminal A, connecting to the Belt Line Station.

http://www.dart.org/riding/dfwairport.asp.

http://www.dfwairport.com/transport/public/p1_007747.php

From Dallas Love Field Airport

Passengers arriving on Southwest Airlines and other carriers to Dallas Love Field can catch a DART bus on Route 39 connecting to Inwood/Love Field Station. http://www.dart.org/riding/lovefield.asp

From Amtrak

Serves Dallas’ Union Station, which is also a transfer point for the DART Red and Blue Lines and the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth. http://www.amtrak.com/home

From Megabus  http://us.megabus.com/

Megabus has direct service from Austin, Houston and San Antonio. Only select trips that arrive at and depart from the DART East Transfer Center– not Grand Prairie, Texas. The East Transfer Center is located at the corner of Pearl and Live Oak streets, a few blocks from the Pearl/Arts District Station.

Greyhound

The Dallas Greyhound Station is located on Lamar Street, approximately three blocks from the West End Station. http://www.greyhound.com/

All four DART light rail lines serve all four Transit Mall stations: Pearl/Arts District, St. Paul, Akard and West End. You can switch lines at any of these locations, although most people seem to transfer at Pearl/Arts District, West End or Union Station (where the Red/Blue lines meet the TRE).

The best station to begin your exploration of Dallas is the DART light rail station closest to your hotel.

Here are a few interesting neighborhoods and attractions, not included last month..

Uptown; Best way to get there: M-Line Trolley

Uptown, just north of the downtown area, is one of Dallas’ oldest neighborhoods transformed with high rise condos, apartments and hotels. At the street level, there’s a vibrant mix of restaurants, bars, cafés, retail shops, galleries, antique dealers and live theatre. One such destination for live performance is Theatre Three, one of Dallas’ best-known and longest-running community theatres. Tying the uptown area to downtown is the vintage (and free to ride) M-Line Trolley, running from the Dallas Arts District through Uptown, McKinney Avenue and West Village to the West entrance of Cityplace/Uptown Station.

West Village;  Closest Rail Stop: Cityplace/Uptown Station

Located three blocks west of Cityplace Station — DART’s only subway stop — Uptown’s West Village is home to destinations such as Mi Cocina, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, the Magnolia art house theatre and chic boutiques. Hop aboard one of the free M-Line’s restored trolley cars for a relaxing tour of McKinney Avenue’s upscale taverns and restaurants — including Fearing’s (run by celebrity chef Dean Fearing) in the Ritz-Carlton or Hotel ZaZa’s posh Dragonfly and Urban Oasis Lounge. West Village  westvil.com

Mockingbird Station; Closest Rail Stop: Mockingbird Station

Want a textbook example of transit-oriented living? Check out Mockingbird Station, a high-density development of loft apartments, bistros, boutiques, national retailers and a multi-screen independent film theater.  Indulge in Southwestern cuisine at Café Express, grab a pint at Trinity Hall or Mockingbird Taproom, catch a movie at the Angelika, enjoy a laugh at Hyena’s Comedy Nightclub or simply people-watch.  Mockingbird Station    mockingbirdstation.com

NorthPark Center and Shops at Park Lane;  Closest Rail Stop: Park Lane Station

Dallas is known for its shopping, and NorthPark Center is one of the city’s best examples. A convenient shuttle to and from Park Lane Station lets you explore its more than 235 stores, restaurants and theatres for yourself. Named as one of the “7 Retail Wonders of the Modern World”, anchors include Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Dillard’s and Barney’s. To top off a full day of fun, catch a flick at the mall’s 15-screen AMC movie theatre.

Across the street from the station, The Shops at Park Lane pairs the best in stylish shopping with distinctive dining and entertainment options, including Nordstrom Rack, Bloomingdale’s Outlet and Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5th, as well as Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, a Gordon Biersch high-end brewery bistro, and the largest Whole Foods Market in North Texas.

• NorthPark Center  northparkcenter.com
• Shops at Park Lane           parklanedallas.com

Deep Ellum; Closest Rail Stop: Deep Ellum and Baylor University Medical Center Stations

Dallas’ Deep Ellum neighborhood dates back to the late 1800s and gets its name from the pronunciation of Elm Street favored by early residents. Over the years, the brick structures have been home to businesses as diverse as the people who frequent them: dance halls, restaurants, bars, live music venues, speakeasies, meat markets, pawnshops, vaudeville theatres, art galleries and auto repair shops. Popular hotspots today include Adair’s Saloon, Angry Dog and St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin restaurants, Twisted Root Burger Co., Trees alternative music showcase and the Latino Cultural Center. One of the newest attractions welcoming visitors to DART’s Deep Ellum Station is “The Traveling Man,” a landmark, three-part sculpture installation including “Walking Tall,” a jovial, 38-foot-tall man strolling down the street. Deep Ellum Community Association       deepellumtexas.com

Fair Park; Closest Rail Stop: Fair Park and Martin Luther King, Jr. Stations

A true Dallas gem, Fair Park contains one of the world’s largest collections of 1930s Art Deco-style architecture, originally built for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. Best known as the home of the State Fair of Texas^®, which attracts 3.5 million attendees each fall, Fair Park has a lot more to offer than just the fair. You can visit its museums and performance venues year-round, including the African American Museum, Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park, Hall of State, Texas Discovery Gardens, Texas Museum of Automotive History and the South Dallas Cultural Center. Performance venues inside the park include the Music Hall at Fair Park, the Gexa Energy Pavilion, the Magnolia Lounge and the Fair Park Band Shell. Fair Park   www.fairpark.org,    State Fair of Texas            http://www.bigtex.com/sft/

The Cedars;   Closest Rail Station: Cedars Station

The Cedars, a once-neglected inner-city neighborhood, has been turned into a cultural hotspot thanks to the transformation of the old Sears warehouse into the South Side on Lamar residential/retail/gallery complex. From Cedars Station, you’re just blocks from great food and live music — including the Palladium live showcase, the country music of Gilley’s world-famous honky tonk, the roaring good time of eclectic Lee Harvey’s, and the unique musical offerings of Poor David’s Pub.

• South Side on Lamar        http://southsideonlamar.com/
• Gilley’s/Palladium
• Lee Harvey’s
• Poor David’s Pub

Dallas Zoo;  Closest Rail Stop: Dallas Zoo Station

There are always exciting things to see and do at the Southwest’s oldest and Texas’ largest zoological park. The 95-acre Dallas Zoo is known for The Wilds of Africa — a 20-minute monorail tour through six African habitats — as well as the Lacerte Family Children’s Zoo, the Jake L. Hamon Gorilla Conservation Research Center and Giants of the Savanna ,which takes you on a safari adventure complete with giraffes, lions, elephants, cheetahs and other African species. Wild, huh?

• Dallas Zoo             dallaszoo.com

Fort Worth

Fort Worth’s Cultural, Stockyards and Sundance Square districts are accessible by taking the Trinity Railway Express, a commuter rail line connecting to Dallas’ Union Station, DFW Airport and downtown Fort Worth. Scheduled train service is provided Monday through Saturday. No service is available on Sunday. Evening service is limited, so be sure to check schedules before traveling.

Once in Fort Worth, The T’s buses can transport you from the TRE’s Intermodal Transit Center (ITC) Station to your destination.

• Trinity Railway Express   http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org
• The T Popular Destinations

http://www.the-t.com/BusService/PopularDestinations/tabid/77/Default.aspx

Cab-Accessible Attractions

Cowboys Stadium – The home of the Dallas Cowboys is located in Arlington, Texas, which is not transit accessible. Self-guided, educational and art tours of the facilities are offered on days when the stadium is not in use. http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/tours/tourInfo.cfm

Southfork Ranch – Made famous by on the television series Dallas, the home of the fictional Ewing family is a tourist attraction and event facility located in the suburb of Parker, Texas. Tours of the ranch and Ewing mansion depart from the visitors’ center. To see this piece of TV nostalgia, you’ll need to take a cab ride. http://www.southforkranch.com/

For More Information

For information about Dallas attractions, places to stay, and shopping, go to www.visitdallas.com, or call the Tourist Information Center at (214) 571-1316.

For information about DART routes, schedules, fares, and getting to where you want to go by public transportation, visit www.dart.org, or call (214) 979-1111.

Steve Atlas enjoys hearing from readers. To contact Steve, share feedback about this or other “Car Free Journey” columns, or suggest destination for future columns, e-mail steveatlas45@yahoo.com.

Gone are the days when the automobile was practically Dallas’ mascot and a visit here meant taking taxis or renting a car. Whether you’re in Dallas for business or visiting as a weekend getaway, much of Big D is surprisingly transit-accessible and pedestrian-friendly. The best place to stay is in the heart of downtown Dallas, which is served by all four light rail lines of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), the region’s public transportation system.

Every hotel in downtown Dallas is within blocks from a modern DART Rail station. Sleek trains arrive every few minutes to whisk you to the city’s most popular dining, shopping and entertainment destinations.

Dallas DART

And here’s the best part; you can ride just about anywhere DART goes – all day long – for as little as $5.

With the recent opening of the Orange Line, DART now offers 85 miles of light rail service reaching 61 stations, complimented by a vast network of buses, operating seven days a week, plus commuter rail connections to Fort Worth and Denton. DART Rail will serve DFW International Airport directly in 2014.

You can access online trip planning and much more information at DART.org,

From your cell phone, go to DART’s Mobile site: m.dart.org.

            DART also has a Spanish language site: TransporteDart.org

            You can also visit Google Transit at maps.Google.com.

You can also call DART customer service at (214)979-1111. Telephone customer service is available every day (Central Time), Weekdays: 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

The easiest and most affordable way to use DART for your visit is to buy a Day Pass for $5, which is good on all DART trains and buses and the TRE as far as CentrePort/DFW Airport Station. Two-hour and midday passes are also available, but the $5 Day Pass is probably the best choice.

For a complete list of available fares, go to: http://www.dart.org/fares/fares.asp.

You can purchase your $5 Day Pass (remember to buy one for each day you will be here) on local buses and at the ticket vending machines (TVMs) located on every station platform. Signs on the TVM and instructions on the touch screen will help you and answer most of your questions about how to pay. Your day pass is good on the day you purchase it until 3 a.m. the next morning.

Getting Here

http://www.dart.org/travelagent/darttravelagent.asp?zeon=travelagentvisitandtravel#dallaslovefield

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

Passengers arriving at DFW Airport can catch a DART bus on Route 500 from Terminal A connecting to

the Belt Line Station. http://www.dart.org/riding/dfwairport.asp, http://www.dfwairport.com/transport/public/p1_007747.php

Dallas Love Field Airport

Passengers arriving on Southwest Airlines and other carriers to Dallas Love Field can catch a DART bus on Route 39 connecting to Inwood/Love Field Station. http://www.dart.org/riding/lovefield.asp

Amtrak

Serves Dallas’ Union Station, which is also a transfer point for the DART Red and Blue Lines and the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth. http://www.amtrak.com/home

Megabus

Now serves “Dallas” from Austin, Houston and San Antonio. Be sure to select trips that arrive at and depart from the DART East Transfer Center and not Grand Prairie, Texas. The East Transfer Center is located at the corner of Pearl and Live Oak streets, a few blocks from Pearl/Arts District Station. http://us.megabus.com/

Greyhound

The Dallas Greyhound Station is located on Lamar Street, approximately three blocks from the West End Station. http://www.greyhound.com/

After You Arrive

Stay downtown while you are here.  All four DART light rail lines serve all 4 Transit Mall stations: Pearl/Arts District, St. Paul, Akard and West End. You can switch lines at any of tese stations. Most people seem to transfer at Pearl/Arts District, West End or Union Station (where the Red/Blue lines meet the TRE).

The best station to begin your exploration of Dallas is the DART light rail station closest to your hotel.

Where to Stay Downtown and the closest light rail station to each hotel:

http://www.dart.org/travelagent/darttravelagent.asp?zeon=travelagenthotels

Adolphus Hotel  http://www.hoteladolphus.com/ 

Akard Station

Crowne Plaza Hotel – Downtown Dallas      

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/crowneplaza/hotels/us/en/dallas/dalem/hoteldetail

            West End Station

Dallas Magnolia Hotel http://www.magnoliahotels.com/dallas/magnolia-hotel-dallas.php

            Akard Station

Dallas Marriott City Center

 http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/daldt-dallas-marriott-city-center/

            Pearl/Arts District Station

Fairmont Dallas Hotel  http://www.fairmont.com/dallas/

Akard Station

Hotel Indigo

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/hotelindigo/hotels/us/en/dallas/dalar/hoteldetail?_requestid=1562990

            St. Paul Station

Hotel Lawrence Dallas  http://www.hotellawrencedallas.com/

Union Station

Hyatt Regency Dallas  http://dallasregency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/events/meetings/index.jsp

            Dallas Convention Center Station

The Joule, Dallas   http://www.thejouledallas.com/

            Akard Station

Omni Dallas Hotel

http://www.omnihotels.com/FindAHotel/DallasHotel.aspx

            Dallas Convention Center Station

Sheraton Dallas Hotel http://www.sheratondallashotel.com/

Pearl/Arts District Station

SpringHill Suites Dallas Downtown/West End—best station: West End Station

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/DALWE-SpringHill-Suites-Dallas-Downtown-West-End

Here are some neighborhoods and attractions worth exploring.

Downtown Dallas/Main Street; Closest Rail Stop: St. Paul and Akard Stations

From here, you’re steps away from Main Street’s bustling restaurants and nightlife, including Dallas Fish Market, Charlie Palmer’s, The Chesterfield and. Shopping doesn’t get any more stylish than at the landmark original location of Neiman Marcus and its Zodiac Room restaurant. Need a breather? Thanks-Giving Square at Akard Station is an oasis of trees, flowing water and exhibits, while Pegasus Plaza and Main Street Garden are popular gathering place for live music and festivals.

Head the opposite way from the Akard Station down Field Street a half mile, and you’ll arrive at the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science, filled with hands-on learning experiences, interactive digital displays and lifelike simulations of the natural world.

• Downtown Dallas, Inc.     www.yourdspot.com
• Perot Museum      http://www.perotmuseum.org/
• Neiman Marcus Dallas Downtown: http://www.neimanmarcus.com/stores/store.jsp?storeId=01/DT
• Main Street Gardenhttp://www.mainstreetgarden.org/
• Thanks-Giving Square      http://www.thanksgiving.org/

Dallas Arts District;  Closest Rail Station: Pearl/Arts District and St. Paul Stations

The Dallas Arts District is a unique 68-acre, 19-block neighborhood that is the centerpiece of the region’s cultural life and home to some of the finest architecture in the world. The AT&T Performing Arts Center’s impressive venues — the Winspear Opera House, the Wyly Theatre, the Annette Strauss Artist Square, the Dallas City Performance Hall  and Sammons Park — join a thriving collection of cultural landmarks, including the Dallas Museum of Art, Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Nasher Sculpture Center and Crow Collection of Asian Art. The new Klyde Warren Park creates an urban oasis at the district’s outer edge. The arts district also is home to more than a dozen fine restaurants and bistros, including two Stephan

Pyles’ restaurants on Ross Ave.

• Dallas Arts District thedallasartsdistrict.org.
• AT&T Performing Arts Center
• Dallas Museum of Art
• Nasher Sculpture Center
• Crow Collection of Asian Art
• Klyde Warren Park
• Stephen Pyles and Samar  http://www.stephanpyles.com
• One Arts Plaza http://artsdistrictdining.com/

West End Historic District;  Closest Rail Stop: West End Station

The West End — a historic district of red-brick warehouses — offers a variety of cuisine, from Texas-style barbeque at Sonny Bryan’s to fine dining at The Palm. You can shop for unique gifts and Texas fashions, take in the marine life and natural rainforest exhibits at the Dallas World Aquarium or get a taste of local history at the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture, which is located inside the county’s landmark 1892 courthouse. Of course, few make a visit to the West End (or Dallas, for that matter) without stopping at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza where JFK was shot and, nearby, the infamous grassy knoll.

• Dallas West End   dallaswestend.org
• Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plazahttp://www.jfk.org/
• Dallas World Aquarium
• Old Red Museum

Victory Park;  Closest Rail Station: Victory Station

When you want high-voltage sports and entertainment, head to Victory Park. Just a short ride from downtown, Victory Park is the home of American Airlines Center, the House of Blues and unique dining such as the fresh sushi and Pan-Asian fare of Kenichi and the artisanal dishes of the celebrated Craft Dallas in the W Dallas-Victory Hotel. Victory Park is also the home of two organizations that know a few things about the word “victory” — the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars.

• Victory Park  victorypark.com
• American Airlines Center
• House of Blues Dallas
• Hard Rock Café Dallas 

For More Information

For information about Dallas attractions, places to stay, and shopping, go to www.visitdallas.com, or call the Tourist Information Center at (214) 571-1316.

Steve Atlas enjoys hearing from readers. To contact Steve, share feedback about this or other “Car Free Journey” columns, or suggest destination for future columns, e-mail steveatlas45@yahoo.com.

1. EcoCitizen short slide show ecocitizen pptx
2. Favela como Modelo Sustentavel – Favela as Sustainable Model video by local NGO partner Catalytic Communities. Was shown at a side event Ecocity Builders and CatCom co-convened at The People’s Summit in Rio De Janeiro, June 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sT8rhhbCUA
3. EcoCitizen World Map https://ecocitizen.crowdmap.com/main
4. GIS application to the map http://wdcel2.esri.com/ecocitizen/
5. Ecocities Emerging July 2012 (contains more information about the project partnerships) http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs072/1100594362471/archive/1110372977492.html
6. Article: Asset Mapping Pica-Pau – Rio ON Watch http://rioonwatch.org/?p=5099
7. Article: Nepal in Urban Design Contest – Himalayan News Service http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Nepal+in+urban++design+contest&NewsID=257695
8. Ecocitizen Community guidelines (assembled for favalas/CatCom by Ecocity Builders: EcocityGuidelines

October 27, 2009 and I was getting off Vancouver’s SkyTrain at the Lake City Way Station. With me was my friend Jennie Moore, Director of Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship for the British Columbia Institute of Technology. “There it is,” I said, camera in hand. “I’ve been looking for that poster for my ecological city slide show.” Before me was a sign I’d seen several times flashing by through the window of my moving train. It turned out to be part of a campaign by the Vancouver Aquarium. Featuring an image of a polar bear floating on a slab of ice in an almost open ocean, the copy read:

“Adaptation is not an option. Canada’s Arctic. In the grip of change. Visit the new exhibit to understand the impact.”

The polar bear, on all fours, gazing to the horizon, looked like any you’d expect on a poster, calendar or in a coffee table book… except that it had the black stripes on white of an African zebra. Obviously telling it to adapt was writing it off to extinction. Some changes are exterminating and that’s all there is to it. Working to promote “adaptation” might not be such a good idea. It’s something we should contemplate most seriously.

The New Yorker feature article in the January 7, 2013 issue entitled “Adaptation – how can cities be climate proofed?” took the usual automatic look at solving climate and sea rise problems that is all too ordinary these days. But why start our thinking with adapting to something that disastrous when we could focus our thinking and strategies on preventing it? It is too late to avoid some impacts but the possibilities for worse is more than a little troubling. The positive feedback loops such as the loss of ice on the Arctic Ocean presenting a dark sea to the sky, instead of reflective white ice, absorbs more heat and accelerates heating. The permafrost has begun to melt in Siberia, Alaska and Canada releasing methane from enormous deposits of methane bearing ice, called alternately methane clathrate or hydrate, potentially in immense quantities, a gas with 23 times the heat capturing capacity in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. As the melting permafrost heats the air and ground it releases more methane which heats more, releases more, heats more, releases more and so on around the “positive feedback loop”. The accurate information and good predictions about carbon dioxide some have been in denial about for more than twenty years now was brought to you by the same folks who also warn us about the even more catastrophic potential of methane release in a world with a rising fever. So we don’t know how bad it can get and our efforts at adaptation may be just distraction enough to lose us the opportunity to stop far worse disasters, and maybe even prevent us from figuring out how to reverse the heating trend.

Could we build our cities and towns not only to prevent the problem, but to build the absolute best for human purposes as well? Is it a naïve idea to think cities could actually contribute to nature’s biodiversity and help build soils, tap into the renewable energy flows of sun, wind and water and recycle other resources essentially forever? Or maybe the notion is the foundation for the only approach that makes any sense. Cities are the largest things human beings build, and if we can change the climate of a whole planet and drive most of the other species to collective death, which we are well on our way to accomplishing, it might be cities have a power of prevention that is prevented by the short circuit in our brains of going for adaptation instead of prevention, much less building the very best we can for ourselves and the other species of the planet as strategy number one.

But to get to such a strategy, of thriving not just maintaining in a deteriorating situation, we have to start our thinking there, not in reaction to anything, including, rising seas. Call it the creative instead of “resilient” frame of mind. “Resilient” is OK, but it is still reactive, if in a good way. Better to create something actively good in the first place rather than build dikes around what’s left over. We need cities good enough that they don’t bring on a suite of problems that require resilience simply to cope. Looking at cities in this frame of mind is crucial because the ecologically informed city design coincides with, and is in no way contrary to, the best solutions brought forward by an attempt at adaptation. Together – actions for building cities that solve the climate change problem at the level of the causes of the problem and actions at the level of adaptation to what residuals of the problem remain – opens us to up the full spectrum of tactics for a strategy of thriving into the future.

Basic notion of elevating towns on artificial mounds, for floods and sea
level rise – works compact ecocity design perfectly, can’t possibly with
sprawl development. – Illustration by Richard Register

To defend cities from storms and rising seas there are quite obviously dikes, dams and barrages, barrages being those moveable walls like gates in the locks of canals but enormously larger. They are designed to keep high tides and storm surges from inundating estuaries and bays. As with the Thames Barrage that opened in 1984, these structures link land masses across reasonably narrow river banks or straights to the sea and are offered as something of a final solution in the adaptation strategy ­– for billions of dollars each. They have nothing to do with prevention of the problem of sea rise and human-amplified storms in the first place. Building on high ground, it becomes evident, is about the only cheap, one might say, un-subsidized solution, but it is too late for much of the existing low-lying coastal cities.

Or is it? Why isn’t the subject of prevention, why isn’t the approach of “whole systems” analysis, why isn’t looking into the deep future and deep past and why isn’t the guidance of ecological principles first priority when trying to solve the climate change and sea rise problems? We were warned about the impending situation more than thirty years ago by the likes of Stephen Schneider, atmospheric scientist who spoke at our Seventh International Ecocity Conference in San Francisco in 2008 and New Yorker James Hansen, Chief, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Spaces Studies. New York itself runs on about 60% the energy per person of the average US city – we can learn something from that compact transit oriented city for starters. Why aren’t these things talked about as first priority instead of barely heard of at all? Why is adaptation with dikes the main, the much talked about strategy – while hoping for the best in terms of what’s coming over the horizon to assault us, and likely, catastrophically?

Let’s start as close to the beginning of this story of rising waters as makes sense. After all, some basic problems were solved a long, long time ago, a long time before information glut was overwhelming and distracting and expertise was compromised by the quest to get the next job whether good answers seemed down that road or not, meaning: pork, seniority, entrenched connections and stiff habits of thinking. When it comes to flooding, why not ask the Sumerians who built the world’s first settlements big and complex enough to be called cities, in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers? 4,500 years ago they were living in the age of basics. They weren’t lost in video games and the latest movie reviews, advertisements for in-style stuff and printed copy bitching endlessly about taxes and lobbyist-hired politicians all competing for brain space with the rising waters. They just looked out their windows with no glass and noticed brown water rising from horizon to horizon in their low, flat farmlands. They raised grains, organized water works for irrigation and faced major flooding about as often as Cubans gets hurricanes, which is a lot. What did they do?

They built on elevated, artificial mounds of earth. Their cities were simply built to rise up over the floods. They adapted gradually – lived there many centuries – augmenting the mounds on which they worked, walked, presumably had some good times, reproduced, brought up many generations… as the cities rose from the flatlands, largely on worn out building materials but in many cases, on purposefully elevated earth. They didn’t just raise their houses higher. They raised the whole city higher, streets and all. When the floods came it must have been an exciting experience to see what looked like a whole ocean sliding by, your city like a large ship moving up stream in a vast current of water. The idea of Noah’s Flood would seem to be close to not just possible but maybe inevitable some day in such a world. To pay attention to the climate scientists today – the Sumerians and writers of the Old Testament had nothing on us, two versions of whole worlds going under water.

But what is most important to notice about all this is that the compact city, the pedestrian city of streets for people, of most everything in walking distance, the city of high population per acre, of higher economic flow through per square foot, fits beautifully with the elevated artificial mounds solution to floods. That’s the solution that simply lets the populace and their property float along high above the deluge, nobody hurt, very inexpensive, lower insurance rates, no crying over drowned children and old folks. The automobile suburbs? No way to elevate that kind of thinly developed enormous acreage. Moving earth, over a fairly long period of time, basket by basket, even before the wheel, carts and draft animals for traction and transport existed the people in many parts of the world were clustered in enough density that they could elevate their towns. But to raise suburbia? Far too massive a project and with counter productive results: the automobile/sprawl-/paving/cheap energy infrastructure is the main engine of climate change and needs to be left behind, primitive as the stone age and vastly more damaging, even if our Pleistocene ancestors did manage to kill of most of the planet’s megafauna. The city designed for cars, not people, is the largest cause of our current problem in the first place.

Mesopotamia isn’t a rare case lost in ancient history either. It responded to an eternal truth, if a seemingly simplistic one: in a flood, get to high ground. If there is no high ground, build it. Now why in these days don’t more people think of that? With bulldozers on our side, it’s several hundred times easier than it was when civilizations were busily cranking up.

Rising above the flood is not “simplistic,” it’s basic. “Basic” is a notion that comes after one does something called sensible proportionalizing: considering the big factors and the important factors – then prioritizing to deal with them first. This is not the “low hanging fruit” approach that procrastinates on the difficult work until too late. The important factors are usually the fundamental physics, chemistry and biology of our world. The case in point: getting to higher ground, natural or artificial, in flood country is a good basic idea. Get that far in your thinking and a whole complex of good ideas flows forth.

I know something about all this from personal experience. Ecocity Builders, the organization I work with, prides itself on “basic thinking” and promotes what we call ecological city, or “ecocity” design and planning.” The term is broadly used in China and Korea if not too common in the United States yet. In any case interest is steadily increasing in the ecocity approach netting me many invitations for talks around the world. After Hurricane Katrina one such invitation took me to the city of New Orleans.

I left for the recently drowned town – four months after – wondering what I might learn and what I might come up with for suggestions from the “ecocity” perspective. I wasn’t thinking Mesopotamia at the time. But when I got there and faced the true shock of what lay before me the Sumerians rose up again after those more than four thousand years, a complete surprise. Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that earlier: rebuild as the ecocity on elevated fill. That lesson from the ancient cities makes sense into the deep future. Why not a compact new development covering very little land, apartments and commerce similar to the French Quarter that is built on a natural levee well above sea level but in the replacement development areas built on elevated mounds of earth? They already love their streetcars there in New Orleans – public transit – and it is an exceptionally flat city perfect for bicycles, so the sustainable transport system to fit compact ecocity design was almost ready to go. Density, the lesson that gives Manhattan considerable liberation from the automobile, would be the key to making a new ecological development pattern practical in New Orleans. And of course you wouldn’t need Manhattan density to gain most of the advantages of living, working, exchanging, recreating in an area where things are close together as many European small cities and city cores demonstrate. Twenty-five or thirty feet above sea level should last a mid range estimate for sea level rise one or two hundred years if we can make serious progress avoiding further global heating as opposed to trying to adapt to it.

Floods are often accompanied by fires from broken gas lines, short circuits
and so on. Here a fire in the flood after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

You might have noticed this is not the way reconstruction went in New Orleans. So many people sympathized with desires of the displaced to try to get back to normal that governments simply paid for and built stronger, taller dikes. Now their automobile dependent, low-density way of living below sea level could be attempted all over again. But that was a sad mistake and ignores that the elevated mounds approach works universally. If rebuilt with ecocity design teamed up with elevated fill – compact in centers with the functional diversity of living, working, enjoying life all close together on artificially raised earth ­– New Orleans would have taken the lead to solutions not only for the cities prone to flood but for all cities by demonstrating the power of ecological principles in urban design. Could New York and New Jersey lead after Superstorm Sandy now that New Orleans has dropped that ball?

Building on mounds worked for the American Indians along New Orleans’ very own Mississippi River, and up stream as far as two thousand miles by water, and along the Ohio River too. There were over ten thousand mounds scattered over the central and southeastern area of what is now the United States. They were constructed as early as 5,400 years ago – before the Sumerians – as reported in Charles Mann’s book “1491 – New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus.” The earliest is now called the Ouachita Ring, a circle of mounds up to two stories high in North Eastern Louisiana. Around 1000 AD Cahokia, close by today’s Saint Louis, was the largest city north of the Rio Grande at about 15,000 inhabitants until Boston and New York reached that population. It was centered on and partially built as a town and partially as a ceremonial center including a pyramid larger in mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza if you include the elevated base platform 900 feet long and 650 feet wide. Though the people there suffered through many floods, Mann reported, “There is little indication that Cahokia floods killed anyone.” Of course not. The people would simply hunker down up on their mounds. If they were farming the bottomlands when the floods came they would simply take a short walk and up the mounds. The mounds were their vertical bomb shelters from the disasters of flood, not war, though the elevated prospect would undoubtedly help in defense against unkindly people as well as hostile waters.  Villages similar to those near the Mississippi were also built along the Amazon River, also on platforms elevated above the natural banks, among them those of the Marajoara people. Archeologist Anna Roosevelt, Teddy’s great-granddaughter, explored these and they were also reported in Mann’s book, “1491.”

Works for tsunami coastlines too – just rise up twenty-five feet…
Beyond that height, immune from 90% of tsunamis, you’re just phenomenally
unlucky or in a funnel shaped coastline where nobody should be building at
all. – Illustration by Richard Register

Zoom forward in time from ancient native North and South American examples to the worst natural disaster in United States history. After the Hurricane of 1900 that killed an estimated 6,000 to 9,000 people in Galveston, Texas – nobody knows the true figure, the city was growing so fast and had so many transients – most of the city was rebuilt on a raised platform averaging about 20 feet higher and made of pumped sand and mud from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay. The constructed mound was edged on the Gulf side by a concrete sea wall to break the big waves. Some farm villages in Bangladesh have survived the floods on the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra on elevated fill. Then there is Venice, if built on wooden pilings more than earthen fill. The idea is not historically unusual, if usually forgotten probably largely because it requires longer range planning than we are used to in our distracted, hurry-up times. But it works. It’s basic.

A key concept here is proportionality. For example, cars average about 25 or 30 times as heavy as a human being, travel about 10 times as fast in normal operation and consume about 60 times the volume of space when standing still, much more when moving. Designing cities to accommodate both sets of criteria – the “needs” of cars and of people – at the same time and in the same space is a hopeless task if you are hoping for climate change solutions, or even just hoping to create a good environment for people. The attempt, dominant in “developed and developing” societies since the Second World War, that is, in the era of extremely cheap fuel energy, produced sprawl development, paved farms and natural landscapes, drove species to extinction – probably the polar bear eventually – consumed massive amounts of energy for transportation… and still does. That way of building cities also wastes heat and cooling energy from associated single family houses that share the energy with no one else, unlike apartment units with common walls and shared floors and ceilings. Houses loose climate moderating energy to the great out of doors with just one use.

Then there are the full costs of car ownership, not just the money but the time it takes to earn the money plus the time in and repairing and pampering the car itself. If you divide the time into the distance traveled, said Ivan Illich in his great little 1974 book “Energy and Equity,” you are hurtling along at less than five miles per hours. With bigger traffic jams since then, it has only gotten worse. Then there is the associated death rate on the transportation system, private cars having several times the fatalities and injuries of transit modes and airplanes per vehicle mile traveled. Bicycles are much safer – unless hit by cars. And as my daughter said when she was about six years old, “Richard, has anyone ever died in a people accident?” Only extremely rarely do colliding humans end up dead – to say the least. Cities for pedestrians are that much safer than cities designed around the automobile.

The low-density city, the one that can’t be elevated to avoid floods, is a gigantic infrastructure compared to even say, Manhattan, when considered in relation to population served. I first heard this notion from architect/philosopher Paolo Soleri when he was visiting Los Angeles in 1965. He was at the time the earliest and essentially the only strong advocate for ecological city design. At one of his public talks, probably all of them in those days, he said that if you look around at the thinly scattered city it appears to be made mainly of small buildings – the single family homes, one story shopping areas, mostly small office buildings, franchise restaurants, gas stations, parking lots – there weren’t even many multi-story parking structures yet. But in reality that infrastructure was far larger in every way than the compact city mainly accessible by foot, such as the old city cores of many cities in Europe built before the influence of cars, or even streetcars. What we were seeing in Los Angeles was a case of gigantism, a term Soleri used, an enormous expanse of asphalt and concrete, redundant unshared walls serving only one family or one individual, thousands of miles of wire and pipes for electricity, telephone connections, gas, water, sewerage, enormous acreage in sentimental lawns producing no food and eliminating natural habitat. The compact city of larger buildings in mixed-use centers with towering skylines was paradoxically much smaller in material, energy, money and time to build and keep going. Why? Shared infrastructure and shortened linkages of all sorts. I thought he had a terribly important point and it has struck me as true and “basic” to this day.

But the Angelenos paid no heed. When they looked up and noticed murky gray to whiskey colored skies instead of blue and beheld the nights without stars from smog and glare, when they gasped for air with burning throats and cheeks streaked with tears, they decided to solve their air pollution problem by cleaning up the car. They fixed the car by affixing a smog device, stripping out about 90% of the air pollution and proving the car could be your friend. LA became the city of the future in the lead for the automobile cities that followed and have dominated the world ever more so to this very day. They fixed their local air pollution problem and through their leadership in the wrong style – piecemeal, adaptive and not whole systems – severely damaged the atmosphere of a whole planet and gave us climate change.

The lesson here, closely related to getting proportionality right, then prioritizing for the necessary work – no matter how hard – is that we need to recognize that we are dealing with whole systems. We Angelenos fixed the car, not the city. The city is a whole system made up of its buildings, open spaces, networks of transport with their vehicles and supply of material, energy and information, recycling and waste disposal all systems integrally relating to one another as are organs in a complex living organism. Treating the automobile as if it were an independent item without understanding the connections proved a disastrous mistake, and if methane release kicks in for serious, apocalyptic. The system of transport is intrinsically linked to the problems or solutions implied by the design of the whole.

Comparing cities, towns and villages to living organisms, which I call the anatomy analogy, is very helpful. Living organisms of any complexity are very three-dimensional, not flat like a tortilla. That’s largely because, in living organisms, the compact form makes possible short links between physical and electro-chemical connections, for the movement of nutrients and energy fluids and information within and, in the case of animals, the movement of the body through its whole external environment. The flat city battles against that healthy logic of short distances by design, whether by DNA or city design. The distances to be covered in the flat city and the expense of infrastructure and vehicles and fuel to cover them can be truly mind-boggling.

At core is the principle of “access by proximity.” The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, we hear. Not quite. It’s designing those points close together. This applies to biological organisms internally and to cities as well. Compact structure allows efficient, low energy connections throughout the organism be it a product of biological evolution or human construction.

Why are we not proportionalizing in the way I’m suggesting here? My guess is that it takes extra commitment and energy, some risks and it raises the specter that we might need to change some things substantially with the investment of some difficult work. We’d rather pick the a-fore mentioned low hanging fruit. But it is time to leave the low hanging fruit for the children.

With the growing universal agreement that dealing with climate change might be the largest problem world society needs to deal with, with implications on the scale of evolution’s trajectory into forever – impoverished or enriched? – how could the solutions be easy? No one won the day with the battle cry, “Relax! Do something easy first…” I think one of the reasons we have settled for perseverating on the adaptation issues is that those most concerned have not insisted, as I am doing here, on always looking for the effective long-range solutions and not just the easy or short-term changes. Maybe we have to start thinking about designing cities without MY car. Maybe we should entertain the idea of changing MY neighborhood. Maybe to even rethink MY career choices as to whether they fit with the much more pedestrian city, daring to imagine a very different kind of city into the future. Then there is the way I vote, make purchases and even talk in everyday conversation with my friends.

That then becomes an intriguing challenge: if we start thinking in really basic terms we might realize that the city that is best for adaptation adapts least – because in the not too distant future it doesn’t have to. Mild adaptations while giving first priority to reshaping the city in major ways for humans and natural critters alike is radically preferable to stupendous works of defense against “nature” and crossing our fingers blind to the deeper causes, principles and likely futures. Jaime Lerner, the Mayor who launched Curitiba, Brazil into world leadership in ecologically healthy city design reminds us that great changes in any city can happen in as few as two years.

We can begin looking at this contrast between fundamental change and trying to defend what we have now – adaptation – by thinking through some of the recommendations in the New Yorker January 7, 2013 issue.

Klaus Jacob was interviewed for the article. He’s a geophysicist at Columbia University and author of a 2009 study of storm surge risks for New York City whose predictions mostly came true when Superstorm Sandy hit in December 2012. He produced a map to inform the New Yorker article, with blue zones of increasing development in New York City and pink zones of decreasing population and development activity. The blue zones of increase happened to be in the areas on the sea level fringe with water where techniques of new building are more easily exercised than the techniques of convincing people in their already built up neighborhoods to accept new development. The neighborhoods generally safe from flooding are, simply, on higher ground.

What can actually work? As usual everyone turns eyes to the Netherlands. The city of Rotterdam has a “Climate Proof Program” that Eric Klinenberg, author of the New Yorker “Adaptation” article thought was pretty good.

First there was the ever trustworthy and intriguing if not Zen mystic argument that the problem is actually a good thing. In Rotterdam the climate proofing folks rechristened flooding rains “blue gold.” “Before we saw water as a problem,” said the program’s spokesperson. “The most interesting thing is figuring out what’s between these approaches: what to do with the water when it is there.” Why does this sound to me like it’s going nowhere yet gets what is supposed to be serious attention of transcendent revelation? More specifically what is suggested for real change?

The architecture of accommodation is one answer. Rotterdam has built a floating pavilion in the city center supported by three enormous floating silver half spheres complete with tennis courts, exhibition space and water playground. These look to me like specialized expensive public works not in the nature of “floating the city.” Are they good solutions for housing or offices, manufacturing facilities, warehousing and shopping? I would guess in a very wealthy society the people might build like that, floating on the rising seas but building on water is for many reasons, especially corrosive salt water, intrinsically more expensive than on land. Where poorer people live over water, it is generally for lack of other options on crowded land or land being too far from employment or they make their living doing mixed-uses right there: fishing, trading, raising kids on the water. The situation – floating on a moving medium – requires near constant maintenance. Stressing wind, corrosion, action of biological agents in the water, waves and heaving swells and moist conditions twist, turn and gnaw away at the structure with tiny barnacle teeth, which is why boats and ships require more maintenance than buildings that provide housing and work spaces of various sorts on land.

Smart design, meaning information technology to help coordinate physical actions, helps but that too implies higher expense in linking and manipulating the infrastructure. An electronically coordinated Dutch electric power grid is “circular” instead of the radial sort that branches out from one central power source. The idea is that power can come in from several directions depending on availability in case some power sources go down or line are cut, such as when wires are blown down with their poles by hurricanes. This “circular” solution requires redundant wiring, more lines coming in from more directions, more power company information infrastructure, though in some cases it can save on some physical infrastructure. Certainly this is not that difficult but again more expensive in both construction and maintenance, the stuff of ordinary complex energy grids already.

Another solution: place the electrical equipment above highest potential flood level. Only reasonable. Another: bury wires in waterproof pipes. A good practice but more expensive than wiring on poles. Another, this one from Singapore, raise the entrances of your subway system up out of the ground like projecting tubes – walk up a few extra steps to their thresholds then back down to the level of the street and on down into the system. When the waters wash down the street they can’t make it into the underground but you can. Again doable, an adaptation, more expensive but beginning to sound a little bizarre.

Then in the actual emergency situation there is a new “reverse-911 messaging” in which the authorities ring up you the people instead of vice versa, telling you you have a crisis on your hands and you should do such and such in your area. This too is not such a bad idea. What is interesting here is that all these adaptations, like the improvement of the car in Los Angeles, do nothing substantial to reduce the cause of the problem in the first place. But if we were to build the compact ecocity for people, including on artificially elevated land, we would be changing the largest cause of the climate change problem and vastly improving our prospects while also adapting to what’s left of the problem after good moves for prevention.

The best of all possible cities? Is it too idealistic to strive for that? Is the attempt impractical? Or is it just that we haven’t really tried yet and don’t know how possible it really is? Certainly humanity has more knowledge and power than ever before if we could decide what to do with it that’s healthy. It is not too difficult to see that with the intent of recycling urban organic waste into the soil, from kitchen and garden waste to human waste and clippings from public parks and doo from the zoo, by way of best composting and including such systems in the agricultural landscape that feed the people, that there is no reason we can’t build soils. We can sustain biodiversity and even enhance it in and near urban areas – and do in many places already. When I was in Central Park a few years ago I was walking over one of those high arching foot bridges and a hawk flew by no more than fifteen feet from me – in front and below me as it banked under the bridge I was walking over. Then he shot up and off to the right. In a city! We can intentionally create environments to bring back vital biodiversity.

The massive general impact of cities is presently very destructive to nature but there is a thin scattering of ecocity features that everybody senses vaguely but meaningfully is the “green” and “sustainable” city of the future already everywhere around us. There are rooftop gardens, solar passive design buildings, multi-story solar greenhouse that aren’t really recognized as such yet but exist as atriums, foyers and gallerias. There are bridges between buildings in higher density areas including spectacular features like the High Line, bicycle streets and car free areas. There are bountiful community gardens and thriving restoration projects for bringing local species back from the brink in adjacent mangroves and reedy wetlands. There are glass exterior elevators from San Francisco, California to Ningbo, China that make vertical transport something of an adventure. There are moveable awnings and solid sheltered walkways for the pedestrian in rain, snow and blasting sun. A covered walkway in Bologna, Italy called a portico breaks free from the street-side colonnades in the city and marches two miles up the hills and out of town to a famous chapel. It is pleasantly negotiated in heavy rain or merciless sun. There are excellent public transit systems that could get even better, and even the stop-gap sharing of our pedestrian-city’s old arch enemy, the car itself. Various rental companies provide “wheels when you want them” as the catch phrase for Zip Car goes. These can help commuters eventually break free from the car habit altogether as their city and town centers become more dense and mixed in uses.

So the issue is not that the ecocity can’t exist, it already does but only in small bits and pieces presently overwhelmed by the infrastructure of the sprawling city for cars. Those bits and pieces need to proliferate vastly in number and come together in good designs, basic principles everywhere the same, local conditions everywhere different, the universal and the unique united.

Firemen wade toward the Breezy Point Fire that burned 111 houses to the
waterline in Superstorm Sandy, New York.

But the seas are in fact rising. Unlike circumstance when entire neighborhoods are destroyed by water as in much of low lying New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and by fire in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens during Super Storm Sandy, parts of cities that are going to be inundated if dikes are not built cannot be easily removed. We can’t easily and economically remove big useful buildings remain anchored firmly to the ground, certainly in the short term anyway. Should we fill their basements with concrete and move the first floor up to the third floor? How to elevate the street too and do the same thing with other buildings in the area? Perhaps we could create such an area a block wide that becomes a ring around the rest of the city that remains at the old street level, in the future well below sea level. This is in fact the solution implemented in Old Sacramento, California where the downtown was frequently flooded by the Sacrament River during springtime mountain snow melt and late spring rain runoff. Visit there and you walk down once story from the waterfront into Old Town.

And, if we do seriously think through our options of “working with nature” – New York to the rescue. In 1961 Gerald Lloyd wrote a paper for the Urban Land Institute calling for a means to transfer development rights from one place to anther so that much more flexibility in city design and development could be planned, approved by the authorities and built. Cities could then be changed more rapidly for any number of good reasons: preservation of an historic landmark, pollution avoidance, building a better cluster of building, opening up a buried waterway, repairing past mistakes or building a piece of the best we can imagine. Lloyd called the notion “transferable density.” “In the midst of this scholarly activity, New York City adopted a new Landmark Preservation Law in 1968,” wrote Rick Pruetz, past Director of Planning for Burbank, California in his book on transfer of development rights or TDR, entitled “Saved by Development.”  The railroad company wanted to build a 55 story office tower on top of Grand Central Terminal. Instead “transfer of development rights” – aka TDR – was created as a legal tool to allow the shifting of rights to develop from one location to another. The innovation was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1978, the terminal building was preserved and TDR became a zoning tool not only in cities to save landmarks but also for saving natural areas and agricultural land all over the United States.

Compact development is excellent for fighting fires in fire country like
Southern California and other Mediterranean climates. Have the community
covering a small foot print, swimming pools up wind (fire winds almost
always come from the same direction) and gasoline powered water pumps hoses
and nozzles… and the community is relatively easy to defend. Illustration by Richard Register

The kind of flexibility provided by tools like TDR, with the support of supportive zoning law and other policies, community fundraising for major projects, appropriate taxes and the like could make possible the gradual withdrawal from areas known to be soon flooded and a transfer of development facilitated to higher ground, some of which might be created as modern day versions of the Indian mounds that once dappled much of the US central and southeastern territories and raised cities in ancient Mesopotamia.

But here is the most important point: we have not yet begun to fight, as John Paul Jones said, but in this case, to reverse climate change. The fact is that the much talked about adaptive strategy, relative to the scale of the problem, does very little to reduce impacts leading to climate change. Planting trees by the millions actually does – by absorbs carbon out of the atmosphere. Grasslands regenerated with the best of grazing techniques can turn millions of acres of degraded soils into deep reservoirs of dead organic carbon matter by the gigatons stripped from the atmosphere.  Rancher Alan Savory has demonstrated what can be done in the grazing lands of Zimbabwe. To accomplish this he has reproduced the clustering effects of large numbers of cattle in a way modeled by the defensive bunching of zebras and wildebeest by lions into tight herds that act like giant self-replicating solar-powered agricultural fertilizing and seed planting machines mixing their fertilizer, earth and seeds with their hooves. Then there are the peat lands, if we could save most of them from cutting, or artificially create more of them, that build up carbon almost magically without the need of soil, sphagnum mosses just growing ever thicker on top of dying and dead moss underneath, laying down ever thicker and thicker layers of stored carbon below.

Solar and wind energy to replace fossil fuels helps greatly on the supply side. Building cities that consume radically less energy in the first place, the alternative called ecocities, pairs beautifully with such renewable energy sources on the demand side radically reducing demand for land and materials as well as energy. Do all of the above and we are well on our way to reversing global heating and obviating the more extreme mitigations and massive walls to keep out the seas that everyone is beginning to talk about as the big guns of adaptation. But even then, that is not enough if population and consumption, one or both, continue to grow putting ever more pressure on natural systems, especially the climate system and the ecological system called the biosphere. And even that will probably not be enough unless we move to a form of agriculture that builds soils organically, recruiting cities for much of the fertilizer ­– in a similar way to what Alan Savory does when he recruits cattle to doo doo as the zebras and wildebeests do, to build the soil in Zimbabwe. The evolving ecocity, in shrinking back from the land car cities have paved over with concrete, asphalt and inedible lawns helps in this way too: millions of new acres of land close in to the city can be liberated for both farming and the return and flourishing of native species. And even that might not be enough if we don’t phase out of our mania for war and expensive weapons systems and phase in much more serious peace efforts.

The lesson of whole systems thinking then, thinking using the anatomy analogy and ecological thinking, is not just that we have to see cities as analogous in profound ways to living organism, or understand their role in the whole system of their ecology and cycles of resource use and recycling, but also that we need to begin imaging how all those large components of solution come together in a plan something like Lester Brown’s long-promoted “Plan B” ideas explore. We need to, in other words, understand what’s needed and literally build a better future. We will need the new ecologically healthy city for people, a far better agriculture and diet system, a strategy to get control of our vast numbers and learn about limits into the future. We will need to be generous in investing in the above three very major areas of physical change, most briefly said as ecocities, organic agriculture, and population moderation. This becomes another “whole system” we need to think about, a whole systems strategy, one commitment to generously sharing the planet with all of us people and the other species that have made life such a rich and varied phenomenon on this planet. Could this be the one thing powerful enough to constitute William James’ notion of the much-needed “moral equivalent of war,” which he wrote about in one of the most influential essays of the early 20^th century?

I believe so – and now we might understand better why adaptation to climate change in our cities is a very limited idea. The strategic system needs to be prioritized: work for the best for all first, second for preventing the disaster – then third, mop up as we must with adaptations to our failures of the first two.

Richard Register is founder and president of Ecocity Builders and can be reached at ecocity@igc.org.