Ecocities Emerging - January 2009 Issue

Ecocities Emerging To support humanity's transition into the Ecozoic Era	January 2009

Greetings,

Welcome to the January 2009 edition of Ecocities Emerging, an initiative of Ecocity Builders and the International Ecocity Conference Series.

A recent study found that there are now more obese Americans than the merely overweight. And, following the rapid roll-out of fast food restaurants, cars, sprawl, and TV/video game culture throughout the world, the global population is gaining weight alongside the Americans, although they are nowhere near as big. Meantime the health of many people and certainly the planet is plummeting, while multinationals fight over remaining resources and the markets they yanked out from under local economies.

As Richard Register describes in his essay in this newsletter, we're at the brink of another World War, but this time a War FOR the World. It almost does not look winable. But we humans have and can change bad habits and patterns, and we get more done and faster if we work together.

It is traditional for each New Year to be met with resolutions - casting off old, unhealthy and addictive behaviors and practices and replacing them with good ones. Unfortunately most people don't keep their new resolutions for long. But one of the hopeful promises of having good leaders, laws, regulations and government is that even if we as individuals have a very hard time making lasting changes on our own, we can collectively set standards and enforce them. We can make big plans and implement them. And doing so, we can actually change quickly - if we make the commitment, set the benchmarks high enough, and follow through.

This is the hope and the promise of this New Year - that by working with new intelligent leadership guided by reason and foresight, we will set new standards to finally match the scale of the problems we're facing.

We've been talking about saving the planet for a long time, but we're still losing the battle. We say we've been speaking truth to power, but without power, truth often isn't applied. In 2009, power must align with truth for appropriate action.

As we build, so shall we live.

Kirstin Miller, Ecocity Builders
Oakland, California, January 2009
ecocitybuilders.org

The Ecozoic Era refers to a vision, first promoted by cosmologist Thomas Berry, of an emerging epoch when humanity lives in a mutually enriching relationship with the larger community of life on Earth.

Will we be able to make the transition in time to retain a biosphere healthy enough to regenerate living systems now under extreme stress? There is no way to be certain, but our position is that there's no time to just sit around and wonder about it: now is time for action.

Thank you for all that you are doing to help accelerate progress toward a civilization in balance with living systems.

Maybe one day all cities will be ecocities.

Obama's Quest for Balance
and the Third World War -
the War FOR the World
by Richard Register

obama.earth

Dire times, these, and the champion of change and hope has been elected to lead the USA. "America is like a giant boiler," said Winston Churchill during the run up to the Second World War, "light a fire under her and there is no limit to what she can accomplish."

Lets hope she does well. She needs to do no less than rescue the planet - which needs rescuing largely because of her past activities. Not only because oil depletion and climate change are mainly her fault, but she has the obligation of sheer concentrated wealth. The current unfolding economic depression notwithstanding, the US, with a good attitude, has the capacity to turn the world economy around. Whether it has the time and understanding is another question.

Enter An Enthusiastic but Cool and Steady New Head of State
Certainly President Elect Barack Obama is concerned about and moving on issues neglected or poisoned in the dark ages of the Bush Administration, but does he really know what to build as the global economy follows the US economy down, down, down? Along with climate stability and species diversity to boot.

Over a few days of the Christmas season 2008 I read both his books, the autobiographical "Dreams from my Father" and his policy biography and thought piece, "The Audacity of Hope." It's remarkable that an American president has given us such a piercing look into his background, his thinking and himself. It is doubly so that these books have appeared before he has even assumed office. Take the opportunity and learn about this crucially important person. We need to understand him as he begins his struggle to repair the immense damage of his predecessor at the desk where the buck stops. As the reviewers are prone to say, his two books are a "must read," not for fans of this or that, but for all of us.

Mr. Obama seems to be carving out a path many would call middle of the road. But my overriding impression from his books is that he seeks balance as his absolute rock bottom foundation, something subtly different from middle road compromises. He seems to be questing for a balance and a sense of proportion.

Some reading this will be familiar with my bedrock theme, too, based on ecological principles, that we need to develop a sense of proportion that recognizes the real dangers of the car/sprawl/paving/cheap energy city and the benefits of the pedestrian/compact/rail and bike/solar city. Talk about proportions, if cars are 30 times as heavy, 10 times as fast and 60 times the volume of the human body, for example, that has to mean a giant omission of proportionality when designing for efficient cities with cars in them.

When the Bali and Poland UN Conferences on Climate Change in 2007 and 2008 failed to mention urban design and city structure and function, they failed to consider the largest creations of humanity - a colossally large and tragic failure to understand proportionality. With the pedestrian/transit cities of Europe using about a third the energy and land per person of the sprawling car-dominated cities of America, we are talking about vastly reduced impacts on climate change - 66% right there by way of urban design.

And the well-meaning climate scientists and political negotiators didn't even mention it! That's way out of balance. Most European cities have the residual of pedestrian design in their cores from a time before cars and a few have car free areas slowly getting larger. But they are swamped in cars too. What if the basic concept of ecological cities were applied to reshaping cities as they age and get remodeled on ecocity lines? Would it imply an 80% or 90% energy savings? Shouldn't that be a crucial question? That vacuum of knowledge of urban design and functioning, or even curiosity about it, indicates people are not thinking about proportionality.

Link to rest of article

Richard Register is President of Ecocity Builders and author of Ecocities, Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature.

WATERPOWER
Holcim Award Winner: Europe

waterpower5

The Valley of the Mills, which stretches across the
municipalities of Amalfi and Scala, in Italy's Amalfi Coast, has been recognised as a world heritage site since 1997. The area is a unique local testament to agricultural and early industrial activities carried out in harmony with nature. Yet, despite the unique nature and historical significance of the site's hydraulic engineering system, which fed the ancient paper mills, the area has been completely abandoned. The Arab-inspired hydraulic system is made up of a network of mills, canals, cisterns, wells and waterwheels which begin at the Canneto torrent. It is a testimony to over a thousand years of Mediterranean peoples' existence and intelligence.

The renewal strategy proposes to transform the area into a fully functioning cultural and tourist site, to breathe life into its 14 ancient buildings, built in the XIII and XIX century; the hydraulic engineering system; and the typical terraced landscape with its dry stone walls and lemon trees. It will allow us to return a unique area of local culture, memory and identity to everyone. Waterpower is a regional regeneration project tackling a series of sensitive problems linked to the restoration, accessibility and use of these ancient structures immersed in the landscape.

Following the Italian tradition, the best way to preserve the delicate balance between the area's natural beauty and the traces of man's intervention, is an integrated approach focussing on preserving and protecting the architecture, which forms an integral part of the landscape. To avoid the area becoming little more than a museum and to halt its continuing decline, we propose an innovative and balanced project of programmes, technologies and materials to bring the crumbling structures to life once more.

waterpower4

Three of the valley's 14 mills have already been restored. They currently house the Museum of Paper, the Amatruda paper factory and communal housing. The masterplan would co-ordinate the development of 11 further projects:

a refuge, with a Mediterranean biodiversity centre and a museum of metal;
a renewable energies information and education area;
a youth hostel with facilities to learn and experiment in paper production;
studios and gallery space for artists with areas for traditional food tastings;
a panoramic viewpoint with a display of hydraulic machinery;
a mind and body health centre equipped with spa, sauna and hammam;
an exhibit illustrating traditional hydraulic engineering techniques;
an area selling exclusively locally-produced lemon-based products;
a stone-built parking area in the area where the torrent is canalised;
a research and teaching institute focussing on new audiovisual technologies;
a chateaux relais and a museum of the valley's local history.

The Valley's hydropower was traditionally used in the production of Amalfi's famous handmade paper. The renewal strategy proposes to revive this interrupted tradition by both restoring old machinery and installing new equipment to improve accessibility and generate energy.

The masterplan includes:
- a series of water-powered elevators which, suspended above the key water levels, will create a seemingly structure-less public path which will take in the landscape, the rivers, canals and lemon trees to arrive at the buildings;
- a series of water-powered cable way will make the lemon terraces more accessible and will help farmers manage harvests and repair the dry stone walls which sustain the terraces without road access;
- a series of microturbines, installed at the major drops in altitude at points of the historic canals and linked to a hydrogen power system will harness any excess energy generated and help contribute to the Valley's energy independence.

Lead: Luigi Centola, Centola & Associati
Team: Mariagiovanna Riitano, Luigi Centola, EMBT | Miralles - Tagliabue, Roto Architects, Studio Marano, Labics, Nemesi Studio, King - Roselli, A+aa, Tecla Architettura, Urban Future Organization - Ufo, Susanna Ferrini Antonello Stella Architetti Associati, Pietro Alessandro Latella, Zurich, Switzerland

Energy of Cities
by Paul Evans
energy.city

When I think of energy the first word that comes to mind is dynamic. I like the word dynamic because it embodies energy with an ever-changing quality. It is true that energy can be stored and held still, but it is always with the intent of letting it loose later. Energy is a constantly changing entity; it is transferred, accumulated, discharged, and magnified. It is such a unique substance that it cannot actually be destroyed or created; only transferred between bodies.

When you walk through a city the presence of energy is undeniable. Not just the physical energy that powers our buildings, but a more surreal energy that connects everything. I would like to define this energy as the energy of opportunity, and any city is overflowing with it.

A city is a center of thought and activity. People are living and working in such close contact that their lives begin to intertwine. These people are the bodies that accumulate and discharge energy. Their everyday actions and decisions create an environment that allows for the free flow of energy. One person may use energy to do something that will transfer energy to another person who, in turn, will use that energy to influence someone else.

I believe opportunity is a good way to define city energy, because in order for it to be used it must first be engaged. It is a conscious decision to actively seek it out and see how it will change your life. In this sense a city becomes an endless series of possibilities that are waiting to be discovered.