Building Resilient Communities From Scratch

[Encephalon]

I was excited to seed someone finally post this sentiment. As a fledgling Taoist with a background in urban geography/planning, I see the confluence of sustainable development and Taoism as inevitable. Can you imagine what it would be like if we could professionally design a sustainable community populated with... people like us!?

Dibs on sauna/greenhouse design.

 

Wednesday, 14 July 2010

 

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/07/journal-building-resilient-communities-from-scratch.html

 

JOURNAL: Building Resilient Communities From Scratch

Here's another approach (one of many alternatives) to building resilient communities that may be of interest:

 

There seems to be a considerable amount of interest in building resilient communities as completely new and professionally designed housing developments. Given how terrible the housing market is (and will continue to be from here on out), this makes sense. It's the only game in town.

 

It's also an effort that has the potential to succeed. There are hundreds of thousands of people (soon to be millions) that both fear the social/economic tsunami ahead and have the (current) financial resources to fully fund the development of resilient communities. These people have a overwhelming desire to circle the wagons (for themselves now, for retirement, or their extended families) while they still can.

 

However, serving this emerging market is going to require a major shift in culture for most traditional developers. Why? Selling a resilient community is a very different process than selling a house (school quality, commute distance, architectural amenities, etc.) or a retirement/vacation retreat (luxury, services, access, etc.). It's about selling a complete and integrated economic and social system (of which there are many designs to choose from), in microcosm. In short, these communities need to embody a vision of a viable and vibrant future that will persist despite widespread global failure.

 

As a result, successful developments that serve this emerging market will need to do everything from finding ways to fund the buildout and management of new resilient community infrastructures to the ongoing economic/financial support required to establish and grow a large number of prosperous local producers (that will eventually power the community over the longer run as the global situation worsens). Anything less won't sell.

[Encephalon]

If/when this process gets underway, I suspect we'll be harvesting building materials from abandoned suburban slums.

[voidisyinyang]

If/when this process gets underway, I suspect we'll be harvesting building materials from abandoned suburban slums.

 

The Dancing Rabbit ecovillage was built from scratch using recycled materials from torn down buildings and local harvested clay/sand/straw/manure -- called "cob" --

 

http://www.dancingrabbit.org/newsletter/

Edited August 18, 2010 by drewhempel

[Brian]

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[WallaMike]

Hello Blasto:

 

Have you seen this book:

Living Design: The Daoist Way of Building at Amazon.com : http://www.amazon.com/Living-Design-Daoist-Way-Building/dp/0070429758/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282173547&sr=8-6 I though you might find it interesting. I got it a year or two ago and enjoyed its ideas. I just don't have the money/time/support to do something like it suggests...maybe someday.

 

I would also like your opinion about www.integralcity.com . I am something of an "integral" buff, since being integral is wholistic and often is very similar to Taoist principles. Since you are interested in urban planning, this is definitely something that I think is sustainable, if done correctly, and so something else that may interest you.

 

The reason I'm such an "integral" buff is that the philosophy tries to take into account multiple perspectives and work with people on their own levels, so that once something is done, it meets more needs than if something is done because someone with power said so. Hopefully this makes it more sustainable, since this way more people buy into the idea. This applies to building cities as well as running meetings.

 

The reason I think "integral" philosophy is at least somewhat Taoist, is that it takes into consideration not just the human view point, but also that of the local fauna and flora and how they are affected, trying to look at the changes from their view point....but also that of people, businesses, etc. and tries to achieve some sort of holarchical balance. In other words, in some incarnations, integral philosophy is very nature, energetic, and spiritually oriented. An excellent book on this is "Integral Ecology" by Bjorn-Hargens. He's a professor type, but is also spiritually and psychologically developed, so the book is very eye opening and educational.

[Encephalon]

Hello Blasto:

 

Have you seen this book:

Living Design: The Daoist Way of Building at Amazon.com : http://www.amazon.com/Living-Design-Daoist-Way-Building/dp/0070429758/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282173547&sr=8-6 I though you might find it interesting. I got it a year or two ago and enjoyed its ideas. I just don't have the money/time/support to do something like it suggests...maybe someday.

 

I would also like your opinion about www.integralcity.com . I am something of an "integral" buff, since being integral is wholistic and often is very similar to Taoist principles. Since you are interested in urban planning, this is definitely something that I think is sustainable, if done correctly, and so something else that may interest you.

 

The reason I'm such an "integral" buff is that the philosophy tries to take into account multiple perspectives and work with people on their own levels, so that once something is done, it meets more needs than if something is done because someone with power said so. Hopefully this makes it more sustainable, since this way more people buy into the idea. This applies to building cities as well as running meetings.

 

The reason I think "integral" philosophy is at least somewhat Taoist, is that it takes into consideration not just the human view point, but also that of the local fauna and flora and how they are affected, trying to look at the changes from their view point....but also that of people, businesses, etc. and tries to achieve some sort of holarchical balance. In other words, in some incarnations, integral philosophy is very nature, energetic, and spiritually oriented. An excellent book on this is "Integral Ecology" by Bjorn-Hargens. He's a professor type, but is also spiritually and psychologically developed, so the book is very eye opening and educational.

 

I attended the first Integral Theory conference in the SF Bay Area in the summer of 2008. They were just getting their feet wet, trying to wrestle with IT and its various applications. Wilber's AQAL model is such a huge model that it requires you to reorient virtually everything you know about a particular subject, but you end up with tremendous explanatory power in the process.

 

I'm quite fond of Marilyn Hamilton's Integral City work up in Vancouver. I do believe it is still a profoundly optimistic view and I'd expect the planning and development phase to go accordingly if the financial resources are available when the oil crash kicks us in the teeth. I think they'll provide us with valuable advice.

 

I'm not so optimistic, and Vancouver is a very civilized city by American standards, particularly their urban planning/transportation departments. I hope we Americans can keep the violence down while we re-tool and construct our small-size permaculture models. The problem is that this expertise is not equitably distributed in the population, and those of us who have created post-industrial/permaculture skills will be flocking together. Community requires tremendous maturity and resilience and skill.

 

I met Sean Bjorn-Hargens at the conference and one of his colleagues was conducting Tai chi classes in the morning for the attendees. I asked him where he drew the line between IT/AQAL and Taoism, and he just chuckled and said he didn't want to get into trouble! By that I assume that he found tremendous similarities and didn't feel like doing the work of separating them would be fruitful at this time. IT/AQAL is great for mapping the world(s), but Taoism provides the tools for our physical development. "Integral Ecology" will no doubt be on every serious Taoist's reading list as the subject of ecology is THE portal to the Tao, especially for western scholar/practitioners. But alas, I've only skimmed it. Still getting through "Ecopsychology" by Ted Roszak and "The Web of Life" by F. Capra. "A Theory of Everything" by Wilber was awfully fun too.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Hope this material generates some interest in here!!

Regards,

B.

Edited August 19, 2010 by Blasto

[Brian]

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[Encephalon]

By any chance, have you read Oryx & Crake, Blasto? It's an apocalyptic little ditty. Your (dead-on) comment above about people flocking together made me think of it, for some reason.

 

BTW, I much prefer the approach you are discussing (I freely admit I've just started learning!) over "Agenda 21." I've already started seeing some ugly unintended (or not, depending on your conspiracy-theory quotient) consequences of "sustainable development" and it is just starting...

 

Just can't do fiction anymore. It's sad; the only thing I liked about Condi Rice: she lost the patience for fiction too. "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century," by James Kunstler is non-fiction but reads like fiction, almost like an adventure tale. His fictionalized account of the same material, "World Made by Hand," I did read and enjoyed it immensely. It takes place around 2050 or so, just as what's left of the American population starts to rebuild. He details all the positives - clean air and water, abundant animal life, plenty of marijuana, no police state, the ability to use dirty coal for trains without contributing to air pollution - with the liabilities; diminished health care, no electricity, violent gangs, religious fanatics.

 

I don't know what to think about anti-UN sentiments. I've seen it grow in tandem with anti-government sentiment since Reagan rode into town on his white horse. Except for environmental lefties, or conservative business owners who have solar arrays on their warehouse roofs, I cannot imagine the concept of sustainability garnering credence any time soon, not in our consumer culture. When Glenn Beck gets away with telling his legions of listeners that energy independence is a ruse to create green union jobs, we've pretty much been handed Orwell's 100-page dictionary published by the Ministry of Truth.

 

If Agenda 21 is getting bogged down by bureacratic BS then of course I'm not surprised.

[Brian]

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