01031 Design issues in our urban realities

Twenty Urban Design Imperatives.

1. Food First! Start practicing the Ten Principles of Household and Community Food Security (discussed in 02021). Keep practicing until you get really good at household and community food security. There are three reasons for placing this first: (a) it is the area most under the control of individuals and households, (b) It has immediate positive benefits, and (c) the consequences for the environment are vast and beneficial.

2. Water second! Remove the present subsidies for wasting water and replace them with market pricing where those who use the most pay the most. Implement structures that help low income people adapt to the realities of a water-scarce world. End the common practice of charging less when people buy more water. Strengthen building codes regarding water use and require rainwater harvesting. Make sensible use of all storm water and ensure that any water discharged downstream, whether from storm water or waste water systems, is pure enough to drink from the tap, by using natural processes. Cheap water is an oxymoron, because water is not cheap. When viewed globally, water is a scarce resource and as long as we have a market economy, it should be priced in accordance with market rates with no subsidies except for those that are a matter of social justice for the poor.

3. Focus sustainability efforts on local government. You have more influence at your local level of government than anywhere else in our political system. Your municipal government is in charge of many activities important to sustainability. Sustainability advocates should focus most of their efforts on urban activities for the foreseeable future.

4. Live in fewer square feet of area per person. We can do this by living in smaller spaces or by increasing the number of people living in existing larger spaces, so that we achieve the goal of fewer square feet per person of living space. Taking in roommates or boarders is a great way to earn additional income and to increase the amount of affordable housing in the area. As far as invisible structures, minimize house and apartment size standards should be eliminated. Zoning restrictions that don't allow garage/attic/basement/backyard apartments should be abolished.

5. Live in more densely populated, multi-use neighborhoods. No one expects everyone to pack up and move to a different neighborhood just to achieve this goal. Even so, the goal can be accomplished mostly by natural market mechanisms if we remove restrictions and regulations that prevent property owners from adding rental residential spaces to their properties such as attic, garage, basement, backyard apartments. Cities should permit duplexes and four-plexes in all residential neighborhoods. Many houses are big enough that they could add an apartment simply by adding another door to an extra bedroom and installing a small kitchen for it, thus creating a studio apartment. Dividing existing homes into duplexes should be an easy citizen-friendly regulatory process. One of the best living spaces in my life was a studio apartment in an older home that came complete with a Murphy bed that folded up into the wall when I wasn't sleeping. Older commercial spaces can be converted to apartments and lofts. City ordinances that make it hard for people to open boarding houses should be amended to facilitate this important style of urban living. It should always be legal to work at home and combinations of work and living spaces should be allowed.

   Zoning should always allow small retail and hospitality operations around neighborhoods. More densely populated neighborhoods facilitate mass transit planning which facilitates sustainable urban areas.

   Another way of adding density is to site larger housing units close to shopping districts and transit stations. This provides a way to rapidly increase the density of areas thus making it possible to jump start retail and other social amenities in the area.

   One topic currently in play with urban planners is the concept of Eco-districts. Eco-districts are defined in negotiations among property owners, residents, and government authorities. The stakeholders agree to a variety of neighborhood initiatives designed to accelerate the development towards sustainability. There are examples of such districts built "from the ground up" according to sustainable designs. They often locate in former commercial or industrial areas.

6. Stop subsidizing sprawl. The pattern in most cities is that tax revenues from older, already developed parts of the urban area are used to build infrastructure in new areas. This drains older areas of vital funds necessary to keep infrastructure repaired and makes the general governance and provision of services to the city more difficult and expensive. The market-oriented solution is to require that any new construction must also pay for the infrastructure necessary to support that new construction. In other words, it's time to cut off the welfare checks for the big developers. The outer exurbs of many cities will end up being abandoned, the dwellings torn down and the materials recycled, the land will likely convert in most areas to market gardening to supply the city with food.

7. Regional downtowns for very large cities. One of the attractive things about a city is the magic of denser populations of people that support entertainment, shopping, and working districts like downtowns. However, one gigantic downtown for an entire metropolitan area ends up causing transportation problems as we move people to and from activities. A better pattern for urban areas are is a series of regional downtowns, each serving about 300,000 people. A metropolitan area of one million population should actually have at least three different “downtowns,” thus giving everyone an easier access to the magic that makes cities attractive and exciting.

8. Empower grassroots government. Decentralize some city services to new forms of government that serve 10,000 people or less. Base these new local governments on existing geographic, historic, and/or cultural divisions of the city. Give them control over issues of great concern to residents such as land use, housing, maintenance, streets, parks, police, schooling, welfare, neighborhood services. One of the present problems in urban areas is that because the governments represent so many people, individuals have no real voice in what is going on. Each of these new local governments would have a small town hall located near the busiest intersection of the area. The building needs at least three functional areas: (1) space to rent for community projects, (2) public services for the area, and (3) a place for public forums and discussions.

9. Drive less. Shift the transportation focus from building roads to encouraging transit and developing walkability.

   More dense development encourages walking. People like to walk when the walks go through interesting places. Non-interesting and scary places do not promote walkability. The latter include:

   • Any street with more than four lanes total (two each way)/
   • Parking lots. The modern tendency towards strip malls with the parking in front is a sure fire way to destroy people's natural willingness to walk. When people walk in urban areas, they like to window shop. That's not possibility if there's nothing to walk by or through other than one parking lot after another.
   • Places that are deserted or poorly lit at nights/
   • Fast traffic.
   • Narrow sidewalks.
   • Streets without painted crosswalks.
   • lack of trees.
   • lots of litter.

   Each city needs a variety of transit options, starting with a system of taxi-like van services. Each of these vans drives a particular route, but they deviate off the route to pick up and drop off people. The vans would carry up to 6 or 8 people. The vans could be privately owned and the drivers could use a cooperatively managed dispatch system as well as picking up at neighborhood transit centers and other stops on the primary routes.

   Faster transportation between destinations further apart can be provided via bus rapid transit, which reserves a street lane for bus travel. This is less expensive than rail, which serves a similar purpose.

   As a public service, the city would provide multi-modal transfer stations where the various forms of transit connect for the convenience of travelers. These could provide amenities like places for pop-up shops, food carts, and trucks.

   Cities need a system of universal transit transfers allowing people to go from one kind of transit to another (e.g. buses to streetcars to vans to trains etc.) This could effectively function as an alternative form of currency, which would facilitate its use among transit options owned by different people/structures.

   As the system of multi-modal transit centers develops, enterprise and social activities will develop around the centers. Develop walkable spaces associated with every community that connect major activity areas. If possible, put a major attraction at each end of the walkable areas to keep people moving around.

10. Deploy more energy conservative designs for buildings. The imperatives of the future demand that we become much smarter in our use of energy in our buildings — homes, businesses, offices, industrial. We need better design of private and public buildings so they will remain comfortable while using much less energy. We need best practices, according to the local climates, for both new construction and for retrofits of existing construction.

    Local building codes should mandate the American Passive House standard for new construction.

11. Use less stuff and make less waste. Deploy better designs in urban areas that create less waste and pollution. Compost, recycle, repair, and reuse more. Develop a conserver society. Trash is a big issue in urban areas. While urban areas offer opportunities to support more sustainable living, urban areas concentrate problems such as waste and trash. Start with the no-brainer stuff like never buying and drinking bottled water and soda pop.

12. Create structures and systems that make it easier for people to live more sustainably and harder to live less sustainably. Develop ethical political and economic systems based on collaboration and cooperation, not competition, that support our species' movement toward sustainability and halt the slide toward collapse and the ash heap of history. It is presently easy to live in gluttony and selfishness and that destroys the planet and kills life. That's what the present world system does. We get the instructions at an early age. Just browse the 500 or so channels of your local cable service if you doubt this.

13. Shop, work, save, and invest locally and cooperatively, using an ethic of right-livelihood. Shift resources from absentee-owned national chains to locally owned and managed businesses. Start with low-hanging-fruit like never eating at nationally owned or franchised fast food or restaurants. Buy locally made, artisan body care products and avoid the toxic pollution found in many commercial products. To support the transition to ethical economies — at the global, regional, and local levels — start and support cooperatives of all kinds — grocery, worker, housing, service, health care, etc. Repeal laws that prohibit home businesses and small retail in residential neighborhoods. Don't allow any new concentrations of businesses that are not integrated with retail. Allow residential development within business districts (apartments above shops and workplaces, etc.). Work for the sustainable repurposing of big box stores as cooperative marketplaces of individually owned small shops and market stands and pop-up shops. Make sure that each area of the city has a walkable area for night-life.

14. Cultural and social diversity. Encourage the social and cultural diversity of the city by not suppressing the various subcultures of the area. Make it possible for them to develop their own territories within the city so that over time, a mosaic of subcultures emerges throughout the urban area. Assist people in the self-definition of neighborhoods with technical expertise and regulatory issues. Permit the development of boundary structures around neighborhoods for identity and security. This could include, as part of an area-wide transportation redesign, closing some streets to public access and putting gates on other streets to limit non-neighborhood traffic.

15. Liberalize local economic regulation. Cities can encourage the rapid development of new centers of social and economic activity if they will liberalize local regulations relating to food trucks (and other business trucks), as well as pop-up shops, flea markets, swap meets, and other such small scale enterprise. This lowers the cost of business entry which will multiply the opportunities for small scale entrepreneurs to start businesses that meet local needs. It will help create denser development.

16. Shift to true neighborhood schools. Replace the present system of large schools with small neighborhood schools serving 30-40 students for children ages 6 to 12. These neighborhood schools concentrate on reading, writing, arithmetic, music, gardening, arts and crafts, which give children the tools they need to explore their natural curiosity. Allow the children to follow their natural curiosities. These schools should have a teacher-pupil relation of about 10 and be located in homes in the neighborhoods where the children live. Past age 12, the community can provide larger schools based on a system that supports "unschooling" concepts. Every day, the children should spend some of their time doing work, such as cleaning the school, working on the grounds, etc., with the work integrated as part of their educational experience.

17. Expect catastrophe, design for resiliency, constancy, and persistence. Constancy is the ability of a city to maintain itself without decline. Persistence is the ability to resist damage. Resilience is the ability to restore after being damaged. If something can go wrong, it will. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Every important function (e.g., food, soil fertility, shelter, household energy, water, etc.) should have backups — more than one system should support each critical need. In all urban situations, this begins with individual households who choose to bolster their own resilience by keeping some of the household savings in the form of food and water, who decrease their dependence upon fossil fuels by insulating their dwellings and driving less, and who work together with their neighbors to increase the safety, security, and wellness of their own neighborhoods. In the context of a widespread praxis of sustainability and resilience at the household level, much can be done to increase the resiliency of urban areas and mitigate the consequences of any possible catastrophes.

    In urban areas, the work doesn't stop there. We need to strengthen the infrastructures that make urban life possible. The best infrastructures will be hard to break and easy to repair. Cities and utilities should maintain protected stocks of replacement parts. Where possible, we should use natural processes and ecosystem services to protect ourselves from disaster.

18. Neighborhood Service Centers. These could be cooperatively owned by the households they serve. They offer needed services to their neighborhoods, including: large kitchens for food processing and preparing meals for larger groups of people, community rooms for dinners and parties, washing machines, indoor line drying areas, food storage area, freezer locker space. Common area laundry rooms use an estimated 500% less energy than individual house washing machines. Similar savings are possible for water usage.

19. Decentralize energy production. Cities are vulnerable to energy problems because of their dependence on single source grids for energy distribution. By decentralizing energy production and distribution, cities become more sustainable and better able to resist damage from weather and recover afterwards. Strategies and techniques include: on-site production via co-generation (for businesses and industrial locations), solar PV, biogas to power turbines, and small wind. District or neighborhood solutions include district heating and cooling systems, perhaps powered by methane generated from biological wastes in the neighborhood, together with solar, and additional opportunities for solar PV, wind, and steam generated electricity. Neighborhood ventures could be structured as cooperatives owned by their customers.

20. Social justice and solidarity. Don't leave anyone behind for the wolves to devour. As the times get harder, the political temptation is always to abandon those who are weak and unable to defend themselves. That is a sure and certain freeway to the ash heap of history. Nurture blessings and hope in your own life and the life of your community. Expand the concept of solidarity to include nature, so that we develop a society where our rights and duties to nature are similar to our rights and duties to human beings

City Problems

Zoning The “Single Family Residence” zoning designation is a primary driver of urban unsustainability. Often this is accompanied by other details like minimum lot sizes, minimum house sizes, etc. In effect, it is a method of coercively segregating housing by economic class. This common practice is unsustainable and unjust. It creates ugly, sterile monoculture environments that make people want to drive long distances to get away from them and enjoy a more diverse and interesting urban situation “someplace else.”

Contrast this with the neighborhood where I live. It developed between about 1910 and the early 1930s. There are single family residences, duplexes, four-plexes, and garage apartments. Lots are small compared to the suburbs and houses are close together. It is a diverse and human scale neighborhood. People on welfare live close to people with six figure incomes. That’s good for social unity and cohesion in times of stress and crisis.

Property Maintenance Codes Property maintenance codes are problems when used to restrict or even forbid edible landscaping, to minimize fences and other privacy and security structures, to limit the diversity of plants at a property, etc. They may govern the types and placement of lawn and porch furniture and may restrict or eliminate solar clothes drying. They empower a neighborhood’s bullies to run roughshod over anyone with whom they have a disagreement. They allow people with access to political power to enact their personal preferences into law. Such nanny-state neighborhood codes are divisive within neighborhoods and inconsistent with ideals of freedom and justice and should be abolished. They are anti-sustainability.

Building Codes Building codes presently mandate unsustainable construction practices while not requiring important sustainability strategies like rainwater harvesting, passive solar heating, and sufficient insulation. Building codes need revision so that they focus entirely on safety and energy efficiency. Anything else, such as industry-driven standards that increase costs without having anything to do with safety and energy efficiency.

Transportation Local transportation policies are auto-centric and give little thought to the long term consequences of automobile dependence, nor the dependence of urban areas on long supply chains for fuel. Transit systems rarely receive sufficient funding.

Education Education is a local responsibility, yet whole systems thinking/permaculture education is not to be found in most local school systems. Many urban school systems are nightmares, where the most important goal is social control, and education comes in a distant second on the priority list. The political elite's goal of producing obedient worker drones for the warfare/welfare state via a school system rooted in bureaucracy and coercion is not compatible with a more sustainable society.

Rent-Seeking Special interests are well-practiced in the art of looting the public treasury for their own selfish gain. This distorts the local economic systems and robs the poor, working, and middle classes in order to benefit the lazy and corrupt rich.

Class Warfare. Class warfare is a reality in the modern cities. Those with power use it to take resources from those who don’t have power. If you doubt the reality of this, consider how often governments use eminent domain to destroy neighborhoods of the poor, take their properties, and convert them to the uses of the non-poor. Meanwhile, the lower income property owners receive cheap, non-market, politicized prices while those with access to political power can buy the properties cheaply from the government. The continued non-market destruction of the housing of the poor drives rents up above where the market would set them. Less low income housing means higher rents for low income housing. This is not a market process. It is politics at work. This kind of activity is under the control of local government and one of the goals of permaculture must be to end this ruthless war on the neighborhoods of the poor and the working class.

Subsidizing unsustainable development. In most cities, tax revenues from older areas subsidize development in newer suburban areas. One of the solutions to this problem is to force all suburban development to pay its own costs and to stop bleeding city revenues to expand suburbs.

Two invisible structure projects to start with in urban areas

Provide Information and Demonstration Projects. Many people want to live more sustainable lives and incorporate these concepts into their work. They don’t know where to go for information. One of the most important and productive local efforts is to provide accurate information on sustainability best practices. Demonstration sites/pilot projects that show these concepts at work are useful.

Develop urban and peri-urban agriculture. Eighty percent of the fresh vegetables that feed Hanoi come from small-farm agriculture close to the city. Urban fish farms produce half the fish consumed in the city. Half of the pork and poultry, 90% of the eggs and milk, and 60% of the vegetables that feed Shanghai come from within the city or it’s immediate foodshed.

In Caracas, Venezuela, people have created 4,000 miniature gardens of one square meter each. Each of those gardens can produce 330 heads of lettuce, 40 pounds of tomatoes, or 35 pounds of cabbage, per year. Singapore has 10,000 urban farmers who produce a quarter of the vegetables and 80% of the poultry eaten there. Havana produces half of the vegetables its residents eat.

In some urban areas of the United States, cities outlaw agricultural operations. Some municipalities persecute gardeners for growing vegetables in front yards. Many cities forbid keeping chickens, goats, and other small livestock. These nanny state structures of dependence and stagnation need to be replaced with structures of fertility and growth.

Principles useful for invisible structure work.

I know you want a checklist of organizations that need to be jump-started as soon as possible. Without prolonged and thoughtful observation of your local situation, I can’t give you that. I can give you some seeds for your contemplation that can perhaps show you something of where your design efforts can be fruitfully invested.

Focus on the journey. Goals are fine. After we develop them, we have find a way to achieve our goals. The way we do that is important. In fact, the methods of our journey will determine our eventual destinations, whatever our goals might be. So never let the end justify the means.

Patterns deliver what the patterns deliver. A bad pattern gives us a bad end. If we want a good end, we need a good pattern. Stick with the good patterns. The experiences of the journey help us develop the journey. It’s a constant repetitive system of trial and error, spiraling and looping our way toward resilience and sustainability.

As much as possible we observe nature and use the successful natural patterns to create our urban structures and systems. Small and slow is better than fast and big. Don’t reinvent any wheels or flat tires. Look for free or low-cost energy. Cooperate. Use natural materials, systems, processes. Cross-pollinate. Plan for diversity. Grow from the ground up. When challenged, adapt and evolve. Look for and support symbiosis. Improve your local ecology. Waste nothing.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Only be afraid of not learning from mistakes, or not being willing to admit mistakes, or being so afraid of making a mistake that you never do anything.

Spontaneous order and self-organization are good. You don’t need anyone to give you authority to grow systems of resilience and sustainability. If you want a certificate authorizing you to grow systems of resilience and sustainability, you can download one at http://www.ipermie.net/. Did that help? Probably not. You are all the authority you need. Use and invest it wisely and with prudence. Add a dash of daring too so that you get that cayenne-effect.

Look for organic grassroots growth. You may have to start something brand new. Or, you can grow from existing forms/structures/systems. Anything that will be useful will grow from the ground up. It will not be imposed from the top down. You might as well just forget about the temptation to get the government to do something about these problems in the beginning. This isn’t an endorsement of radical libertarianism, it is an understanding that the government won’t do much that is useful until there is a groundswell of demand from people who already participate in systems and structures of sustainability and resilience. The government is always led by the people, even though our politicians like to pretend otherwise. There is a reason why they spend so much money on opinion polls — they have to find out what their political platform should be. Furthermore, we have to beware of the temptation to become eco-stalinists. Coercion is the pattern of the State. It isn’t nature’s way. Patterns produce what they produce. They don’t produce what they don’t produce. Coercion will produce results typical of the State. If we don’t want those results, we need different patterns.

All are welcome to this process, even those who don’t believe in it. Everyone in the community is in the community (!!!) and thus inevitably will impact what happens. So just be aware of this from the beginning and plan for it. When you notice that everyone that resides “here” is part of the community “here” and has an opinion about what happens (!!!), you won’t be shocked or surprised. Feedback is always necessary. It is always a triumph for grassroots organizing when we realize that feedback is in fact feedback. Urban areas incorporate large populations of diverse races, cultures, and belief systems. This creates major boundary areas with all kinds of edge effects. Therefore, expect lots of feedback in urban areas. Adapt your designs accordingly and look for more feedback. As the shampoo label says, Wash, Rinse, Repeat. (But don’t actually use commercial shampoo, as we will see later in our journey.)

No one is in charge. Yes, I know, you have a mayor and city council and then there's the governor and state legislature and the president and congress. People are “in charge” everywhere. So what? When it comes to designing for resilience and sustainability, no one is in charge. This is a leaderless resistance movement. Everyone can be involved and feedback is necessary and useful. It’s an orchestra and choral ensemble that work together without needing a conductor. You say, “how can this happen?” It happens every day in your friendly local forest or expanse of prairie. You may not make it to that level of resilience and sustainability in your neighborhood and metropolitan area for years. I can promise that it will be a fun and exciting journey.

Essential urban sustainability systems

I still hear you asking for specific examples, a checklist of necessary organizations, and I will not satisfy your curiosity. I can’t. I am not that smart. I am only a red neck from the Red River Valley of Oklahoma, with an attitude, a permaculture education, and an internet connection. You can empower yourself and your friends though to find these answers for your own situations. But if you insist. . . I can and will give you a summary of the kinds of answers that you need —

1. You need resilient systems that provide food and water for your city. This must start with finding a resilient system that provides food and water for you and your household. It can grow from there. In Oklahoma City, we started the Oklahoma Food Cooperative to make it easy for people in cities to buy food directly from farmers. We said, “If we want a more sustainable, just, humane, and resilient system of agriculture, there must be a market for the products of a more sustainable, just, humane, and resilient system of agriculture.” That means that people must be willing to put their money on the line to plant the seeds and cultivate the crops and harvest the food that feeds the city.
2. Your city needs a built environment and operating systems that are frugal in their needs for energy and resource inputs. This starts with your own individual dwelling, whether it be a house, an apartment, or a tent by the river. As you do the work to make your own dwelling more sustainable, you learn something about what needs to happen for the entire area.
3. You need systems that provide the energy and other resource inputs necessary to operate your city. As with points one and two, this begins with you.
4. You need transportation and communications systems that move people, freight, and information via methods that are energy conservative and frugal of materials.
5. You need systems that manage the cycling of waste materials including humanure. As it was with one through three, so it is with four. By the way you live your life, you gain understanding as to what is needed.
6. You need invisible structures that support providing these essential functions in ways that are more sustainable than is presently the case.

As you do the work for yourself and your household, ask — what would make it easier for me to do this? What organizations, businesses, or structures do you need to help you do the practical work that is necessary for my household to live more sustainably?

Thus, this problem-solving process begins in your own life and household as you learn to minimize your use of resources and energy and find local sources of food. As you develop your own household’s systems and skills, you can grow outwards and upwards from there. There’s nothing that says that a city must be a cesspool of waste and corruption. A city can be bright and exciting, a place of justice, sustainability, and resilience. It’s all in the design and the operations.

If you don’t do the work for yourself, though, in your individual household, whatever that looks like, you won’t know what your area needs to support others making the transition from waste to sustainability. If you don’t know what your area needs, you may make mistakes in your invisible structure work and that isn’t good.

Lessons from Iraq, Somalia, Argentina, and Russia

Permaculture thinker and polymath Vinay Gupta of the UK developed some interesting thoughts about what happens in urban areas when there are great challenges. He compares Iraq and Somalia with Argentina and Russia.

When the governments and economies of Argentina and Russia collapsed, localized systems were resilient enough that water continued to flow, the grids supplied energy, food came into town from the countryside and an amazing amount of food was produced in the cities.

In Iraq and Somalia, however, when their national governments disintegrated, their localized systems were so challenged they collapsed too. The populations remain in a steady-state of low-intensity revolt and warfare because things continually go from bad to worse and back again, with few long-lasting improvements making it to the neighborhoods of ordinary people.

Argentina and Russia had much better outcomes than Iraq and Somalia because they were better organized at the local level.

We start at the beginning.

If you don’t know where to start, look at your whole situation problem with thoughtful observation and find some aspect of the situation that you do understand. Look for something right there on your own doorstep.

Work on that.

Then, look at the situation again. Reflect on what has just happening. Praxis! In light of what you have just done, is there something else that looks understandable and doable?

So work on that. Reflect again. Praxis!

This is how we can save ourselves going forward into the major challenges of peak energy, climate instability, political criminality, and economic irrationality.

The government will not save us until we become the government. If you doubt this, watch the news and read the daily newspaper for a week.

If any saving is to be done, we will do it ourselves.

We begin with our own efforts, in our own households.

The movement towards change continues as we constantly develop ideological resistance to the system. We offer people demonstration projects and best practices. We publicize truth as an antidote to political and economic lies.

We raise the ante with a movement towards peaceful civil disobedience rooted in the way we live our lives.

We create alternative structures in the midst of the collapsing ruins of the old, such as Precinct Community Assemblies that function in our urban areas like a New England town meeting. We network and develop political support for systemic change.

At some point, we reach a critical mass. Then it is out with the old politics of greed, and in with the new politics of sustainability, and we make sure we do a better job this time around.

If we don’t do it, our cities will collapse and die and that will be a great human and ecological tragedy.

Any way you look at it, absent the broadscale implementation of the ethics and design processes of permaculture, we are up a free flowing stream of human excrement without a means of locomotion while the uncomposted feces rapidly approach the ventilation devices.