IMAGINING 2080
But I start with it because we live in a time bereft of such stories – stories of what life could look like if we were able to find a way over the course of the next twenty years to be bold, brilliant and decisive, to act in proportion to the challenges we are facing and to aim for a future we actually feel good about.
Rob Hopkins • From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want
It feels nearly impossible to imagine what that might look like, but what we shouldn’t do is feel paralysed by FOBO (fear of better options). An emphasis on the local, on smaller, walkable neighbourhoods and more central job and amenity centres is a good place to start. It’s not just tiny villages that can reap the benefits of this spatial reconsid... See more
Medium • There Are No Cars in Wakanda
A fleet of 200 mpg, roomy, clean, safe, recyclable, renewably fueled cars might keep drivers from running out of oil, climate, or clean air, but they’d instead run out of roads, land, and patience—the new constraints du jour.
Paul Hawken • Natural Capitalism
Since the year 2007, more than half of humanity has lived in cities (more than 80 percent in all affluent countries), and unlike in the industrializing cities of the 19th and early 20th centuries, jobs in modern urban areas are largely in services. Most modern urbanites are thus disconnected not only from the ways we produce our food but also from
... See moreVaclav Smil • How the World Really Works
Neuropolis: Our relationship with cities from Mumbai to Manhattan. As our cities change, they inspire a change in us: "A new generation of explorers, cyclists and psychogeographers are remapping urban landscapes through non-places. In this expanding urban maze, waymarks — as ever — are key to community cohesion ." Cities are described as "an immens... See more
Weidenfeld & Nicolson • You Are Here: A Brief Guide to the World
Planet City is built entirely from sustainable technologies that are already here, but that just lack the cultural investment or political will to implement them at scale.