Urban Futures Group
Beyond Kyoto, Kyoto Cubed.
Pattern of Community:
How we approach urban settlement and development has had the biggest impact on the eco-system. By allowing what has occured in the last 50 year in the "West", has created most of the damage to the environment, directly or indiretly.
If we start now to correct the patterns we may be able to reverse at least the most harmful portion of our way of life. The longer we wait, the more likely Nature will do it for us. This means changing our lifestyle, densities, tranportation, but more importantly, our expectations and demands; the patterns of our community. It means accepting things which up to now we would not consider. In a short form, the pattern of community is a way of addressing where we go from here, but mostly to rethink almost everything we do in our lives. Our children are not likely to live as we do now. How do we help to leave the best options open for them. We must go beyond Kyoto targets, those are only a short-hand explanation of where to begin. To make survival choices, we cannot be just realists, we have to change reality. This in itself for a society that views itself as stable, is revolutionary.
Unfortunately, we have the choice of revolution or disaster, but no choice of standing still.
Kyoto 3:
All the current little things we talk of doing to make Kyoto or other crisis management work is nothing compared to what we can and need to do in our pattern of community. This notion of pattern includes time and space; people, real estate, territory, density, transportation, lifestyle, the energy related to the pattern. In shorthand, alter the pattern and much of what follows changes too. But the greatest change of all needed to do this is to change the attitude, to conserve before the crisis, not after.
The greatest change we can make, that we have to make is in our pattern of community. For the last 100 years we have allowed cheap energy to radically alter how humans live in urban areas, and in North America, a huge inventory of buildings and transportation systems have been built which in the long range human history, is really only workable for at most the 200 years of high consumption of cheap fossil fuels. Then we have a community structure that is left unworkable. The changes to re-adapt have to take place before the crisis is at it’s worst. We plan ahead to re-adapt or will suffer the pains of a revolution in economics, lifestyle and likely worse. We have allowed the idea of greater good to be defined by people with money but not much foresight and have called this the wonder fo the market economy. Such thinking likes to be used to say the market will also adapt to new conditions, but this is not likely, nor without pain when so much has been invested in what is a short term thrill but useless for our children and grandchildren, they are inheriting a mess. It would only be responsible to try and clean up at least some if it before we take leave.
When we are looking for a nutshell comment on how vital re-planning of our metro area is, it is in the statement;
"the pattern of community is in need of radical re-planning. This does not refer to adding new elements, but rethinking and redoing much of what we have already to make it work properly . For surival."
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• Current Futurist Projects and Visions by Allied Groups.
For links or additions to this site: Contact: balfourarch@telus.net
Transportation Visions and Alternatives
B.C works..
• The Non Watershed/Upper Levels Whistler Route.
• Commuter Rail for all the Fraser Valley
• South Vancouver Rail Transit Lines
• The Delta Fraser Superport
• B.C.: New Towns and Hillsides; work in progress/ mountain slope living.
