permaculture

["Eugene F. Monaco" <EFMonaco@compuserve.com>]

The Georgia Conservancy has an ongoing periodic seminar series aimed at
building awareness in the Atlanta area about urban, suburban, and ex-urban
growth issues, suburban sprawl, downtown redevelopment, and what to do
about it.

Lee Flier and I attended a program last Summer  which featured speaker
Chris Leinberger. Chris is a consultant and land use strategist, and is
knowledgable about these issues facing today's urban centers.  He
participated in the Chattanooga downtown redevelopment project, now 10
years old, which is considered very successful; contrast Knoxville.  His
ideas and approach are somewhat to the right of true hard core permaculture
eco-fascist anarchists; however, he manages to get an audience with city
planners, making his work successful on a level as well as influencial.

The next program is slated for May 12, 1998, 7:30 am - 11:30 am at
Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, 3180 Peachtree Road, Atlanta.  It
features Chris as a speaker as well as Myron Orfield who is also nationally
recognized in the area of metropolitan planning and policy-making.  
Registration fees are $35 up through May 4, $50 thereafter.  Contact the
Georgia Conservancy at 404-876-2900 x25 to register.

For those in the Atlanta area or the Southeast in general, it would be a
good idea to attend.  Some of us act like ecovillages can exist in a
vacuum; however, the reality is that they exist in relation to their
neighbors in suburbia, which is ever encroaching all areas.  If we don't
stop the cancerous growth of the urban centers it will eventually consume
us as well.  This is a good opportunity to mix with those that are as close
to the forefront of urban permaculture as we may have in these times.

Gene Monaco