permaculture

[Mark <mpludwig@facstaff.wisc.edu>]

At 07:28 PM 9/1/02 -0700, you wrote:
> Hey.
> Just read Natural Capitalism. Isn't it ironic that we have all these labor
> saving devices, and now everyone is obese, and may people go to the gym to
> excerise while they tread on a machine with no other purpose then to idly
> sit there. Is that effecient?
>
> Could it be possible to design essentially an agrarian suburb? The cities
> need food (although rooftops can help, they probably need more). Give each
> home 1 or 2 acres of land, have some communal waterfront ponds with fish,
> let the kids go fishing out their back door, grow fruit trees along the
> paths, garden it...and allow folks to make a bit of a living on the food
> they harvest/produce. Wouldn't even dad's and sons and "nuclear" families
> love the idea of going and fishing, and living in "nature" (as we've seen
> to0 many folks are trying to live in fire prone food areas). Thats the kind
> of development I wouldn't mind, making a diverse community without the
> effects of polution, etc.

I actually gave this a try.  I proposed forming a non profit housing 
development on a parcel with a 100,000 sq foot school building and 120a (60 
h).  Got a little press and the response was almost nothing.  I think Its 
still a hard sell unfortunately.  I'd like to give it a try on a smaller scale.

>  Give folks bikes to give around the community
> (have a store, and most needs local). Don't make it disconnected from the
> urban areas, maybe a few folks drive a van to sell produce at markets.
> Reduce vehicles per capita to .3 or less, but divide the money to easily pay
> the higher (starting) cost of a Hypercar/vehicle.

I think the real key is getting the bilk paths/lanes in place and 
developing other good quality mass transit.  Peoples decisions to do right 
flows naturally from the opportunity to do so IF it's not to much hassle.

> One potental of the wiki's is to add a definition like
> "Idea-AgrarianSuburb?" to which the above paragraph could be added. Maybe
> other folks have insights into other aspects of the idea, and it could
> evolve into a more full bodied concept.
>
> Cheers,
> BK

This is certainly a good idea, I'm sure regionally appropriate example 
designs would be pretty easy to put together.  Heck, they probably exist in 
the computers attached to this list....
M

> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture

Mark P. Ludwig
Poultry Research Lab
University of Wisconsin -Madison
608-262-1730 WK
608-846-7125 HM