From this well-written article, a breath of fresh air:
" There is new movement to plan suburban communities around farms
instead of golf courses. Can it catch on?
It has often been observed that suburbia is a place where the developer
displaces animals and rips out trees, and then names the streets after
them.
Whether you see that as destruction or reinvention, the tendency is
nothing new. All of America was built on this sort of land
transformation, some of it smart, much of it not. But the devastation
wrought from decades of intervention by heavy equipment has manifested
itself in a range of ills from economic collapse to loss of
biodiversity. So today we’re faced with a strange scenario: Our
relentless pursuit of the American Dream now has us scrambling for a
return to Eden.
“We’re at a watershed in terms of reaching the limits of sustainability
both environmentally [and in] time and expense,” says June Williamson,
coauthor with Ellen Dunham-Jones of Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design
Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. “There are many dynamics pushing and
encouraging a rethinking of our development patterns. The opportunity is
there to reshape those settings in a way that will reflect changing
demographics, recognize climate change, and acknowledge the need for new
suburban development patterns.”"
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This is movement in the right direction. I'll bet these folks are not
unaware of permaculture and what it can offer to help effect the changes
they seek. What an article!