abba's way, pattern language, politics

Thinking in a binary either-or manner hobbles progress.

1055. Thinking in a binary either-or manner hobbles progress.

1055a. Choosing between experts and “the people” solves nothing.

1055b. A car free, integral way of living is a consensus waiting to be implemented.

1055c. Building car-free cyber-communities requires a pilot.

1055d. People need to see what it’s like to live car-free.

1055e. People need to experience lego-like construction that is modular.

1055f. We are talking about a social revolution when we talk car-free.

1055g. A car free future requires a visionary entrepreneur.

1055f. A car-free future requires attention to the ethics and aesthetics of existence.

1055g. Car-free is a future with a vital, local economy at its core.

More on Car Free

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pattern language, politics

Job Openings At Record Low: 50 Percent Fewer Than 2007

Read the article I’m commenting on at HuffingtonPost

UPDATE: I would normally receive a notification if Huff had published this comment. Didn’t get one.

The reason job openings are low is because the market is changing radically.

The jobs of the future have been largely beyond the radar of planners or are just coming into focus.

The jobs of the future will depend on the evolution of new concepts of settlement, zoning and service.

We are moving from an “institutional” society to a more community or neighborhood-oriented one. We are also moving to a more security-conscious one and one which will place a premium on safe and person-friendly environments. Scale is the key. Adequate density. Current metrosprawl densities are impossible economically.

It is the market itself that is making the continuation of an automotive, metrosprawl world less and less sustainable.

The change that is coming will happen as folk free up their mental and financial resources to rebuild our society physically, conceptually and with a more personal face.

https://stephencrose.wordpress.com/pattern-language/

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pattern language

A Future Worth Investing In — 1

I can see it but I cannot draw it. I will link to anyone who can create graphic representations of communities of the future.

A future worth investing in will involve US in the creation of every element, from the contents and packaging of products, to the creation and distribution of jobs (and pay for them) in a community.

A future worth investing in will create economies of scale in new and redesigned settlements with populations between 5-10K. These can be neighborhoods in existing cities. They can be reordered elements of suburbia. They can be inventive new settlements in and beyond existing metropolitan areas.

A future worth investing in will decide at the outset to begin phasing out the private automobile as the default method of moving about. Ideally, new settlements and reclaimed ones will be limited to walkers and riders of bikes and other conveyances to be developed — creating new jobs and markets. Communities will be linked by light rail and other conveyances to be developed or adapted.

A future worth investing in will challenge 100 years of zoning that has served the interests of the automobile economy, elongating distances, vitiating density and separating essential elements of life and wreaking havoc with essential scales.

Here are a few of the businesses and services that should be within walking distance of the dwellings of a pattern language sort of human settlement:

preventive health nodes,

cybernodes,

indoor and outdoor food kiosks and sitting areas,

educational nodes for all ages.

entertainment nodes,

fitness nodes.

And so forth.

Residences should afford privacy, be noise free, be secure against theft and invasions of privacy. In general, they should be connected with common spaces in the form of walk esplanades, small parks, playgrounds, indoor and outdoor cafes, etc. Plus, close by, the nodes above and others, scaled to market analysis. For example a health node to serve 500 persons. Etc.

A future worth investing in will streamline and advance prefabrication until a choice of pre-built spaces — that have quality and inventiveness — are readily available and integrated with systems for their modular placement and replacement in existing and new communities.

Continuing…

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pattern language, politics

The Stimulus We Really Need

More money? No.

What we most need is a stimulus to get off the dime. Then the money will flow as it is not flowing now.

The President has hinted here and there.

We need a green economy with green jobs that will be the economy of this century, not the last.

We need to do away with the effects of metrosprawll and move beyond the tyranny of oil.

Yes, yes, yes.

But none of this has mobilized the entrepreneurial and business side. It sits like a lump, not for a general lack but for a lack of specifics. Specifics. Repeat specifics.

Here are some specifics of the stimulus we really need.

We need the president to say that the high speed internet grid is going to make geography irrelevant and enable people to put down roots anywhere they wish and still earn a living. This will create a massive recalibration and open the door to the creation of new human settlements. Modeled on pattern language principles.

We need a realistic notion of work at home, not the current proliferation of network marketing, MLM schemes.

We need to develop work at home that is tied to real businesses with roots and a record. We need to rethink delivery and transportation and find ways to combine the two in vehicles and modes of transport that are a step beyond what we have yet designed or invented. We need the president or fire up the business imagination with guidelines for what positive change will look like.

We need to know that communities in the future will have their schools within walking distance and small enough to enable one to one teaching with heavy use of cyber-means to let the best resources get to all children.

We need to do the same localization of health facilities so prevention can be more than a dream.

We need to say that we will begin to create licensed and competent professions spanning the whole area of care.

We need, in short, a vision that will excite businesses and alert them to where investments can be fruitfully made. A vision that exudes confidence about the future. We are suffering from metrosprawl sclerosis and planning myopia.

A good future will challenge, as the president had done, a consumer society not willing to end its health-sapping agriculture, its driving-intensive urban planning and its mindless zoning which separates vital functions of a human community.

We need, in short, a lesson in pattern language and its application to the outline of what we really need to make life genuinely better.

More on Pattern Language:

See the brief at https://stephencrose.wordpress.com/pattern-language/ and then read in sequence:

Part OnePart TwoPart ThreePart Four,, Part FivePart SixPart SevenPart EightPart NinePart TenPart ElevenPart TwelvePart ThirteenPart Fourteen

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Uncategorized

Future of Newspapers: Interactive Map

Interactive Map of Debate on Future of Newspapers

http://bit.ly/14e1bq

The map at the link above is most helpful to the serious inquirer into the future of newspapers. It flags all the elements of the debate and creates an idea of its complexiy. The irony is that if a new Bill Gates could come up with a solution he or she would reap a Bill Gates reward. My own solution involves a monthly fee to isps for Web content paid for in terms of popularity and page rank.

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