Hey yall,
This wasn't my expected first post, but it kicked something loose. In sifting through the digital flotsam on my bookmark lists, I rediscovered the work of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment in England. Particularly, the response to the publication of the standing government's Localism Bill was interesting.
I am amazed at the lack of institutional attention that the challenge of building/retrofitting an appropriate built environment for ecological cities has gotten thus far. Its there, but its in the experimenting at the margins stage in the US, it seems.
As I say this, I am reminded that I should preface my comments with this. I'm an industrial ecologist by training. This means I know the science of many dire things. The science about impending materials and energy constraints is not a part of the built environment debate at all. As a consequence, the needs of the built environment to adapt and become a bulwark of resilience against ecological and social shocks is not yet happening. The known and circulating science of ecological change is a part of the debate. The social value of better/more cost effective housing has been a part of the debate for a long time. But without the other constraints as a part of the conversation, the true social import of transforming our built environment isn't quite materialized as yet. So, when I say we aren't really dealing with this yet, I mean we don't yet really grasp what our building are going to have to deal with in the next 30 years.
Also, I don't usually find diagrams of the balance required of sustainability either particularly balanced, or rich enough in breadth of understanding to be useful. I kinda like this one.
Their joural of urbanism might be somewhere that might writings find publishability. I doubt it'll be in APA Journal, that's for sure.
