Planning Pool

Unique among planning literature reviewed so far in the Planning Pool, World Made by Hand is a fictional novel. Its author, James Howard Kunstler is best known for his non-fiction books like The Geography of Nowhere. Here he describes the workings of fragmented social groups deep in the “long emergency“, in and around the small town of Union Grove, New York. 

“Small is beautiful” is one of the many planning lessons that Kunstler has woven into his story. Despite enduring hardships, Union Grove proves more resilient than larger cities like Albany, which has degenerated into a lawless dystopia. Likewise, only human-scale and efficient infrastructure like the town’s early twentieth century gravity-powered water system can be maintained with the limited resources of post-oil, post-globalism America.

A second planning lesson … Continue Reading

Mobility Network from winning team

A team from MIT just won the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, a competition that awards a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

The team devised a Mobility-on-demand system that works a lot like bike sharing programs that we have covered extensively, but has a greater variety of vehicles. The system has racks of super lightweight and compact electric bikes, scooters, and cars at closely spaced, convenient locations around an urban service area. The vehicles automatically recharge while they are in these racks.

To use, people walk to the nearest rack, swipe a credit card, pick up a vehicle, drive it to a … Continue Reading

Dr. Wendy Sarkissian is offering a two-day workshop in Vancouver, British Columbia, focusing on community engagement in sustainable planning projects. She will be asking what’s wrong with our approaches to community engagement with sustainability, and how can we transform them? For more information, see http://kitchentablesustainability.com.