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

One Saturday last March, some friends and I sat around my kitchen table in the dark drinking beer, eating apple crumble and playing cards by candlelight. We hadn’t blown a fuse. The unplugged evening was in honour of Earth Hour, an annual occasion described by the World Wildlife Fund as a “symbolic event”:

Turning off our lights for an hour won’t stop climate change but it does demonstrate that our individual action is important and adds up to make a big difference. More importantly, it sends a very powerful message to government and world leaders that people want policies and regulations put in place that can achieve meaningful emission reduction to help fight climate change.

My personal experience of unplugging for Earth hour was enlightening (sorry) in a few ways.

The first few … Continue Reading