Comments rberr has made

  • idea: a wiki on eating locally grown food

    Let's build on the momentum generated by these great books by creating an Eat Local Wiki, where we all research and document who is doing what to promote local food in our towns, and on our campuses. Is your school doing enough to serve locally grown food? If so, add it to the eat local wiki and tell everyone how the school does it. If not, write about that too. Do you know of restaurants that strive to serve locally grown food...list 'em! Is there a pod of "localvores" near you -- people who have challenged themselves to eat only locally grown food for a week, a month, three months, etc! List 'em!  I've got the very beginning of the wiki going at WikiForGood.org.

    Rob
    On A cornucopia of new books tells us where our food comes from posted 3 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses

  • public transit to community farms

    Patrick,

    I contacted the Ecovillage at Ithaca (population of about 90 people) to ask about public transit and here is their response:

    "We are two miles from town and there is local bus service. It does not run as often as we might like but it does exist."

    So, for a small city like Ithaca, NY, it is possible to have a community farm served by public transport.

    Rob

    P.S. In my earlier post I said that all of Cobb Hill is owned in common. This is not accurate. The land is owned in common, as is the common house for group meals etc., but the individual units are owned by the individual families. (Also, the land has a conservation easement type thing on it.)On An interview with smart-growth expert and author Anthony Flint posted 3 years, 4 months ago 9 Responses

  • public transit and community farms: tough question

    Patrick,

    I don't have a good answer for you on density needed to get public transit to community-owned farms/eco villages. But how about bringing the jobs to the communities? At Cobb Hill I believe we have 8.5 households who work on site and 3.5 households with retirees. With 23 households total, more than half the community household heads don't commute to work. The kids who go to public school carpool with a teacher in a minivan and the balance are home-schooled. If the non-profit located here (called the Sustainability Institute) grew, we could have more households working on-site. The Ecovillage at Ithica has a bunch of on-site businesses and non-profits. Telecommuting is bound to grow.

    Even so, your question is very important, and someone should think it through. In the novel Ecotopia they have "necklaces" of small villages served by light rail. Maybe there could be light rail down the CT river valley and then we could bike or drive electric cars to the train. This whole region is pretty low density though, so making it work financially, given society's current priorities would be challenging for sure. And you're asking how many people would each village need to make public transit work, and I don't know the answer.

    Rob
    wikiforgood.org
    sustainableinvesting.net
    On An interview with smart-growth expert and author Anthony Flint posted 3 years, 4 months ago 9 Responses

  • developing the exurbs

    Anthony Flint says about the exurbs: "I'm not sure what to say about those places -- we've built enough of them, and we should probably knock it off about now."

    I used to experience a similar lack of ideas about what to do in the exurbs, and then I sublet a unit in a cohousing community called Cobb Hill on an organic farm, 20 minutes drive from Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College. They have 23 families living on 2 to 3 acres of a 275 acre property that includes an organic farm (on about 10 acres), pasture and sustainably managed forest. All of this is owned in common.

    I believe this kind of arrangement can simultaneously help to: save the family farm, create a much more sustainable farming system, with much better treatment for farm animals, offer a greener version of rural living, and build rich community in rural settings. Transportation to jobs "offsite" is a weak link in this system, from an energy use perspective, but there are a number of jobs onsight, and residents share rides when possible etc. In the long run, public transport could link "villages" like these, like they do in Europe, although those villages are larger, but you get the idea.

    Rob
    wikiforgood.org
    sustainableinvesting.netOn An interview with smart-growth expert and author Anthony Flint posted 3 years, 4 months ago 9 Responses