Sustainable Small Cities | Documentaries | Consumerism | Peak Oil

The Initiative for Sustainable Small Cities

Permanently increasing oil prices and, at some point, the inability to obtain fossil fuels at any price will make much of our urban landscape more or less untenable. Politics and the economy will become more locally-organized, and some localities will adapt better than others. Since peak oil has to do with the amount of energy available to run virtually every system important to civilization, every sector of local society, economy, and culture will be affected in one way or another.

For the Future is located in a potentially viable small city, Santa Barbara. We are reaching out to organize discussions with police and fire departments, planning boards, local government, the Chamber of Commerce, and various other organizations. Our purpose is A) to communicate the reality of the implications of peak oil; and B) to explore alternative local forms of transportation, fuel and food production, housing, and employment.  Our emphasis is on “new urbanism,” featuring denser development and multiuse zoning, rehabilitation of existing older neighborhoods, encouragement of locally-owned businesses and farms, expansion of public transportation, and other adaptive choices that can make a relatively pleasant and prosperous way of life possible even in the absence of cheap energy.

This project will be documented in real time on the internet and can serve as a template for other towns and small cities wanting to find creative ways of adapting to challenging changing conditions.

Click for article: Building Neighborhood Foodsheds: Nurturing the Noshosphere
Click for event: Earth Charter Summit
Click for article: The 9 Sectors of Sustainable Society
Click for report: The First Relocalizing Food Circle
Click for article: Food Pyramid for a Healthy Planet
Click for article: Building Neighborhood Foodsheds: Nurturing the Noshosphere

Click here for resources and references on "New Urbanism".

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