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Ok. This happened really fast. It’s amazing when you have something waiting to come out of you how easy it is. I am putting this up here in its raw form. I only skimmed through it to look for typos and it will be edited many times before making it into the book but I want to get your take on it. There were many kind comments on the post where I talked about this project and I thank you for those. I really appreciate all the support. Now comes the work. (if you are up for it) Let me know what you think of the first chapter.  And please do me a favor and don’t go easy on me - rip it apart. The more you tell me about the problems the better the final product will be.

Book Title (to be determined)

How people fed up with the myth of the suburban dream are finding true community in the heart of the city

By Levi Benkert

Chapter 1

You may argue that you live in an age where true tragedy is scarce and the place you live represents peace, harmony and a largely successful pursuit of happiness. You may feel that in a country such as ours (America) which has largely eradicated racial segregation and successfully built a large middle class our battles are few and even worse only personal. You may even feel as so many do that the fate of each individual rests squarely in his own hands, and that poverty in this place is a choice and not a chance. You may feel that we live in a time and place which is beyond the injustice that people like Dr Martin Luther or Gandhi fought to hard to defeat and that the injustice that these and so many others fought was destroyed and today we enjoy a time with so many battles won behind us that we can look forward to very little turmoil ahead.

But I see things a different way. I see another kind of injustice that exists that very well may be the worst kind. I see instead of blatant abuse or corruption, massive complacency and cancerous self absorption. I see a society of people who not only have bought the lie but feel that they purchased something they want and are willing to defend.  People who have come to believe that the Suburban American dream of a two car garage in a cul-de-sac surrounded by thousands of homes just the same miles from work and anything other than homes and the occasional park is worth fighting for.

Listening to NPR recently I heard a congressman talking about a bill he is supporting to help lower overall vehicle miles traveled and he was inundated with caller after caller who simply wanted to remind him that we live in a car culture and the beast is simply unbeatable. It was as thought they felt threatened by the mere talk of an alternative and felt compelled to remind us that we are so stuck in our ways that things will never be better.

We have come to worship our cars, their use not only encouraged but practically mandated by the places we build. Dead ends and confusing meandering streets all feeding to large collector roads with tiny sidewalks off of them that when walked give the feeling of insecurity or exposure as cars race past at the prescribed 50 miles per hour. We have fully bought the lie that personal space is more important than the community of people we live with. More accurately we feel that we live alone and the neighborhood is merely a outside world to our private oasis. We refuse to understand anything other than the dream to own a bigger home with a bigger yard. It doesn’t matter how many kids you have or even if you have any at all big homes, yards and all their trappings are mandatory for our self image. Its as though we believe this is how people were meant to live or have always lived. We add more than a million more of practically the same home in practically the same neighborhood every year in the belief that we have figured out the best way and we only need to slightly differ the facade and floor plan and eventually everyone will live the perfect American dream.

What we leave out of this picture is the truth about what these lifestyles are and what they do to us as people. We fail to see that by driving hours each week we are taking away from time that could other wise been spent in any multitude of better ways. We forget that the 3400 sq ft home we occupy instead only takes more time to clean and more energy is spent heating and cooling it. We don’t do the math and see that the big yard we wanted only gets used 2-3% of the time leaving it walled in and vacant the other 97%. We close our eyes to the fact that lawns make up the single largest harvested crop in this country only to be dumped in the street and later picked up by a diesel truck so it can be hauled 100 miles to the dump where it can decompose far from view.

We somehow have come to believe that quiet almost vacant streets lined with homes resting on quarter acre plots represent the pinnacle of what we strive for. We ignore that those homes are not designed to foster community but instead nurture our sense of self and personal space. We drive into our garages closing the door behind us and head straight for the TV. The neighborhood has been reduced from our community to our pathway into our personal space.

I am not saying that there are not good communities of people that exist in these environments there are many out there for sure what I am getting at is that these places are not built to encourage interaction and community. If one exists its despite its location not because of it.

The worst of all is that as the people outside our family become less and less a part of our lives and community becomes less understood as a necessary component of our lives we start to break down the sense of pride and belonging. We become more a part of American Idol’s community than the one we live in physically. What we loose is passion, we forget that there is anything worth fighting for, I think its a battle we lost a long time ago.

But there is a better way and there are many out there who are waking up to the sense of loneliness inside them and starting to dig for answers on how to do things better. There is a rising tide of people seeking out true community People are starting to see that there are other ways and that the suburban model is a failed experiment in community building and just because we can build cars and the roads to hold them does not mean we should. We did not find our way out of the stone age because we ran out of stones we finally realized there was a better way. And today I want to present what I believe is a better way. I believe that cities hold the answer and that we are at a time in history where we actually have a shot at getting it right this time around. I know that we often think of cities as dirty grubby places where those daring enough to brave the intensity choose to live, but it does not have to be that way. We are capable of building clean efficient urban spaces and populating the ones already built in such a way to build strong communities who foster the growth and development of future generations capable of making the world an even better place than it already is.

I call the revolution of people who are choosing to live small and do good Eco-Urbanists they chose a new way of life just as much in an effort to live life with a smaller footprint as to seek out stronger community and simpler life. There is a rising tide around the world, a movement underway. People standing up an saying that they are not going to contribute any longer to what ails the earth but instead become part of the solution. People who see what needs to be done and set a coarse to do it.

Eco-Urbanists growing ever larger and increasingly more aware of their power and influence are going to define our future and play a decisive role in the economy. They are influential culture definers, retooling the mindset of a nation and its not happening slowly. Like never before in history we are a connected world which is giving these game changers the stage to swiftly redefine our view of the world.

Weather you think of your self as an Eco-urbanist or are just interested in what they are doing its undeniable that the next 20 years hold a whole new way of life here on earth. As we grapple with the reality that oil is becoming scarce and the benefits we enjoyed of its cheap availability start to dissipate. A new reality is setting in and those that are going to define the way we view the world are already well on their way to recreating our sense of place.

You can either join in and make a difference your self or be left to defend a dying way of life. There are always those that resist change and understandably there are many who feel that their private oasis with all its comforts is worth defending. I say that we just need to redefine personal spaces and embrace that we are all in this together.

If you look back through history there were times when being overweight meant you were wealthy and did not have to work in the fields thus it was deemed attractive. Later we reversed and now its viewed as more attractive to be skinny because wealthy people are able to spend more time working out. There have always been different goals and aspirations society has defined for us and the ones that change quickly are the ones are simply unsustainable. Without cheap energy we will no longer be able justify the 80 mile per day lifestyle and in its place we have the opportunity to define true community. The community we all crave as humans but have deprived ourselves of in the name of personal space and image.

Worth fighting for? I think so. For too long we have fought for something we don’t need and ignored our desire for community and interaction. We live in a world with a limited amount of resources and choosing the suburban model to define what each of us is entitled to is unsustainable. If everyone on earth had even a modest version of our lifestyle it would take over 8 planets to maintain. Ouch….

I think its time for a revolution. Are you with me?