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We used to need each other, I mean really need each other, but today things are different we need our government but never actually have to interact with it. We need food but only have to nod a the cashier and we are out of there. We need money for all these things but can work from home. But you see things were not always this way. Once a long time ago we actually had to depend on our community for our daily needs.

It’s clear to see that the progress we have made as a society and the progress we are going to make is only going to make us more self sufficient. The more we innovate the more automated our lives become and the less we actually have to do for ourselves but there is something lost that is really sad.

In 1693 Jakob Ammann lived in Switzerland and was fed up with the encroachment of new technology on his life (I know what possibly could have been that invasive in 1693?) and decided to start what is today know as the Amish lifestyle or as the call themselves “Plain Folk.” [Read more →]

I am a big fan of renewable energy and today you have a chance to join me in sending a message that its important to all of us.

Just go here and sign your name. Because big changes need to start today.

Levi

On a sunny November in 2006 near the corner of Mission and 1st st in San Francisco someone fed a typical parking meeter. It was the coin drop that would be heard around the world. You see the coin was not meant to park a car but instead a park. REBAR a creative landscape design group had the idea to get people thinking about parking spaces and their wastefulness. “What if we parked a park in one of those spaces instead?” And the idea was born. In only 2 years the concept was replicated in over 200 cities around the globe. Park(ing) day is just another way that communities are forming with the help of the Internet. Just try and organize something so large scale in 1990. You could not do it with a 20 million dollar budget, but today with something as simple as a website and a PDF how-to manual, a good idea can grow around the world. Whats better is the concept is bringing people together and getting them to think differently.

Makes me wonder what other spaces can be rethought if only for a few hours to help bring communities together.

There has been so much focus on how the internet is making the world “flat” and connecting us to eachother no matter the distance but in reality I think that the most impact the internet has and will start to have even more in our lives is locally.

If are lucky enough to be one of the 15,000 people who live in Bourne England you are sure to know about the site that Rex Needle put together simply called Bourne. Not only does it give a detailed account on the daily coming and goings in the town it has a little about hundreds of residents. Sites like this are evolving and in my opinion will soon play a much more major role in the way a town works. Just like a newspaper kept us all in the loop for the last 100 years a website has the ability to connect us but on a much more real level. When information flows both directions we have a real chance to get stuff done.

If you happen to work in a few blocks in Downtown Seattle you have most likely heard of MSG150 a site run by a few guys who work in the area that started reviewing each and every restaurant in a 6 block radius of their job. Soon the group grew and each review has an opinion of every item on the menu of every restaurant they visit. The site is just one more step in the evolution of a hyper-local Internet. Just imagine what it will be like in the next 10 years.

Jessie posted an interesting question on her blog that I have been thinking a lot about today.

I have stolen the post and and am posting it here.  -Shhh-

I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about how people are not spending as much and it was a bad thing. I could not help but feel very differently about it. Is it really such a bad thing? I understand that it effects peoples jobs and I am sorry for that but is there a way that we can spend less and it be ok? I think that if this Christmas people decided to make more presents that would be a good thing. Or to give to an organization to help the hungry in someone’s name instead. Can this really be all bad? Have we gotten ourselves into a place where we have to spend, spend, spend for everything to be alright or is there a way to adjust? These are the questions running around my head today. What do you think?

I do love this time of year.

Once you climb four flights of stairs in a nondescript warehouse on 2nd street in San Francisco you are likely to get lost looking for the door to Citizen Space. There is a small sign on the door and it’s easy to miss. But once inside you can see that the concept is anything but under the radar. Lined up in a row one after the other are ten Ikea desks and one large table in the back. If you want you can drop in and use a desk for free or if you want your own desk full time you can pay $350 for it. The concept originally started in 2006 by Tara Hunt and Chris Messina is to create a collaborative space where ideas flow not one direction but many and new people with new ideas are welcomed as a part of what makes the place special. The space was rented and started with a simple concept, it was time to create the perfect work environment. Coffee Shops were getting annoyed by the 5 hour table hogging and the living room is not all that good for getting the creativity flowing. So Citizen Space was born. Once the rules were in place they started talking Online about the concept and a few other people noticed. Then quite a few people noticed and today there are well over 200 Coworking sties all over the world. What did they do that had not been done before? They simply started with what kind of community and collaborative space they wanted in mind. They threw out the old landlord tenant model and decided that someone needed to define the space first for it to work well. They make idea sharing central to the theme and instead of getting a closed door-stuck in the mud environment they get to actually make things happen.

Thanks Dan for sending this post over today….Interesting stuff when you look close at the details.

The people of the USA consume an alarming quantity of resources. It’s really hard to get an idea of just how big the problem is. Artist Chris Jordan’s “Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait” does a pretty good job of conveying just how wasteful, among other things, we are as a society.

Its very early and I am not quite awake enough to tell the whole story about the hearing last night except to say that there was drama all around and despite the all odds we were approved 5-1.

I promise to sit down and write the story for you as soon as I get my stomach back where it belongs.

Thanks for all the input on my presentation, I was very confident knowing that it was edited by such capable people.

Levi

It’s one of those things that cities don’t think is really “normal” so they often resist and rarely  if ever think up on their own. So that means you might have to fight for this one.

I believe every neighborhood needs a community garden and there is a good chance if you want one that you will have to be the person that puts it there.
They don’t have to be big or even all that elaborate. There does not need to be an automatic watering system or even grand tool storage systems. In fact you may be better of without them. You see gardens serve a very different role in our communities than parks or civic spaces. Gardens bring us together and make us work side by side, they tear down the social walls that we normally put around ourselves in public spaces and breathe life into community.

But not all garden communities need to have gardens. In New Orleans 7th ward you will find many vacant lots left after the devastation from hurricane Katrina. But there is one lot in particular that was vacant long before the rest of them, and although it’s only grass, it serves the same purpose for the community as a community garden would. The residents call it simply “The Corner”. Long ago it was a run down apartment building and its owner scraped it thinking one day she would build a community garden but instead the neighborhood took to it vacant and planted grass. They started to use it as a gathering space and it quickly evolved into the center of the neighborhood where people would meet and hang out, they would sit and watch the sun go down in the evenings together on the corner after work and if someone in the neighborhood needed help they would get up and do what needed to be done. You see the concept of a garden is not about the vegetables or even about the aesthetics its about the people. A community garden with no community is nothing at all, but a vacant lot with a community can become the lifeblood and soul of the people living nearby.

Every neighborhood needs a corner or a community garden.

Are there any “Corners” in your neighborhood?