Developers are grooming our city council for more "big box stores". Several of us are speaking at City Council tonight. I hope to fit this into 3 minutes:
Dear city Council Members:
If you’ve seen the movie Avatar, Food Inc or the Japanese film Princess Mononoke you’ve seen the usual drama and story line of human greed vs. Nature. Human greed manifests through over-population, over-development, over-consumption, over-eating, over-drinking, over-drugging, etc. Greed creates imbalance and goes against Nature’s ecological flow of health and sustainability. Greed hurts the individual, the community, the human family and our home planet.
According to the Earth Policy Institute, there is abundant scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably. Returning to sustainable limits will require a major collective effort. Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from reorganising living conditions such as ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities; reappraising economic sectors through permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture; work practices such as sustainable architecture; using science to develop new technologies through green technologies and renewable energy; to adjustments in individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources.
Sustainable Cities or Eco Cities support long term health of human and natural systems. Our goals include returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit. We visualize a future in which waterways in neighborhood environments and prosperous downtown centers are opened for curious children, fish, frogs and dragonflies. We work to build thriving neighborhood centers while reversing sprawl development, to build whole cities based on human needs and “access by proximity” rather than cities built in the current pattern of automobile driven excess, wasteful consumption and the destruction of the biosphere.
A sustainable city or eco-city supports long term health of human and natural systems. It is estimated that around 50% of the world’s population now lives in cities and urban areas. These large unsustainable communities provide both challenges and opportunities for environmentally conscious developers. In order to make them more sustainable, building design and practice, as well as perception and lifestyle must adopt sustainability thinking.
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Big box stores are not diverse and are not productive over time. Big box stores give every city the same look. Is that not boring? Is that not an insult to our creativity, our imagination and our intelligence? Let’s not fall for the status quo…let’s make Woodinville unique with a charm of its own. Big box stores do not have charm. Apple Farm Village and Willows Lodge are examples of charm…green charm at that. Can we not use this model of “green charm” for our entire city and sustain this as a vibrant “design standard” in our zoning codes?
Dear city Council Members:
If you’ve seen the movie Avatar, Food Inc or the Japanese film Princess Mononoke you’ve seen the usual drama and story line of human greed vs. Nature. Human greed manifests through over-population, over-development, over-consumption, over-eating, over-drinking, over-drugging, etc. Greed creates imbalance and goes against Nature’s ecological flow of health and sustainability. Greed hurts the individual, the community, the human family and our home planet.
According to the Earth Policy Institute, there is abundant scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably. Returning to sustainable limits will require a major collective effort. Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from reorganising living conditions such as ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities; reappraising economic sectors through permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture; work practices such as sustainable architecture; using science to develop new technologies through green technologies and renewable energy; to adjustments in individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources.
Sustainable Cities or Eco Cities support long term health of human and natural systems. Our goals include returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit. We visualize a future in which waterways in neighborhood environments and prosperous downtown centers are opened for curious children, fish, frogs and dragonflies. We work to build thriving neighborhood centers while reversing sprawl development, to build whole cities based on human needs and “access by proximity” rather than cities built in the current pattern of automobile driven excess, wasteful consumption and the destruction of the biosphere.
A sustainable city or eco-city supports long term health of human and natural systems. It is estimated that around 50% of the world’s population now lives in cities and urban areas. These large unsustainable communities provide both challenges and opportunities for environmentally conscious developers. In order to make them more sustainable, building design and practice, as well as perception and lifestyle must adopt sustainability thinking.
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Big box stores are not diverse and are not productive over time. Big box stores give every city the same look. Is that not boring? Is that not an insult to our creativity, our imagination and our intelligence? Let’s not fall for the status quo…let’s make Woodinville unique with a charm of its own. Big box stores do not have charm. Apple Farm Village and Willows Lodge are examples of charm…green charm at that. Can we not use this model of “green charm” for our entire city and sustain this as a vibrant “design standard” in our zoning codes?
posted by Community Threads @ 3:58 PM
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