Share-It Square: Creating Neighborhood Gathering Spaces (330)

Every year for the past two decades, the neighbors near Sherrett Street in southeast Portland repaint their colorful street intersection. Resident Mighk Simpson gives us a tour on painting day. On the sidewalk corners are spacious cob benches (with roofs), a children’s … [Read more...]

Best of Canada, volume 2

First Nations People Reclaiming Their Heritage, Pawa Haiyupis. Visit McCaskill Street — Forging Community through Resource Sharing, Meredith, Garcia-Meredith, Riddell, Parkhouse, Walsh Village Vancouver — How Can a Big City Become a Village? Moster, Pacey & … [Read more...]

Best of Canada, volume 1

An Urban Developer Goes for the Green, Joe Van Belleghem Claiming the Commons — Food for All on Haultain Boulevard, Rainey Hopewell & Margot Johnston Awakening the Village Heart and Mind, Brandy Gallagher An Eco-Sense House — Natural Building, Natural Living, Ann and … [Read more...]

Village Vancouver — How Can A Big City Become a Village? (302)

How do you empower an entire metropolis to transition towards more localized living in a post-petroleum era? Founder Ross Moster and board members Rand Chatterjee and Ann Pacey of Village Vancouver Transition Society view Vancouver (B.C.) as a network of neighborhood-sized … [Read more...]

How Can A Big City Become a Village?

How do you empower an entire metropolis to transition towards a post-fossil fuel era, towards more localized living? I think that's a pretty tall order (read: daunting task), but the folks in Vancouver, BC are undertaking the task with impressive results. Village … [Read more...]

An Urban Farmer’s Ultra-Local CSA – Just a Walk Away

If awards were given for Vancouver's most local CSA, urban farmer Gabriel Pliska would be right up there in the running. He grows veggies in 13 different residential yards all within a 2 km radius (just over a mile). His CSA customers are within walking distance of each … [Read more...]

Corporate Couple Become Permaculture Activists (143)

Asking "wouldn't it be wonderful if our city could feed itself?" Joe Leitch ponders everybody in Portland planting a chestnut tree. Pam Leitch relates how they both left the corporate world after reading the book "Your Money or Your Life". As educators on sustainability and … [Read more...]

Shocks, Shortages, and Scenarios – Planning for a Post-Oil Future (1340

Responding to peak oil will require reshaping our communities. These two interviews, taped in September 2008 at the ASPO-USA conference, are with Megan Quinn Bachman of Community Solutions, and Bryn Davidson of Dynamic Cities Project. Megan observes that while the … [Read more...]

Cultivating a Suburban Foodshed (123)

Landscape architect Owen Dell has a vision: transforming suburban neighborhoods into shared "foodsheds" with food-bearing and native plants, and even chickens. Neighbors can start by finding edible plants already growing in their yards, maybe remove fences, plant what works … [Read more...]