Urban Design Concept Of The Day

Urban Design Concept of the Day

The 15 Minute City Concept

The 15 Minute City is the concept that everything a person needs including housing, grocery stores, restaurants, schools, clinics, parks and shopping should be within a 15 minute walk or bike ride of people's homes. This is to be accomplished by implementing mixed use zoning and greater housing density. The 15 minute city concept is promoted as areas that are 15 minute cities are shown to healthier for the people who live in them, have strong communities, and are better for the environment as walking and cycling are better for you than automobiles. The concept while frequently discussed as a goal to reach does already exist in places like Centercity Philadelphia, the Loop and Near Northside of Chicago, Manhatten and the downtown and Capitol Hill neighborhoods of Seattle as well as many European cities. It has been proposed and risen to prominence as an alternative to the current suburban model of development

Africanews

Kenyan Maasai women turn harmful cactus species into bio-gas and food | Africanews

The Maasai women of Kenya are overcoming an environmental hazard caused by an invasive prickly pear which was introduced by colonial rulers

A group of women in central Kenya are on their way to harvest prickly pear that will be turned into biogas.

The cactus is an invasive species which is disturbing the ecosystem.

Its encroachment hinders wildlife navigation as well as reducing grazing areas. Some animals which consume the plant's fruit can suffer from digestive issues due to its small hairs.

Now a women's group in Laikipia County has transformed the problem into a new enterprise. 

We are also able to manage natural resources and that is why we are also coming with an idea of making biogas out of the cactus and also selling fruits and generate income that helps us to educate o-ur children."

The fruits from the cactus are edible if separated from their sharp spines.

The Twala women at Laikipia Permaculture therefore use all parts of the fruit, creating a range of products including jams that are then sold.

"We get the fruit from the women's group. We wash them, we grind them to separate the pearl and the seed," Serah Wangare, a juicer at Laikipia Permaculture explained.

"The seed we put them in the drier which we grind them to get the oil, the oil we give it back to the women's group which they then use to make cosmetics, the shower gel, the body lotion. And (from) the pearl we make the juice and the jam."

Legit though, we should start turning ecosystem restoration and work to make our world more tolerant to the effects of climate change into annual holidays and festivals

Like how just about every culture used to have festivals to celebrate the beginning of the harvest or its end, or the beginning of planting, or how whole communities used to host barn raisings and quilting bees - everyone coming together at once to turn the work of months or years into the work of a few days

Humble suggestions for festival types:

Goat festival

Besides controlled burns (which you can't do if there's too much dead brush), the fastest, most effective, and most cost-efficient way to clear brush before fire season - esp really heavy dead brush - is to just. Put a bunch of goats on your land for a few days!

Remember that Shark Tank competitor who wanted to start a goat rental company, and everyone was like wtf? There was even a whole John Oliver bit making fun of the idea? Well THAT JUST PROVES THEY'RE FROM NICE WET PLACES, because goat rental companies are totally a thing, and they're great.

So like. Why don't we have a weekend where everyone with goats just takes those goats to the nearest land that needs a ton of clearing? Public officials could put up maps of where on public lands grazing is needed, and where it definitely shouldn't happen. Farmers and people/groups with a lot of acres that need clearing can post Goat Requests.

Little kids can make goat-themed crafts and give the goats lots of pets or treats at the end of the day for doing such a good job. Volunteers can help wrangle things so goats don't get where they're not supposed to (and everyone fences off land nowadays anyway, mostly). And the goats, of course, would be in fucking banquet paradise.

Planting Festival and Harvest Festival

Why mess with success??? Bring these back where they've disappeared!!! Time to swarm the community gardens and help everyone near you with a farm make sure that all of their seeds are sown and none of the food goes to waste in the fields, decaying and unpicked.

And then set up distribution parts of the festival so all the extra food gets where it needs to be! Boxes of free lemons in front of your house because you have 80 goddamned lemons are great, but you know what else would be great? An organized effort to take that shit to food pantries (which SUPER rarely get fresh produce, because they can't hold anything perishable for long at all) and community/farmer's markets

Rain Capture Festival

The "water year" - how we track annual rainfall and precipitation - is offset from the regular calendar year because, like, that's just when water cycles through the ecosystems (e.g. meltwater). At least in the US, the water year is October 1st through September 30th of the next year, because October 1st is around when all the snowmelt from last year is gone, and a new cycle is starting as rain begins to fall again in earnest.

So why don't we all have a big barn raising equivalent every September to build rain capture infrastructure?

Team up with some neighbors to turn one of those little grass strips on the sidewalk into a rain-garden with fall-planting plants. Go down to your local church and help them install some gutters and rain barrels. Help deculvert rivers so they run through the dirt again, and make sure all the storm drains in your neighborhood are nice and clear.

Even better, all of this - ESPECIALLY the rain gardens - will also help a ton with flood control!

I'm so serious about how cool this could be, yall.

And people who can't or don't want to do physical stuff for any of these festivals could volunteer to watch children or cook food for the festival or whatever else might need to be done!

Parties afterward to celebrate all the good work done! Community building and direct local improvements to help protect ourselves from climate change!

The possibilities are literally endless, so not to sound like an influencer or some shit, but please DO comment or reply or put it in the notes if you have thoughts, esp on other things we could hold festivals like this for.

Canning festivals. "Dig your elderly neighbors out of the snow" festivals. Endangered species nesting count festival. Plant fruit trees on public land and parks festival. All of the things that I don't know anywhere near enough to think of. Especially in more niche or extreme ecosystems, there are so many possibilities that could do a lot of good

Rhododendrons; katana

just got a second official warning for my use of "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free" on the OTW volunteer slack

people are also currently asking board to ban saying that the founding of israel was colonialism—equating this to saying racial slurs—and were complaining about my status back when it was "palestine will be free", too

suffice to say, fuck that place, don't give the OTW your money, and don't fucking volunteer there

(the second screenshot is from the warning I got a few days ago)

I think it'd be fun to imagine a solarpunk society where most buildings come with a greenhouse, whether its attached or a separate but nearby structure, and people take great pride in their greenhouses' looks and vibe.

Like imagine personalizing your/your family's greenhouse, and visiting your friends' greenhouses. How you use it in different seasons, what you have growing in it, the spaces dedicated to hanging out.

Imagine you go to a friend's house and they have a greenhouse with green and yellow panels interspersed, light shining through the glass and onto a nice warm floor on a spring day. There's a rug and some pillows tucked into the corner with a small table, so you can sit or pull up a chair to enjoy snacks or just hang out.

You go to another friend's. Their greenhouse is dedicated to output, with dwarf citrus trees and strawberries and peppers and tomatoes and herbs growing in neat little pots on the tables. Some of them will be planted in the beds outside, some will be given to friends, some will live their whole lives within the glass walls and be perfectly happy. Sometimes your friend opens the panels, and the greenhouse comes to life with all kinds of butterflies and bees stopping by to visit.

There's a nice greenhouse by the library, which has a few fragrant herbs and tea plants growing inside, but is mostly a cozy space. A nice table and a few chairs are inside, for students who like to use the space to study or hang out together. There's one great big chair that's nestled in the perfect spot to read in the warm sunlight, or to listen to the sound of gentle rains tapping against the glass in summer. In fall and winter, they keep a healthy supply of warm hot cocoa and coffee for visitors to enjoy, but in the summer you're more likely to find fresh lemonade.

You know someone who uses their greenhouse as more of a gathering place, its perfect for parties. Plenty of tables and chairs, string lights along the walls so get-togethers can last well into the night. The various panels in pink, orange, and yellow make the room feel magical as light filters through.

Some families turn their greenhouses over to the kids quite early, and it quickly becomes a place full of toys, tiny seedlings of their favorite flowers in colorful pots, a few study books tucked away in a study corner. Or a popular hangout spot for them and their friends to post up with snacks after school.

A few couples may grow a few plants, but keep the area mostly clear--perfect for times where they just want to turn on a small radio, and slowdance with one another well into the night.

And your greenhouse? You can use it however you'd like after all, make it your own.