Green Jobs Philly

Introduction

Our city is filled with beautiful children who deserve a city as beautiful as they are. Success is exactly this. Prosperity means nothing less.

Green Jobs Philly introduces green job creation that relies on lower-income neighbors to rebuild their neighborhoods; financed by collaborations between mutual aid societies, local businesses and nonprofit groups, landowners, foundations and investors; and facilitated by government.

The scenario presented here builds new markets where Philadelphians become friends, lovers and political allies, together making communities while making a living.

Table of Contents

! Praise

for the City ! A Plan for the City ! What’s a Green Job? ! 100,00œ0 Green Jobs ! Teaching Green

Extreme Makeover More than a Paycheck ! Funding the Future !

Import Replacement Green Funding Sources PRAISE:

(Philadelphia Regional and Independent Stock Exchange)

Neighborhood Enterprise Schoolteachers (NESTS) Green Workshops Sweat Equity

Green/ Pale Green Manufacturing Insulation Factory ! Mutual Enterprise ! Tools of the Future ! New Roles for Traditional Power

PhilaFEL

(Fund for Ecological Living)

SEC: Securities & Ecologies Commission Local Currencies MediCash

! Deep

! Green

Green Labor Administration

! Equitable

Development ! Green Construction Visit to an Ecolony

! Mutual

Aid Systems

Health Co-ops Next Great Orchard

Land Reform Law ! Eco-Circus ! Green Job Categories !

Green Job Links © 2008 Paul Glover

Praise for the City

Philadelphians are wonderful people and every problem here can be fixed.

This sounds ridiculous, of course, to those enduring dismal broadcast news. Or struggling to live amid gunfire. Or fighting City Hall or traffic or depression or illness or landlord or boss.

Even so, every Philadelphia neighborhood will be revived.

Grassroots networks are forming whose themes are Smart Growth, New Urbanism, Equitable Development, Sustainability, Greening. These will bring a hundred thousand new jobs and billions of dollars new cash to our city’s roughest places.

Poverty Rate: 25% School Dropouts: 42% 90,000 Working Poor 60,000 hungry children 400,000 Unemployed 200,000 Uninsured

Philadelphia’s problems grow daily: rising taxes, failing schools, rising fuel costs, declining job base, rising murder rate, budget cuts, rising hunger, gentrification, foreclosures, disease rates, sleeping bureaucracy, chemical spills, sewage in basements and rivers, sickly health insurance, creaky railroads and leaky pipes, neglected recreation centers, vacant lots, drugs.

Yet our strengths are greater. We have the humanity and technology and wealth to make Philadelphia America’s finest city again.

HUMANITY: It’s a tribute to the overwhelming decency of Philadelphians, considering our poverty and dropout rates, that only one or two commit murder per day. A million and a half do not shoot, even when pushed hard.

Philadelphians love and hate and hurt and help one another, doing far more good than harm. Our outstanding heroes are neighborhood activists working for love more than money, deserving both. And this city would have died decades ago without millions of common gestures of generosity, helpfulness and forgiveness that pass weekly without headlines.

TECHNOLOGY: Philadelphia is being fixed even while it decays. At the same time that U.S. industrial jobs are being stolen to globalization, thousands of practical American programs are proving people can rebuild damaged local economies from the ground up-- making them better than before. Thousands of jobs are being invented by citizens dedicated to ecology and social justice.

How? We are organizing local talent to produce what we need. We’re building an economy which connects people rather than controls them.

New jobs will rise from new programs and new tools, proven practical elsewhere, that reduce the costs of living.

Some of these programs will seem wild. But everything normal today was once a new idea. As usual, the future will be different.

WEALTH: The initiatives above will provide a broader tax base than condos and slots. While money typically comes from developers, banks, venture capitalists, taxpayers and foundations, wealth also originates from local networks. Regional trade systems and import replacement programs will revive urban manufacture, allowing us to prosper with less dependence on external capital. The proposed Philadelphia Regional & Independent Stock Exchange (PRAISE) could coordinate this investment.

New credit networks can even shift some reliance to municipal currencies, specifically to fund schools, transit and health insurance and clinics, without raising taxes. This fresh cash, moreover, backed by expanding real goods and services, will thrive while dollars decline.

A Plan for the City Philadelphia is ready to become one of the most beautiful and enjoyable cities in America. It’s fully capable of being a model green city. Our city is also ready to become hell on earth, due to rising fuel and food prices.

We’re being forced to think outside the box because, with the collapse of fossil fuel, there will be no box to think inside.

Since normalcy is no longer practical we’ll choose either to rebuild this city or be bystanders at its decline. Within thirty years Philadelphia will be either a green city or a ghost town.

So let’s imagine a Philadelphia that works well with one tenth the oil and natural gas. Prepare to laugh at some of these suggestions. Then prepare to work. Rebuilding Philadelphia so it secures and delights all of us, and our children, will require hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

Assuming that we will not be able to bring cheap food from California and Mexico, or even from Iowa, we’ll need to grow much of our food inside and around the city. With 40,000 vacant lots, Philadelphia is ahead of many cities.

Urban orchards and gardens can fill our neighborhoods.

Assuming that heating and air conditioning homes with gas, oil and electric becomes too costly (nuclear processing is fossil fuel dependent and there’s just a 20-year domestic supply), we’ll need to superinsulate our houses. Since even with best insulation current housing will still leak costly fuels, we’ll need to build entirely new housing that’s earth sheltered, needing no fuel to heat and cool.

Assuming that cooling homes with conventional fuels also becomes too costly, we’ll need to tear up as much paving as we can, to reduce the urban “heat island” that boils our homes. Filling every neighborhood with trees, especially orchards, will likewise cool our summers.

Assuming that cars will cost too much to fuel, even fuel-efficient cars, we can put streets to better use when cars are gone. We can fill the streets with trollies again and bicycles, and wild mosaic pathways too, even using them for gardens and playgrounds.

Assuming that fuel costs for filtering water and pumping it to homes, then cleaning it after use, will make water too costly to poop into, we’ll need to replace flush toilets with idiot-proof waterless toilets. These are National Sanitation Foundation-approved, convert-

ing humanure into safe, sweet-smelling garden soil. When our rivers are no longer poisoned by poop, fish will return and be edible. We will be able to swim with them. Capturing rooftop rain in barrels and cisterns further reduces water pumping loads.

Assuming that more of us will be unable to afford health insurance, we’ll need to create our own nonprofit co-op health plans.

Assuming that local government will not have enough money to expand the free clinic system, we’ll need to create our own memberowned free clinics.

Assuming that dollars with which we buy food and fuel and housing and health care continue to lose value, we’ll need to print our own inflation-proof money that’s backed by neighborhood and business networks providing local skills, tools and time.

Assuming that global markets continue to invest in wars, prisons, rainforest destruction, junk food and cars, we’ll need to create our own regional stock exchanges which reward investment in the processes above.

Assuming that media continue to emphasize that people are violent more than kindly, that it’s risky to trust one another, and that we are not capable of organizing our own neighborhoods to make this city beautiful, then we will need to create our own media.

Assuming that government will be unable to raise taxes enough to maintain crumbling centralized infrastructure, we’ll need to create neighborhoods that thrive on decentralized technologies. These would be powerful neighborhoods combining all the above whose residents are homeowners; whose homes are superinsulated and solarized; whose lands generate food and jobs; whose vacant buildings become microindustries; whose preventive health care is provided through co-op mini-clinics; whose humanure and leaves are sanitized and recycled onsite; whose trash is feedstock for new industry; whose streets are greenspace; whose schools teach neighborhood management; whose talents are celebrated; whose networks of mutual aid are backed by local currencies; whose people are proud and sufficient. Such neighborhoods need fewer government services for police, courts, jails, streets, trash, sewage; and less government subsidy for food, fuel, housing, medical care and mental health.

These bold notions have proven practical at small scales in various cities. Welcoming them all to our city, through respectful and orderly transitions, will set an example for the world and make the future fun.

Four Great Tasks 1. Rebuild housing for maximum energy efficiency.

2. Rebuild transit to liberate the city from cars.

3. Convert to waterless toilets to end water abuse.

4. Plant orchards and gardens for food security.

WHAT'S A GREEN JOB? Green jobs make life easier for everyone by reducing the costs of fuel, food and housing. Green work expands Philadelphia's economy by reducing waste of resources and wealth. Green work repairs soil, water and air, making these cleaner and healthier. There are hundreds of kinds of green work. Some of the jobs offered here are deep green jobs; some are pale green.

Deep green jobs create genuine alternatives to resource depletion-trains, bicycles, solar and passive solar, tree-free paper, organic fibers, compost toilets, urban agriculture, and so on.

These prove that billions of humans can enjoy this planet while repairing it.

Pale green jobs reduce damage to the environment but continue it-- like fuelefficient cars, low-flush toilets, 'clean' coal. We need and respect these transitional technologies. But most normal tools of civilization need to be gradually replaced by tools serving the future. All skills can be adapted to green enterprise.

PHILADELPHIA ECO-GOALS (PEGS) 1,000,000 berry bushes 800,000 superwindows 700,000 fruit trees 600,000 solar electric panels 500,000 solar hot water heaters 400,000 biodigester toilets 300,000 green roofs w/rainwater barrels 10,000 ecolonies 5,000 neighborhood gardens 2,000 community land trusts 400 miles of bicycle paths 200 miles of ultralight trolley 100 farmers markets 50% bicycle commuting 30% trolley commuting 20% pedestrian commuting 25 neighborhood currencies

A Brief Summary of Philadelphia's 100,000 Green Collar Jobs Estimated job numbers assume that capital and culture move this direction.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY: weatherizing (5,000); superwindow manufacture (500) and installation (2,000); solar manufacturing (500) and install (2,000); dry toilet manufacturing (500) and installation (1,500); tree planting (1,000) and nursery (200). cogeneration (150), & install (50) MOBILITY: regional rail expansion-- manufacture (1,000) and staff (2,000); bicycle manufacture (500), bike repair (350), bike delivery (200), and bike route install/maintain (150).

FOOD: orchards-- soil remediation (750), leaf soilmaking (150), greenhousing (400), planting (400), pruning (300), irrigation (200); gardens (11,000); rooftop gardens (2,000), processing & storage (8,000); sales (500). edible landscaping (500).

HOUSING: disassembly (2,000) and stockpile of reusables (100); retrofit of industrial buildings (5,000), construction of earth-bermed LEED residential co-housing (19,000), green roofs (750).

WATER: depaving (1,500) permeables (500), compost toilets (500).

HEALTH: co-op free clinics (2,000), additional City free clinics (2,500), hazmat removal (250), nontoxic cleaning (500), co-op health insurance (20), preventive therapies (15,000), herb gardens & medicines (300) MANUFACTURING: Eco-Industrial Parks, Flexible Manufacturing Networks and Import Replacement Programs (15,000).

RECYCLING: pickup (3,000), sorting (2,000), sales (150), collection of clean clothing and housewares and ‘name-your-own-price’ sales (1,500), landfill mining (50) ECO-FINANCE: green credit unions (30), networking local currency and barter programs (500), interest-free lending (200), PRAISE (50) CRIMEFIGHTING: It costs less to employ people than to jail them.

We solve crime directly by creating jobs that make it easy for people to honorably feed and house a family, in a city functional and beautiful. Philadelphia Praise Police cite for constructive acts (20) NETWORKING: Connecting the processes above (1,000) MEDIA: neighborhood radio (200)

The longer list of specific job titles is at end of book.

Green Training

Many Philadelphia public schools are so irrelevant to student lives that half the students drop out. State curricula and testing serve bureaucracy only.

So we’re renewing a school system by relying on neighbors to teach, and upon the larger community to donate resources. Young people will learn easiest from people they respect who teach skills that are fun and useful. They will keep learning if the neighbors around them love learning too. And they’ll give back to a community which cares about them.

Neighborhood Enterprise SchoolTeachers (NESTS)

NESTS therefore invites adult neighbors (including ex-offenders) to teach life skills to neighbor kids, stimulating self-respect among young and old. NESTS networkers knock on doors to list neighborhood skills and neighbors ready to teach.

Weight lifting, cooking, house painting, hair dressing, house repair, health aides, gardening, mechanics, storytelling, knitting, sculpting, dance, are all welcome.

These adults are paid for teaching, and youth for learning, by receiving certificates which further enhance esteem and employability. They might also receive neighborhood currency that can be spent with neighborhood businesses and corporate sponsors, or traded with one another. Free meals, games, and prizes are added incentives.

At the same time, NESTS teams visit churches, recreation centers, parks or yards. to teach how to build, install and maintain simple technologies that reduce heating and electric bills. They provide free tools and materials. They issue certificates to those who attend the sessions. Neigbbors then teach others, and start their own businesses. Dozens of categories of “green collar” jobs such as solar, wind and insulation installation, recycling and repair will prepare people for ecological reindustrialization of this city.

NESTS begin within the toughest census tracts surrounding worst schools.

NESTS are built in community trees. For example: City of Philadelphia provides land, and funding for networkers School district provides land and/or buildings Landlords provides storefronts Nonprofit organizations provide skilled networkers and talent Construction companies provide building materials and playgrounds Banks provide interest-free loans and grants Foundations provide grants Manufacturers provide solar power and insulation Unions provide electrical and plumbing Courts provide community service credits Universities and colleges provide student loan credits

Here are suggested distinctions between Pale Green Jobs and Deep Green Jobs PALE GREEN

DEEP GREEN

WATER:

• tertiary treatment • permeable paving • low-flow nozzles • greywater systems

• compost toilets • depaving • xeriscapes • daylighting streams • no car washing

FUEL:

• compact fluorescent • Energy Star • conservation

• photovoltaic • pedal power • unplug • off grid • passive solar • superwindows • body heat in ecolony

HOUSING:

• LEED • urban renewal

• passive solar off grid • community land trust • anti-gentrification

FOOD:

• corporate organic • free-range organic meat

• local organic • vegan/vegetarian • edible landscaping • urban CSAs • urban permaculture • urban orchards • humanure • neighborhood cannery

HEALTH:

• clean smokestacks • well-tuned cars • vitamins • health clubs • tap water

• solar-powered industry • walking, biking, trains • organic local veggies • moderate physical labor • distilled rooftop rainwater • neighborhood celebrations

MOBILITY:

• compact car • hybrid car • biodiesel • fryodiesel

• porch/hammock • walking, biking • trollies • trains

HOUSEWARES:

• made in North America • made in neighborhood • made in Philadelphia • home made • organic fiber, sustainable harvest • local fiber (angora), local wood

CULTURE:

• green shows on networks

EDUCATION:

• biology and gardening

• eco shows: neighborhd media • skills of neighborhood mgmt

Neighborhood Industry Philadelphia has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Worker-managed green factories can restore our industrial prominence. These can be organized and run by workers, solar-powered for health and quiet, producing all the useful goods we need for a much better American Way. By decentralizing industries to neighborhood control, products can be made with pride and skill. Production schedules and product design could suit local resources. Recycling processes could be developed for all materials.

Operating expenses and living costs are reduced by interneighborhood exchange of such goods as tools, pottery, bikes, glassware, clothing, solar equipment and furniture.

Industry has been the noisiest and ugliest part of cities. By rescaling and soundproofing industries for neighborhood life, they can blend with urban beauty.

Insofar as beauty contributes to social harmony, beauty is practical.

Philadelphia can learn to luxuriate in the necessities before the necessities become luxuries. In societies whose goods are crafted more is appreciated, less is consumed. This kind of priority gives us a short work day amid pastimes worthy -of leisure: romping, playing, sunbathing, musicmaking, storytelling, meditation, inventing, dancing, exploring, exercising, learning.

Such an industrial base thrives on peace rather than war. Relying on regional raw materials makes us independent of foreign supplies, ending the competition for these which has caused most war.

Here are examples:

WATER Rainwater barrels, filters, valves Carousel biodigester - fiberglass (recycled plastic) - nuts & bolts & bearings - pvc substitute - shovels and carts Green roof understories - drains - flashing - sealant - microfab - sopradrain Depaving - recycling machines - grinders - pickaxes

TRANSIT Cargo bicycles and carriers - frames - chains - cables and sheathing - panniers Bikepaths - paving - shade arbors - rest areas and fountains Walkways - mosaic: tile, glazing, kiln - shade arbors - rest areas and fountains Ultralight rail - steel, alloys - woodwork (stations, cars) - stained glass (“) - electric motors - ironwork access ramps

ENERGY Insulation - newsprint - fly ash - boron - weatherstripping - caulk Solar electric arrays Solar hot water - glazing - boxes (metal, wood) Thermal windows - glazing - frames - argon Windowbox heat grabbers

FOOD Greenhouses - glazing - framing - tubing - misters Cultivators Mulchers Irrigation, drip - tubing - valves Orchardry - pruning shears - shovels Processing - bottles, jars, buckets -cookers - canners - dehydrators

HEALTH Swabs Surgical tools

HOUSING Cement Rebar Lumber, recycled

CLOTHING Sewing machines Threads Cloth Tires, recycled for shoes

HOUSEWARES Clay Ceramics Wood Steatite

FINANCE Treefree paper (local currency) Ceramic (local coins)

ARTS Musical instruments - strings - percussion - winds Stained glass Paint Paper, tree free Theatre settings,costumes

RECREATION - game balls (soccer, basket)

COMMUNICATIONS - radio - internet

INSULATION FACTORY & BUYING CLUB The best fuel is less fuel. Any job done with less fuel liberates fuel for other jobs and other generations. More clean fuel can be extracted from fuel efficiency than any source.

Consuming lots of oil and electricity was long seen as essential to making big profits, but the opposite is now true. Philadelphia will progress by efficiency: making what we've already got better. New and retrofit superinsulated housing are estimated able to reduce residential heating needs over 75%. Every step in the direction of efficiency strengthens our future.

We'll need far more jobs to prepare for fuel shortages. Saving even 10% of the annual PECO bill (most of which leaves the region) would keep millions in Philadelphia to be spent with each other instead, potentially to stimulate thousands of trades jobs, craft businesses, agricultural enterprises, daycare opportunities, revolving loan funds, community land trusts, and further fuel efficiency.

Worker-controlled fuel-efficient local enterprise will create goods and homes of better quality than Americans have ever had. The Philadelphia Insulation Factory (PIF) would mix blown-in cellulose insulation from recycled newspapers with fly ash as a fire retardant. The buying club would distribute and install insulation and thermal windows at wholesale.

We have a lot of work to do: Most of Philadelphia's homes were built before the 1973 energy crisis, with very little insulation. Few constructed before 1940 were insulated. Insulation will become vastly cheaper than electricity. Some homeowners and builders have already superinsulated old units, reducing heating costs by over 80% in some cases. These are heated mainly by body warmth, stoves and appliances, after the installation of triple-pane 77777 windows, and extra-thick insulation behind an airtight liner. They are ventilated deliberately rather than randomly.

SEE: ecasavesenergy.org

Mutual Enterprise Regions make themselves powerful primarily by recycling their wealth, to magnify it. That means retaining talents, skills, and money of local people in the community as much as possible, networking the community to take care of itself to the maximum extent possible.

Mutual enterprise systems are constellations of regional businesses which profit for the sake of community, allied with member-owned nonprofits.

Through them, good jobs are generated by average people who work, who raise children, and who depend on the health of neighborhoods.

The foundations of sustainable local wealth are energy efficiencies, local food and fuel, water conservation, holistic healing, alternatives to the automobile, nonprofit housing, local manufacture and trade. The prime tools for this conversion include earth-bermed coop dwellings and hyperinsulation, solar and wind energy, urban agriculture, treefree paper, compost toilets, bicycles and trains, farmers' markets, coop health care and local currency.

Virtually everything used in a locality can be made locally, by small energy-efficient shops that use regional resources (including components of discards), and which control and recycle all emissions and byproducts. Specialty materials shops (such as foundries & sawmills) can be linked to each other and to micro-industrial assembly shops.

Even today, thousands of high-quality household goods are produced locally for internal markets, such as soaps, shoes, clothes, rugs, drapes, food, toys, and furniture. Communities are busy providing food & food processing, compost, garden tools, clothes, hats, gloves, shoes, wool & angora goods, plant fibers, recycled fibers, lamps, tools, forges, herbal medicines and healing. These are the basics.

There are thousands more products for which regional and national markets could be found, such as trolley components & cargo bikes, insulation, transit, compost toilets, cleaning supplies, scrap metal reprocessing. You name it; such products can be made and exported without waiting for external capital, and without further contaminating our environment.

As local production networks for such industries as these become more extensive, and as the increase in local wealth enables more of us to afford locally-produced durables and household goods, the unit price for local artisanry and manufacture gradually becomes competitive with mass-produced imports.

Locally-made goods are already competitively priced, when we calculate that buying local goods in locally-owned stores produces local

jobs that save money by reducing unemployment's costs of social services, vandalism, drug use, violent crime, and jail.

• BUSINESS INCUBATORS are buildings containing equipment shared by small new businesses, to reduce start-up costs.

• BUY LOCAL CAMPAIGNS promote social and economic benefits of shopping for locally-produced goods, at locally-owned stores.

• CO-HOUSING provides shared community spaces for child care, gardens, cooking and recreation, to make life friendlier and easier.

• COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS are citizen groups with power of government, to initiate programs for business, housing, transit, etc.

• COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CREDIT UNIONS are memberowned banks that invest most money back to the neighborhoods from where deposits came.

• COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS make grants to local groups.

• COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT AGENCIES are local groups which make sure local banks invest locally, without racial bias.

• COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE brings city folk to work on farms in exchange for fresh, low-cost food.

• ECO-INDICATORS are relied on to measure whether the local economy is improving for all, or merely enriching an elite.

• ECO-INDUSTRIAL PARKS exemplify manufacturing of basic useful goods with recycled materials and zero pollution.

• FARMERSʼ MARKETS enable farmers and craftspeople to sell directly to local people.

• FARMLAND RETENTION groups advocate public policy that promotes and protects local farming.

• FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING NETWORKS combine the skills and tools of several local manufacturers to enable them jointly to get a manufacturing contract.

• FOOD AND FUEL COOPERATIVES coordinate bulk buying of food, fuels, solar equipment and windmills by neighbors, to reduce unit costs and gain policy leverage.

• HOUSING COOPERATIVES remove housing from the speculative market, enabling occupants to resell with specified limits to profit.

• IMPORT REPLACEMENT PROGRAMS connect regional businesses and individuals to supply each other, rather than depending on imports.

• INDUSTRIAL RETENTION INITIATIVES are carrot-and-stick programs seeking to keep industry from closing or moving away.

• INSULATION CO-OPERATIVES buy and install energyefficiencies.

• LAND TRUSTS purchase local land to protect it, usually from suburbanization. They buy housing to remove it from the profit system.

• LOCAL CURRENCIES are local paper money which adds to local money supply, raises minimum wage, promotes job creation, friendly trade, local business.

• LOCAL INSURANCE COMPANIES (locally-owned nonprofit insurers which invest all premiums regionally). in-cluding locally-controlled non-profit health financing co-ops.

• LOCAL PENSION FUNDS are locally-originated and controlled, much of whose capital is dedicated to local investment.

• LOCAL STOCK EXCHANGES gather capital of all kinds for ecodevelopment.

• LOCAL TAX CREDITS reduce local fees on organic farms, solar and wind energy, realizing that tax reductions will be returned via high sales tax revenues.

• MATERIALS RE-USE CENTERS disassemble and stockpile components of discards, for resale and re-manufacturing. New buildings are constructed ecologically, using non-rainforest woods.

• MICROLENDING makes small loans at low interest, in order to help new small businesses form.

• MILITARY TO DOMESTIC CONVERSIONS retrofit vacated military bases or weapons factories for nonmilitary jobs and production.

• REVOLVING LOAN FUNDS make money available at zero- or low-interest for specified purposes when prior loans are repaid.

• SMART GROWTH is land use planning that restrains sprawl and relies on regional business rather than chains. Government invents new rules to facilitate this shift. Corporations are evaluated for their commitment to the environment and fair pay.

• SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING is the practice of selecting stocks and bonds according to their environmental and/or social effects.

• TRADING POSTS are storefronts which enable the public to trade without cash.

• WORKER OWNERSHIP NETWORKS support transfer of business ownership to employees.

As local wealth increases through these programs, there is more money available for producing goods and services that feed the transition from dependence to strength. Local and regional self-reliance give American communities added capability to reach to each other, with ecological export industry and travel. The above examples, again, are among the hundreds of types of programs that give citizens genuine democratic power-- in the marketplace-- where it counts.

Tools of the Future The following technologies exemplify maximum energy efficiency, maximum recyclable parts, least waste, least contamination, most local control, simplicity of use by young and old, strong and weak.

There are many financial, legal, bureaucratic, cultural and political reasons why these will be resisted. When proposing change, ridicule is inevitable. And there is articulate, well-reasoned hostility to any change.

But there will arise more compelling reasons why these will be installed.

BAMBOO because we need to replace tree wood, plastic & steel piping BICYCLES & PEDAL POWER because it’s the cleanest, most spaceefficient and energy-efficient method of moving individuals and small loads short distances.

BIOREMEDIATION because urban soils have been contaminated by industrialization.

COMPOST TOILETS because we can’t continue to poop into clean water.

KENAF PAPER because paper made from trees wastes forests and fuels.

Kenaf serves as ground cover, soil The Carousel bioreactor converts penetrator, nitrogen fixer, water humanure into clean garden soil. retainer, soil stabilizer, paper pulp.

LOCAL CURRENCY AND BARTER to control money and what it does.

NON-PVC PIPING because dioxins are among humanity’s most toxic inventions.

ORCHARDS & BERRIES because we need to produce more food within the city with less intensive manual labor, and to bioremediate soil.

PEDESTRIAN PLEASURE because it’s the healthiest, most energy-efficient and sociable method for moving people. Busy streets are safer at night. We choose Neighborhood Watch or neighborhood watch TV. PAVEMENT RECYCLER because we need to release city land to breathe and produce food and retain stormwater.

SOLAR & WIND POWER because oil is disappearing, becoming costly, destroys the environment and is fought for. Decentralized fuels restore democracy and global stability.

SOLAR-POWERED SCOOTERS because they’re the most spaceefficient and energy-efficient method for carrying individuals and heavy loads longer distances within the city.

TRAINS & TROLLEYS because rail is the most energy-efficient method of carrying heaviest cargos and large numbers of people. They guide and concentrate where humans settle, rather than promote sprawl.

UNDERGROUND AND EARTH-BERMED HOUSING (ECOLONY) because heating and cooling without fossil fuels will become necessary.

New Roles for Traditional Powers Rebuilding Philadelphia so that we thrive during risky times will require that we create 100,000 ‘green collar’ jobs.

There’s plenty work ahead, to make Philadelphia’s poor wealthier and its wealthy genuinely secure. Unless we create these jobs, in fact, Philadelphia will rot from fiscal crises (SEPTA, schools, health centers, government benefits and pensions, higher food and water prices) rising dropout and crime rates, shortages of oil and natural gas, worse climate shifts.

Without these new jobs, Philadelphia’s middle class would gradually shrink by foreclosure, and crime would control every neighborhood. The fancy class would flee.

TRICKLE DOWN NEEDS BUBBLE UP: Philadelphia’s dominant model for economic development is skyscrapers and condos, gentrifying from Center City outward. This is profitable mainly to middleand upper classes, and benefits many service workers, but does not well trickle down to Philadelphia’s 90,000 working poor and 40,000 unemployed.

Philadelphia's income gap hobbles all of us, by requiring higher taxes to control crime; to subsidize housing, heating and electric; to fund Medicaid and Food Stamps.

At the same time, billions of dollars of local wealth bleeds yearly from Philly’s economy, lost to contracts to firms outside this region.

Were we to retain this money and reduce the basic costs of living, lower-income residents would have more money with which to purchase goods and services from one another at neighborhood businesses. They’d even have enough money to shop in Center City.

Several related adjustments are therefore needed to facilitate green transitions: • MAJOR EMPLOYERS would embrace job sharing and flextime, and consider the benefits to themselves and society of sixhour days without reduced pay. Kellogg's thrived on this basis for 54 years. All employers would end racial bias in hiring and invest in workers as assets (even as friends) rather than as costs. Research shows that labor productivity and yearly business growth are highest in countries where income is most equal (Economist 11/5/94 p.21).

Purchasing from regional suppliers is essential to green progress.

Unit costs reduce as regional green manufacturing expands.

• GOVERNMENT power to shop locally and hire locals is a major green engine. Government’s ownership of vacant lands and buildings, especially in Philadelphia, gives regulators great power to empower neighborhoods. See Urban Land Reform Law. City Hall would amend building codes to encourage greywater systems, compost toilets and solar envelope zoning. Government expands green tax credits (PREP, GRTC) rather than tax breaks, bailouts and below-cost sale of raw materials. Many local governments are catching on to better kinds of job development. They've quit chasing franchises. St. Paul, Minnesota, for example, started a Homegrown Economy Project.

Eugene, Oregon hosts the Buy Oregon project, which finds local contractors to bid for regional manufacturing subcontracts. The New Economy Project of Littleton, Colorado builds economic development from inside. Their research shows that 90% of new jobs are created by local business. The federal study "Local Economic Development Tools" concludes that expansion of local firms through import replacement programs can generate ten times more jobs than imported capital.

• BANKERS would open branches in poor neighborhoods and learn that small loans are actually likelier to be fully and promptly repaid. Chicago's South Shore Bank and India's Grameen Bank have proven the superior safety of small loans to lowincome people. This requires an end to racial bias in lending.

• SCHOOLS would become exciting again by teaching all students how to become powerful community managers and creators of jobs, as well as active union and co-op members, rather than obedient drones.

• MEDIA would use their cultural power to inspire trust and enthusiasm for the future, rather than fear and dread.

• PLANNING DEPARTMENTS would become public resource and innovation centers, welcoming new ideas, promoting equitable development.

• INVESTORS: Philadelphians can reduce the cost of living, and of government, by investing in neighborhoods directly. Rather than merely servicing and controlling neighborhoods, we gradually transfer economic power and land to them, through genuinely nonprofit mutual aid systems. These allow neighbors to purchase high-quality, low-cost building supplies, insulation, paint, housewares, plants, health care, solar panels, food. Neighborhood land trusts and sweat equity stabilize housing prices and expand ownership. As living costs decline, discretionary income expands, feeding neighborhood enterprises.

Green Labor Administration (GLAD) During the first Great Depression (1929-1938), the federal government employed millions to plant forests and build hydroelectric dams. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) restarted the economy while repairing the environment. Sudden full employment, as weapons makers and soldiers, began in World War 2. Quickly following the war, America was fully employed manufacturing consumer goods rather than weapons.

Today’s imperative is to rebuild America’s cities toward maximum energy efficiency. To streamline this, GLAD will network government legislation, venture capital, local manufacture, small business, nonprofit services, mutual aid systems, and the informal economy.

MISSION: 1. Employ the greatest number Philadelphians to prepare this city to thrive with less fuel. Most urgent are heating and eating.

2. Lower the costs of living by reducing dependence on costly heating/cooling/mobility fuels and imported food by: • Planting orchards and gardens so neighborhoods feed themselves • Installing deep insulation and superwindows to reduce heating loads & clean water and air • Depaving vacant parking lots to reduce heat island cooling costs • Installing green/white roofs to reduce cooling loads • Installing biodigester toilets to reduce water use & treatment costs • Expanding transit GOVERNMENT Because the city has not enough dollars to hire the hundreds of thousands needed to rebuild this city, workers will be paid partly with regional sweat equity credits (Philadelphia HOURS = $15/HOUR) backed by City lands and services, and redeemable for basic needs.

These credits include: Tax credits, Land credits, Home purchase credits, Home repair credits, Food via contract with urban farms, Medical care, Child care, Transit, Recreation/Entertainment.

LEGISLATION To facilitate these changes, the City of Philadelphia will provide relevant incentives: • Vacant Lot Act • Depaving Tax Credit • Vacant Paving Tax • Paved Orchard Tax Credit

Equitable Development Gentrification is not green, regardless of LEED rating or solar display. Green jobs promote social justice as well as environmental repair. Neighborhood organizations and the city can guide green development so it serves all Philadelphians, with programs that protect low-income residents from market-rate taxation and eviction, and make homes permanently affordable by transferring land to community land trusts. Such land rents promote diversity and provide developer incentives for the above. “First Source� hiring agreements require developers to hire a percentage of workers from the neighborhood being reconstructed.

Developers can partner with community colleges, nonprofit groups, unions, government, churches, to gain qualified job seekers, tax breaks, expedited permits and variances, and good neighborhood relations.

There are two prime scenarios for greening the city and its economy. The first relies on wealthy consumers to stimulate markets for solar and wind products. Their purchases gradually lower the unit price for everyone else. This is how telephone and home computer markets expanded.

In this scenario, lower-income workers go to factories to make solar panels for wealthier homes, then return to their modest homes, which lack solar electric or even good insulation.

The second scenario generates jobs, capital and use of alternate technologies directly within the neighborhoods most needing lower fuel and food bills. This follows more the Henry Ford model-expanding the market by getting the product into the hands of workers.

Because the need for affordable food, fuel and housing is every day more critical, this book promotes this direct route to neighborhood power. Capital and land are available to do this, when the people push and government follows.

An ECOLONY Guided Tour Each sheltering about 100 people, ecolonies have wellsoundproofed private spaces for those living alone or as couples, in nuclear families, or neofamily groups. There are common areas for child care, medical care, parties, meetings, dances, lounges, food production and processing, arts and learning, theatre, worship and meditation, and cottage industry.

The solar co-op below is 400 feet long. It is three stories tall, with attached greenhouses at every level. Half undergrounded in a 3-degree slope, it lays on a NE-SW axis. Surrounding earth moderates temperatures-- cooling by spring and heating by end of summer. It is fireproof and waterproof.

Ecolonies are surrounded by orchards and gardens.

Philadelphia will need thousands such dwelllings to enjoy winters without fossil fuel, and to merge with urban agriculture.

BASEMENT is excavated to eight feet below the 75' above-sea-level first floor.

A. A cylindrical reservoir 50' diameter is dug ten feet deeper and contains 150,000 gallons of water-- about a half year residential supply. It is replenished from rooftop and water main along the northwest wall. This immense thermal mass moderates seasonal temperature swings.

B. Nearby is mushroom cultivation.

C. 20,000 cubic feet of general storage are available for personal goods, and for industrial raw materials and parts used directly above. Access is by dumbwaiter.

D. Excavations labeled B are carousel compost toilets using excreta, kitchen scraps & leaves.

E. 30,000 cubic feet of food storage hold several months' supply. A hoist serves all kitchens and doubles as an elevator for the infirm. Solar powered fans can be used to move cool air up.

F. A spiral staircase goes to the roof. It works as a vent, too.

G. The auditorium floor slopes to five feet depth below its stage.

H. A second water reservoir of 94,000 gallons is an emergency supply for the hydrant cannon (third floor).

It can vent cool air up.

FIRST FLOOR A. 52 residents occupy 17 subdivisible units, according to numbers in rooms. Solitary, nuclear family, neofamily and extended family lifestyles are accommodated. They have access to shared areas.

Walls (8 feet tall) and ceilings are completely soundproofed to protect privacy. There are places to be alone, to be quiet with others, to talk or work with friends, to party and to meet people. The northeast wall is mostly underground.

B. The atrium is a sun lounge which catches cool nighttime air for release to first and second floors during summer days. Its winter roof is rolled back to take daylight and heat to underground units. Vertical louvres and shades help regulate temperature. One inch of rain in this area collects 880 gallons, which pass through a filter before entering storage tank below.

C.. The auditorium's sliding inner walls permit several meetings at once. Meetings of the full house make this the home of direct democracy. Theatre and music are also performed. It is soundproofed.

D. An industrial space is soundproofed. It is powered by rooftop solar furnaces or turbines. Storage places are supplemented by basement areas accessible by ramp.

E. Although each unit has its own kitchen, all can share meals from the large kitchen. It doubles as a restaurant for crosstown & cross-country travelers. Tables in the eating area are sectioned for easy rearrangement.

F. The recreation room also stores outdoor game equipment.

G. Free childcare frees parents. Kids learn about

plants and greenhousing, solar machinery, crafts and cooperative games.

H. Private doors open inward except on northeast wall; house doors open outward.

I. Large wall areas are used for posting notice of meetings, presentations, dances, special work, and for announcing love, complaint, need.

J. Compartments labeled T are vents letting warm air out and pulling cool air from the basement in summer.

K. Patterns of little circles are photovoltaic arrays at base of greenhouse glazing.

L. Greenhouse windows slide down and aside during the summer. Their walls are reflective rather than absorptive. Direct solar heat in winter comes through windows.

SECOND FLOOR A. 34 people occupy eight subdivisible units.

B. The library is well lit by the atrium. Agriculture and craft are important collections.

C. A heavily soundproofed meditation and worship room has double-walled entrance.

D. The main lounge is a dance floor and exhibit hall.

E. The large skylight illuminates and vents the first floor dining area.

F. Greenhouse hallways (greenhalls) are nurseries for rooftop gardens. Glass floors admit light to first floor.

G. Earth berms are terraced and gardened.

H. Trough solar concentrator heats water for bath lounge and charges batteries for the hydrant pump.

Solar cells on the central pipe face the trough to generate additional electricity for living space at this end.

I. Railings border the roof above grade. Wheelchairs have access to first floor.

J. Solar cells shade first floor greenhouses from highest sun.

K. Pumphouse boosts power of hydrant cannon mounted above it. Trough collector and solar cell batteries are within. Garden tool storage here.

L. Compartments labeled S and SV are skylights and skylight vents.

THIRD FLOOR A. Eight people occupy two subdivisible units.

B. South end of atrium is sloped to let low winter sun enter.

C. Fire hydrant cannon protects a 320-degree range, reaching 200 feet away when aimed 31 degrees up. The rear of the house is covered by the Food Mast fire tower.

ROOF A. Three large disc collectors focus the sun to power industrial machines and furnaces. They are mounted in geodesic domes. A boiler and generator are nearby.

B. Solar hot water collectors heat showers. Filtered greywater is used for roof crops.

C. Vents, windscoops, skylights and vents exit here.

There are lots of good ideas for fixing cities. Combining them within one block of rowhouses will set a sustainable direction for the city and its people. Instead of making one family middle class, we convert one block of rowhouses from destitution to beauty, safety, and full employment. This neighborhood becomes school and employer. We prove that beauty and ecology are financially practical and culturally acceptable. We seed the city with good examples.

BENEFITS TO NEIGHBORS New green jobs, less crime, lower gas and electric bills, lower water bills, lower food costs, better nutrition and health, happier children with skills and pride, protection from gentrification. One building per block will be dedicated as an organizing center, green business incubator, recreation center, and free clinic (visited weekly by nurse practitioner).

BENEFITS TO CITY Less sewage into rivers, more rainfall into groundwater, cleaner air, smaller carbon footprint, more attractive to visitors.

BENEFITS TO TAXPAYERS Calculate total cost to maintain one low-income city block: subsidies for Food Stamps, electric and gas, Medicaid, teenage pregnancy, neonatal congenital care, asthma and diabetes, family counseling, disability, unemployment payments, police, courts, jail, probation, remedial education. Calculate decreased costs also for street repair and street lighting, sewer maintenance. Budget this amount for the Extreme Phillyblock Makeover, then monitor impact. As the model succeeds, MetroEco Contractors spread these avoided costs throughout the city.

GREEN TECHNOLOGIES ENERGY-EFFICIENCY: reflective roofs, green roofs, solar hot water, photovoltaic electricity and streetlights, superwindows, insulation, windmills, EnergyStar refrigerators (basement preferred) and appliances, CF lightbulbs, basement retrofits for occupancy and cold storage, mulching leaves onsite for gardens. WATER EFFICIENCY: roof cisterns, drainage swales to orchards/gardens, greywater, low-flow faucets, waterless toilets, porous paving, street reclamation, depaving.

GREEN NEIGHBORHOOD JOBS All contractors engaged agree to hire and train neighbors, to install and maintain new systems. The most basic skills developed will be carpenters, composters, cooks, gardeners, greenhouse managers, insulators, landscapers, masons, networkers, painters, repairers (tools, clothes, etc) tour guides. The City credits sweat equity toward homeownership and supplies.

WHO LEADS AND HOW? We start by inviting proposals from low-income neighborhoods.

YOUTH & ELDERS draft plans that include sweat equity.

NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKERS inventory block needs, desires and skills. ARCHITECTS convert artwork into plans. FOUNDATIONS & MILLIONAIRES commit tax-deductible capital, and provide connections. BUSINESSES donate lumber, solar tech, paint, etc.

GOVERNMENT permits code variances for new technologies and land uses, transfers titles to neighborhood land trust, provides tax incentives for donors, landowners and residents. LAWYERS incorporate block as tax-exempt limited equity neighborhood land trust providing right of first refusal, open meetings, board elections by neighbors and term limits. CLERGY rally congregants, provide church as organizing center.

MEDIA & MOVIEMAKERS dramatize the significance of good examples.

REVOLUTIONARY BEAUTY The simplest way to begin rebuilding the block is to plant thousands of flowers in planters and medians. Start a playground. The Makeover goal is vast but vivid: to make the block overpoweringly attractive and functional, indoors and out. Beauty should not raise taxes or rents.

More than a Paycheck Jobs are social roles that reward us with food, homes, respect, security and play. Green jobs provide the added satisfaction of building a healthier Philadelphia and a future for the next generations.

Because green work is so urgent and because we need everyone aboard, we cannot narrowly define good jobs merely as dollars with retirement plans.

When there are not sufficient dollars to employ everyone we can pay with land, housing, farm produce, energy credits, medical care and recreation. Our priority should be to lower expenses rather than raise income. Green jobs and mutual aid programs expand our capability to create low-cost energy-efficient housing, lower -cost food and water, nonprofit health care, low-cost child care, lower taxes and free public transit.

As this city’s budget crunch becomes more severe, employees might be given a choice between layoffs and partial payment in-kind.

Consider whether you’d choose a $5,000 raise or a $7,000 credit toward house repair, life insurance, groceries and travel. More broadly, a person earning $75,000/year with $45,000 overhead is less wealthy than someone earning $50,000/year with $15,000 overhead.

Many Philadelphians work dull jobs and struggle to stay afloat paying rent, food, and heat.

That’s because much local wealth is poured down the drain, lost as food bills to agribusiness; lost in chain stores, lost from utility bills; car buying & fueling.

IMPORT REPLACEMENT Philadelphia’s economy strengthens when we make goods locally rather than importing them.

The more money we retain here, the more we can hire one another and reduce the costs of hauling from afar.

The less we spend importing fuel, for example, the more money we keep for savings and for buying extras-like restaurant meals, house repairs, massage, handcrafts, music and art.

Locally-controlled grassroots development, at right, enables the bucket to grow and fill. Philadelphia achieves better distribution of wealth and authority, which reduces crime. Everyone plays an important part, and no one is left behind.

GREEN FUNDING SOURCES PUBLIC Federal State Local County Town City Authority PRIVATE For-Profit Large Company multinational national state Small Company national state regional local neighborhood Venture Capital Non-profit Tax-Exempt Charitable Educational Incorporated Co-op: food, fuel, housing, Mutual Aid Fraternal Society Labor Union: Greenworker Credit Union: Green Land Trust Unincorporated Formal member-based buying club child care co-op home repair co-op (sweat equity) non-member based Informal barter: family, friends gift economy

FUNDING

FUNDING TYPES Dollars, Euros, HOURS, Scrip, Computer Credits, In-Kind, Barter, Sweat Equity, Land, Housing

FUNDING THEMES: energy efficiency demand side management solar electric solar hot water wind energy geothermal thermal mass crime prevention offender aid and restoration public health disease control health care access nutrition hunger organic agriculture urban agriculture storm water management water quality labor advocacy buy local buy American Equal Exchange import replacement transit transit-oriented development business development job development youth development at-risk career track apprenticeships minority business and hiring

Philadelphia Regional & Independent Stock Exchange (PRAISE): Investing in Community Everybody wants more money so they can enjoy life, send kids to college and retire well. To achieve these, over 40% of American households have invested in stocks and bonds.

But Wall Street is risky and even destructive. Bull markets lure the middle class to bet heavily then, often, their money dissolves. $1,000 worth of Nortel stock within one year fell to $13.00. Enron's $1,000 suddenly became $41; Worldcom lost $995 of the thousand. These collapses can't be controlled: the watchdog workload of the Securities & Exchange Commission grew by 80% between 1991-2000 while staff grew just 20%.

Even when the market's rising, only 3% of trading is essentials like food and fuel. Warmaking, prisons, and traffic accidents are profitable, while neighborhoods and family farms fail. Likewise it has been assumed that, for construction to thrive, our cities must build taller, must consume vast hinterlands, must yield to ever-wider highways and ever-more cars, and must spread across forests and fields. Although tragedies such as pollution, crime, famine, epidemics and war are profitable for some sectors, they cripple longrange market expansion.

All commerce depends on replenishment of soils, fresh water, minerals and fuels.

Where's a safer place to invest? Many now realize that unless the global economy is based on a world of stable communities amid healthy environments, trading stable currencies, then bank accounts are just worthless big numbers. Getting reliably rich means investing regionally.

We can bring our pensions and savings home to rebuild America, in Philadelphia. Local From the “Poor Industry� starting wealth will make our city an to a Green Economy outstanding place to raise kids Poverty is Philadelphia’s major and retire, providing steady industry. The Poor, 25% here, are friends, child care and home flesh to exploit (small pay, big rent), care; vacations & fun; healthy control (evaluate, certify, police), food, water & air; civic beauty; ]and punish (courts, prisons). We do least crime. Investors large and to the poor everything but provide small can systematically create community enterprises that them the tools (land, home provide us retirement equities ownership, jobs, respect) with transferable to other which to prove they are communities with affiliated the equal of everyone else. programs.

Philadelphia Regional & Independent Stock Exchange (PRAISE): Investing in Community Everybody wants more money so they can enjoy life, send kids to college and retire well. To achieve these, over 40% of American households have invested in stocks and bonds.

But Wall Street is risky and even destructive. Bull markets lure the middle class to bet heavily then, often, their money dissolves. $1,000 worth of Nortel stock within one year fell to $13.00. Enron's $1,000 suddenly became $41; Worldcom lost $995 of the thousand. These collapses can't be controlled: the watchdog workload of the Securities & Exchange Commission grew by 80% between 1991-2000 while staff grew just 20%.

Even when the market's rising, only 3% of trading is essentials like food and fuel. Warmaking, prisons, and traffic accidents are profitable, while neighborhoods and family farms fail. Likewise it has been assumed that, for construction to thrive, our cities must build taller, must consume vast hinterlands, must yield to ever-wider highways and ever-more cars, and must spread across forests and fields. Although tragedies such as pollution, crime, famine, epidemics and war are profitable for some sectors, they cripple longrange market expansion.

All commerce depends on replenishment of soils, fresh water, minerals and fuels.

Where's a safer place to invest? Many now realize that unless the global economy is based on a world of stable communities amid healthy environments, trading stable currencies, then bank accounts are just worthless big numbers. Getting reliably rich means investing regionally.

We can bring our pensions and savings home to rebuild America, in Philadelphia. Local From the “Poor Industry� starting wealth will make our city an to a Green Economy outstanding place to raise kids Poverty is Philadelphia’s major and retire, providing steady friends, child care and home industry. The Poor, 25% here, are flesh to exploit (small pay, big rent), care; vacations & fun; healthy food, water & air; civic beauty; control (evaluate, certify, police), ]and punish (courts, prisons). We do least crime. Investors large and small can systematically create to the poor everything but provide community enterprises that them the tools (land, home provide us retirement equities ownership, jobs, respect) with transferable to other which to prove they are communities with affiliated the equal of everyone else. programs.

Creating these communities, to ensure our personal security within a safer world, requires new kinds of investment, managed by people we trust and control-- fellow Philadelphians whose homes and jobs depend on PRAISEworthy local business development. New green programs are beginning which will retain wealth locally, stimulate thousands of creative jobs, meet all basic needs, share power with lower-income residents, repair the environment, and distinguish Philadelphia as one of the most robust cities in the Americas.

The vitality of any market demands capitalization of microenterprise innovation-- many largest corporations started in kitchens or garages. Zero-interest community currency microloans, too small for commercial lenders, can help start or expand promising new small businesses. Simultaneously, new local money opens new local markets for these businesses.

How could we raise this money without relying on gambling or taxes? The Philadelphia Regional and Independent Stock Exchange (PRAISE) will enable a wide range of private investors to invest safely in Philadelphia to build genuine wealth and security. Everyone, rich and poor, has some type of capital required-- skills, tools, time, topsoil, property, cash. PRAISE pools this capital, defines program RFPs, issues bonds and negotiables, vets contractors, provides grants and loans to the businesses described below, monitors program progress, redeems bonds by issuing business notes, defines the transferability of bonds.

HERE ARE THE DETAILS: GUIDING PRINCIPLES? This Mutual Enterprise System retains and expands wealth to provide jobs that clean the environment. It converts capital into harmless and beneficial work. It provides basic benefits for all, and special benefits for investors. It transfers technological and economic power to lower-income residents, building relevant skills. Public benefit is personal benefit, whether we're rich or poor.

HOW IS PRAISE DIFFERENT than a standard stock market or Community Development Corporation?

* investments may be made with other than dollars * repays with regional bonds/notes redeemable for services and goods * repays investors and donors both * pays half of interest in advance * elects seats on the Exchange by community rather than by purchase or appointment * businesses are selected which rely on technologies manageable by neighborhoods rather than centralized expertise/machinery, and which reduce pollution * businesses are selected which transfer economic power to community v. agencies which help the poor stay poor * relies on community-based market indicators set by the Securities and Ecologies Commission (SEC) rather than narrower profit/loss measures * monetizes tools, skills, crops, soil, volunteer hours, labor hours, development rights transferred (incentive for buyer as well as seller), negawatts, restraint of childbirth, locallymade warranty * regulates transfers of negotiables/bonds among the PRAISE programs as services become available.

WHAT DO INVESTORS GET? Transferable equity in community enterprises that provide secure sources of food, fuel, housing. Interest earned is community interest, in order to provide investors immediate return, fun, food, health, housing, keys to city, gratitude, inheritance,

retirement security, in the form of negotiables, bonds, services, goods.

• Credits issued are valued according to priorities set by PRAISE. • Investors gain ownership that's anchored to region to benefit a community which includes themselves.

• Stocks in such companies are benefits transferable to affiliated companies elsewhere.

• They receive community Interest in the form of discounts (in advance) & services (including municipal non-utility), standard accrual, authority and honors.

• Largest investors are repaid not only directly by direct investment, but by the new markets rising from energy efficiency, discretionary spending, and ecotourism.

• Thus, ultimately, investors get to live well in a good community. They provide a heritage for their children and grandchildren. They serve America and the world.

EXAMPLE: Joe buys $500 of four-year PRAISE bonds. He receives immediate 8% Community Interest ($40) in the form of discount (>25%) coupons provided by local businesses which themselves receive long-term PRAISE bonds at half the value of the discount given.

EXAMPLE: Jessie volunteers 50 hours installing insulation and receives $500 of PRAISE bonds. Interest and principal are repaid as above.

EXAMPLE: Ephraim sells a building to PRAISE for $150,000 of PRAISE bonds.

EXAMPLE: Elana transfers property development rights valued at $50,000 to PRAISE for a tax deduction plus $10,000 of PRAISE bonds.

As PRAISE businesses develop and issue their own store notes (regulated by PRAISE), these investors may select to redeem some of their PRAISE bonds for store notes, or negawatts, or local currency, at principle + another 8% interest ($40). Total interest 16%.

The same applies to those who invest volunteer hours doing work needed by any PRAISE business. Hours of labor are paid with PRAISE bonds redeemable for PRAISE goods and services as available.

WHAT COMPANIES? Energy conservation is the foundation of economic development. Millions of dollars yearly kept in Philadelphia, not paid to PECO, is money which can be spent here to stimulate new enterprises and jobs that serve our broader aims. Other basics, like food, water, housing, health care and transportation are top priorities.

FUEL Insulation: countywide would cut our heating/cooling bills by over 80%, giving us discretionary income to support local businesses & farms, thus creating new jobs & strengthening local culture. The foundation of economic development. * Superwindows are translucent walls with R20 and higher. * Cogeneration uses nearly all of other wasted natural gas and heat. * Retrofit walls and attics reduce heating/cooling bills by 80%. * Energy co-ops: solar, wind, hydro * Urban Woodlot/Forest * Depaving FOOD grown locally converts harvests into pasta, canned goods & dehydrated. Food Processing Center: expands local agriculture by enabling farmers to grow for more than the seasonal market. * Bulk Food Center sells the above below commercial rates * Edible Parks and orchards invite free harvest.

WATER * Waterless Toilets: replace toxic sewage sludge w/clean, sweet-smelling fertilizer. No more pooping into clean water. * Water Recharge Basins insulate us from drought.

TRANSPORT Trollies: connecting neighborhoods car-free. More than transportation, ultralight rail cars can be handcrafted w/inlay wood, stained glass, neon Liberty Bell, musicians on board. Big boost to tourism & transit. * Bike lanes & paths would allow us to move safely without traffic jams & pollution.

They permit emergency vehicles to move freely. * Bicycle HPUV manufacture * Street Reclamation HOUSING: Ownership stabilizes neighborhoods, strengthens community participation.

Co-housing & Retirement Co-ops: makes life less costly, more energy-efficient and friendly.

JOBS & TRADE * Import Replacement Center: barter, trade, bank: connects regional skills & tools to create flexible manufacturing networks that capture contracts. * Re-Use Center & Warehouse capture useful goods and materials that would be tossed into dumps. * Re-Manufacturing Center utilizes component parts from non-reusable items * Incubator for community-based ecological enterprises reduces operating costs for each enterprise * Retail outlets for prototypes test markets the above * Dream Come True Job Center connects people to the regional resources that make our wildest hopes real.

HEALTH CARE Alternative healing center rely on natural strength and remedies to promote wellness, prevent illness, and revive. * Health Co-op allows us to self-insure, keeping $50 million/year insurance payments in this county instead of wasting it on HMOs. * Medical/dental clinic co-op/s provide free care for low-income residents.

EDUCATION * Teaching the above refines and spreads these processes * Community meeting spaces for congresses ensure fullest public participation CULTURE/TOURISM Art: mosaics, murals * Theatre * Music * Poetry

HOW IS PRAISE STRUCTURED? Guided by an elected board of directors subject to referenda initiated by investors and community.

Management is organized so that community directly intervenes, expertise is rotated rather than entrenched, new expertise develops reflecting ever-changing circumstances, main incentive is service.

* each shareholder has one vote regardless of investment size * each community member has one vote * democratically elected boards * Celebrate citizens' right to referendum, recall and congress (special meetings).

Constrain tendency of any organization to become bureaucratized and ingrown, serving staff more than the public. Staff must agree to set examples: to be paid regional credits, live simply, compensated by continual revolution * Local woodlots and wetland larger than 440 ft.sq. have total 25% of votes on any proposal to cut or drain them. They vote no on such proposals.

EACH BUSINESS AGREES TO THE FOLLOWING:

1. maximum salary 2 times lowest paid. Maximum pay 2 times livable wage.

Management and staff are motivated by mission, satisfied with right livelihood, paid inkind & regional credits 2. employees must reside within the community 3. local sourcing: RFP for machines, raw materials, design, labor to maximum possible 4. adaptive re-use of buildings. No new footprint or paving expansion.

5. redeem PRAISE stock 6. one vote per resident stockholder 7. one vote per resident 8. board term limits: former voting members invited to remain as elders 9. subject to shareholder and community right to referendum 10. businesses can borrow against the general fund and repay it as donated in sequence or sell services

11. provide public accounting of credits issued 12. redistribute to PRAISE upon dissolution 13. links to related programs worldwide Each business could operate with separate 501(c)3. But under PRAISE umbrella, they 1. coordinate skills, tools, staffs, urban land use 2. share grants, attract investors 3. issue/redeem credits interchangeably among themselves to broaden return on investment and attraction of bonds 4. gain greater cultural impact as part of larger process: 5. share powers of CDC in PA

HOW IS COMMUNITY PROGRESS MEASURED? The SECURITIES AND ECOLOGIES COMMISSION (SEC) defines, valuates, and compiles indicators of local economic health, including such measures as: small farm base, soil depth & rainfall; shopping locally; population stability, birth rate & age distribution; insulation & fireproofing; solar, wind & hydro generation; bike & transit useage; employment & crime. Creates a monthly index based on the above.

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS: gradually taking over certain government functions on a nonprofit direct democratic basis; volunteers earning community equity replace taxes collected by force. To the extent gov't approval has been mandated to establish, fund and regulate, it's essential to have public officials and staff who welcome changes of these types. PRAISE seeks to elect citizens who will provide supportive interface with state/federal.

CONCLUSION: Through PRAISE investment, Philadelphia becomes a fully democratic intentional community where privacy and ownership are secured, while social spaces are plentiful. Most citizens participate as neighbors in mutual aid associations which entitle them to free and low cost health care, fresh local organic food, living in homes which are so well insulated that costs for heating and cooling are mild.

Philadelphians are able to get around town on foot, by bike, trolley, buses. Streets become safe and quiet but for children playing. Mosaic walkways and murals surround. Rivers become so clean again that they’re full of fish.

Taken together, these will allow us to relax in a beautiful community, raising the standard of living while lowering the cost of living. Philadelphia will become a vast satisfaction to residents and powerful example to the world.

PhilaFEL (Philadelphia Fund for Ecological Living) While higher-income Philadelphians have money enough to purchase green renovations or products and to hire green services, lowerincome Philadelphians suffer high costs of home heating and air conditioning, environmental health problems, bad nutrition, and lack of tree cover.

PhilaFEL board of directors will distribute money donated to PhilaFEL to seed environmental sustainability and restoration in the lowest income decile of Philadelphia census tracts.

Application for PhilaFEL funds may be made by writing to PhilaFEL describing the work to be done, the need, the sources of materials, who will be hired. Grants shall be made for projects hiring Philadelphia residents.

Priority will be given to youth programs and green collar job training serving the following categories: SOLAR POWER  active photovoltaics hot water passive thermal mass cooking

URBAN AGRICULTURE tools & toolsheds edible landscaping land (easements) fertilizer orchards (fruits, nuts, berries) FarmerĘźs Markets hydroponics gardening compost (Vermiculture, leaves) food processing (canning, dehydrating) WATER low-flush toilets compost toilets gray water systems xeriscaping WIND POWER micro macro HYDRO POWER faucet run of river HOUSING green roofs superwindows insulation earth berm or underground eco-village TRANSPORT carshare SEPTA bicycles bikepaths

SECURITIES

& ECOLOGIES COMMISSION

(SEC)

PHILADELPHIA ECODEVELOPMENT INDICATORS These 160 INDICATORS of local economic health provide a specific measure for the increase or decline of our sustainable local economy. Valuations are weighted relative to one another according to longrange community wide impact. They are constantly adjusted by the Securities and Ecologies Commission (SEC) to create a more full and balanced portrait of Philadelphia’s economy.

The SEC database plugs in the numbers, calculates values, subtotals and total (base 100).

Raw data are obtained by regular arrangement with relevant agencies or through FOIA. Some are fixed infrastructure calculations; others change monthly, quarterly, semiannually, annually or decenially. Best estimates, with explicit guidelines, may be sufficient.

SEC issues a biennial Seventh Generation report, projecting the impact of trends upon Philadelphians 200 years hence. SEC submits suggested indicator revisions for public discussion.

The five members of the SEC are elected to three year terms. Values may be updated by local university classes and other volunteers.

Details at paulglover.org/sec.html

Local Currency A city that depends strictly on dollars will not have enough money with which to employ everyone, pay fairly, expand health clinics and trollies, revive schools, repair water mains, support neighborhood businesses, and clean our environment.

As money is drained from America's schools, libraries, hospitals, municipal utilities, railways and pensions into self-destructive war, our taxes rise to pay for less.

One way to challenge this misuse of national wealth and power is to print our own medical services money, backed by our willingness to trade it within southeast Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia can create neighborhood currencies and sector currencies such as for SEPTA, free clinics and schools, meeting needs without relying entirely on scarce dollars. We can break the spiral of impoverishment by asserting community creativity.

Supplemental local cash, targeted to small businesses and under/unemployed sectors, enables more local trading to take place, which expands formal business activity and improves creditworthiness. Community currency is a powerful way to bring underutilized labor and talent into local markets, which then feed regional and global trade.

While dollars come to town, shake a few hands then leave, local currency is money with a boundary around it. Yet rather than isolate communities, local cash frees them from the isolation imposed by capital outflows and by low service sector wages, which restrain trade. Local currency enables cities to reach other cities from strength, by maximizing their latent resources to export more and import more. Citizens may even travel more with extra income.

And while it's often assumed that we become wealthier the faster we consume resources and throw them away, local currencies enable us readily to expand ecological economic activity.

Especially importantly, local currency trading reinforces direct face-to-face commerce, as at farmer's markets, where citizens learn about one another as resources, rather than as competitors for scarce dollars.

The stability of money depends upon commodity backing, and the capacity of real people to buy commodities. There is not enough real production (97.5% of foreign exchange trade is currency futures, etc.) to justify the volume of digital trading driving stocks up. Nor is there any longer enough gold or silver available to provide hard money for the volume of commodity trading needed to sustain six billion humans. The more direct relation between community currency supply and local commodity backing can provide stability to federal dollars. DETAILS: ithacahours.com

Real Money HOUR money is cash created locally by everyone who advertises their willingness to accept it. HOURS stay in Philadelphia. HOURS are real money because they’re backed by the real skills and time of local people, and represent our real productive capacity.

Our votes at public meetings ensure that HOURS are issued in a fair and careful manner.

Each time they’re spent they weave a self-help network that creates employment here and forms export industries. HOURS help us replace unnecessary imports with local food, fuel, clothing, tools, services and culture.

Eventually HOURS can be used independent of dollar amounts, protecting us from inflation.

Dollars come to Philadelphia from forces beyond our control, such as multinational corporations, foreign investors and large banks. Dollars visit a while and then leave Philadelphia, primarily for food, fuel and car costs.

Lately more dollars are leaving than usual.

HOURS can gradually plug this leak.

The dollar’s value has fallen because it is backed by nothing but federal debt ($12million million) that can never be repaid. Washington prints $900,000 of debt every minute just to buy what it can’t afford. That’s funny money. When Uncle Sam can no longer collect enough even to repay debt interest to foreign investors they may cease buying dollars.

Then dollars will become useless.

MediCash

A pilot program to fund Philadelphia’s medical services without raising taxes.

Philadelphia’s City Hall can stimulate expansion of clinics, and the public itself can pay doctors directly, when the City agrees to accept a donation of $250,000 of Philadelphia MediCash from PhilaHealthia, Inc., which they'd provide for those purposes.

Local medical supplies vendors and employees could be pleased to accept MediCash as part pay, because the City would agree, contractually, to accept MediCash for specified part of property and/or income tax payment. For this reason too, most landlords and businesses would accept MediCash.

Once issued, MediCash can flow throughout the local economy, particularly to strengthen public and private health services. Medical centers, pharmacies, laboratories, doctors, healers, health food stores and health clubs, bicycle shops, organic farmers, etc. would agree to accept MediCash for specified percentages of fees. The list of participants would be published online.

When the program proves itself, PhilaHealthia Inc. and the City could agree to extend and expand it. State and municipal governments may not issue nonfederal money (scrip) but may accept it for tax payments (e.g. NYS CLS UCC fig. 1-201) when issued by an external organization.

DETAILS: healthdemocracy.org/medicash.html

Co-op Health Care Government and corporate health insurers have failed to protect 47 million Americans from medical costs. Millions more struggle to pay high premiums, and keep jobs they hate just for health insurance.

Co-op health plans have begun to build nonprofit universal coverage, starting locally. Members of the Ithaca (NY) Health Alliance pay just $100/YEAR to be covered for 12 categories of everyday emergency (broken bones, emergency stitches, etc) anywhere in the world, to specified maximum amounts. They also own their own free clinic.

As more people join and renew, the range of coverage expands. ithacahealth.org Philadelphians without health insurance have started a health co-op on the same principles. PhilaHealthia will be a model of efficiency and transparency, with an elected board. healthdemocracy.org/legislation.html When 1,000 have pledged to pay their first year $100 membership, PhilaHealthia will begin as a micro-medical plan and expand, as Ithaca has.

With 135,000 uninsured, our city suffers high rates of asthma, diabetes, cancer, obesity, plus high taxes to cover city employees and the poor.

Small businesses have a hard time keeping trained employees, who seek jobs with insurance. Our 33 hospitals lose $46 millions yearly tending the uninsured. And the uninsured are a likelier source of contagion.

Co-op health plans can free Philadelphians of all ages and incomes from these miseries. Health Democracy will also retain money locally and free discretionary income. That extra cash will stimulate new businesses and jobs.

healthdemocracy.org

Philadelphia: The Next Great Orchard Philadelphia will become the "next great city" by rebuilding itself as an American refuge from expensive oil and gas.

Peak Oil, global warming, de-industrialization, the rise of China and Europe, the declining dollar, population growth and limits to U.S. military power are combining to end cheap fuel, cheap food, cheap homes, cheap consumer goods and cheap land. Everything will soon change.

Most American cities have paved themselves into a corner. To survive, they bring food and fuel from great distances. They are like armies camped far from their sources of supply. All will transform, or fade.

Philadelphia, in the midst of this storm, has an advantage few other major American cities have-- 40,000 vacant lots and 700 empty factories.

Between 1960 and 1990, hundreds of thousands of solid industrial jobs were stolen from Philadelphia workers. When these jobs shipped away to Asia and Latin America, many Philly neighborhoods were destroyed.

Today these huge derelict areas allow us to create a future that works. They are a blank canvas for painting a city that will be stronger, more beautiful, more abundant and fair than any in our hemisphere.

Convention says fill these vacancies with cash machines: condos, casinos and headquarters that pay major taxes. Yet if we did so, Philly would become instead the "next failed city."

By contrast, there are thousands of jobs to be made by becoming the first American metropolis to grow and process most of its own food.

Thousands of acres of urban orchards here will multiply their harvest value, by creating many categories of related jobs and thus reducing the costs of crimefighting, jail building and incarceration.

Getting neighbors outdoors working together makes neighborhoods safer. Giving kids valuable farm skills builds career confidence and pride. Happier kids resist drugs. Trees provide cleaner air, better nutrition and better exercise, which means less public cost for healing sickness. Their shade reduces costs to heat and cool homes. Tourists will come here to enjoy the scene, and learn how we did it.

Amid these orchards we can construct clusters of supremely energyefficient earth-sheltered housing, needing one tenth the fossil fuels to warm and cool them. Ecological colonies (ecolonies) grow food on roofs, recycle rainwater and greywater. These neighborhoods would be linked by light rail and bikepaths. Some streets can be reclaimed for gardens and play. Property values would rise and neighborhood businesses bloom.

phillyorchards.org

proposed

Urban Land Reform Law

Vacant Lot Utilization Act

Whereas 40,000 vacant lots and 700 vacant factories and warehouses within Philadelphia total over 1,000 acres of abandoned resource, and Whereas the City of Philadelphia has been land banking many of these lots for eventual gentrification, and Whereas the City of Philadelphia has no short-term plan to utilize most of these lots, and Whereas 350,000 Philadelphians live in poverty, 40,000 are unemployed, 50,000 children are chronically hungry, and Whereas transfer of these lots to agriculture, particularly orchardry, can teach skills, stimulate related green collar jobs, reduce crime and relieve hunger,

Therefore be it enacted: The following vacant lands shall be declared Permaculture Zones: Vacant lots within this Act are those without an occupied dwelling or active commercial building, currently owned by the City of Philadelphia and located within any Philadelphia census tract whose occupied dwellings are more than forty percent (40%) renter occupied.

Permaculture Zones permit the following utilizations of vacant lands: Any nonprofit agricultural organization incorporated in Pennsylvania may file with the City of Philadelphia their intent to plant and maintain an orchard (fruits, nuts, berries) on any Permaculture Zone vacant lot as defined above. Such organizations may reserve a maximum of twenty-five (25) acres at any one time. A provisional secure tool shed may be placed on the lot.

Any such organization having filed must complete required planting, below, within one month for each acre or less claimed. Six acres, for example, must be planting within six months. Failure to do so transfers authorization to plant to the second organization having filed for that land, and so on.

The nonprofit organization planting the orchard will thereafter receive title to the lot when they have planted dwarf fruit trees and/or nut trees a maximum twelve (12) feet distant from one another upon a minimum seventy-five percent (75%) of that part of the lot which is not shaded by structures more than six (6) hours at winter solstice. Plantings of berries and other edible perennials shall credit toward the required percentage of planted area half that for food trees.

During and after planting, the City of Philadelphia will sell water to the organization for agricultural use at wholesale prices.

The organization must covenant to enlarge orchard areas to at least the minimum specified above when insolation expands and to maintain the orchard (watering, weeding, pruning, harvesting). Pest controls by Integrated Pest Management are permitted; toxic spraying is not.

Once title is transferred, the organization may erect permanent structures related to orchards, for tool sheds, greenhousing, harvest storage, food processing, meetings, etc., but these may not occupy more than twenty percent (20%) of the lot.

The structures must be situated on the property to minimize shading trees.

Delinquent City of Philadelphia property taxes shall be forgiven. The organization may lease the lot to a neighborhood organization or commercial orchardist consistent with all regulations pertaining in this Act. Standards above shall be monitored by Pennsylvania Co-operative Extension in conjunction with the Philadelphia Urban Farm Network. Failure to maintain the lot in good order shall cause title to be forfeit and the land available again to the City of Philadelphia, then to next permaculture organization.

RECIRCULOUS Urban Eco-Renaissance Faire

WE ARE ALL THE SHOW: ! Planting Fruit Trees !

"Removing Paving # $ Pedal Power % Sun Power $ & Jugglers, Jumpers, Jigglers & ' Poppers ' Poopers ' ( Clowns ) Chariots ) Crowds ( *Rubber Houses, Boffo Hoses * + Green Jobs + Green Money + Majestic, Stunning, Empowering!

a participatory microcosm of the future Liberating the imagination, for the city and the planet.

“it’s inevitable!”

PHILADELPHIA

PATCH ADAMS FREE CLINIC at Philadelphia !!! Located in a low-income Philadelphia neighborhood, this clinic will provide community-based health care that is genuinely non-profit, preventive, humane and fun. It is a refuge for doctors and nurses who want time to heal patients. It is a refuge for patients who want to be treated with dignity.

For a small annual fee, members will own this clinic, gaining diagnosis and referral, dentistry, chronic and urgent care, counseling, pediatrics, birthing, hospicare, massage, family planning, chiropractic, acupuncture, and other therapies.

More than a health facility, the clinic is an economic development model which solves several urban problems. Existing medical facilities are overcrowded and underfunded. Suffering is untended, both mental and physical. Infectious disease rates are high. 200,000 are un-insured here. Unemployment and resultant crime are high.

The Patch Adams Free Clinic therefore offers healing, learning, play, food and work. Designed and decorated whimsically in the spirit of Dr. Patch Adams, our clinic reminds that true healing touches the soul. Permission to establish this clinic has been given by Patch Adams and the Gesundheit! Institute, according to standards below.

The facility will contain meeting rooms, quiet rooms, cafeteria (local foods), musical instruments, art materials, clown costumes and health library.

These spaces face a central circular atrium featuring plants, mosaic paths, and acoustic concerts. The waiting areas offer ergonomic chairs, cushions, cots, playpen, board games and health literature.

Because clean air and clean water are foundations of personal health, this building will exemplify green technologies. Building materials are regional, recycled, hypoallergenic. The entire single-story building will be passive solar and earth sheltered to reduce heating and cooling costs.

The green roof mound features walking paths with wheelchair access to the peak, an edible labyrinth, berry bushes, amphitheatre, picnicking and playground.

Because meaningful jobs are fundamental to self-esteem and public safety, green jobs training will be available.

BROADER AIMS • We intend this clinic to become a medical center with overnight beds and surgeries.

• We intend to establish a nonprofit medical college that generates hundreds of competent caring doctors, dedicated foremost to serving humanity.

• We intend to democratize health care by training ourselves to heal one another.

• We intend to democratize health finance by self-insuring and by creating our own credit systems. Medicare for All can be kept affordable, democratic and honest when based on a national network of local and regional member-owned co-op plans that selfinsure for simple emergencies, and that pool surplus to start free clinics for preventive care.

• We intend to stimulate the local economy through reducing the costs of healing. This clinic will restrain gentrification by prompting equitable development and land trusts.

• We intend to facilitate rebuilding of Philadelphia toward balance with nature. The public foundations of personal health are clean food, clean water and clean air.

CLINIC BENEFITS TO NEIGHBORS * Quick access to free primary care: medical, dental, optical + referrals * Green jobs training * Youth programs * Fresh food and farmers’ market * Meeting spaces * Recreation: basketball, volleyball, soccer * Picnic areas * Pageant areas, Flea market * Spinoff customers for neighborhood businesses * Community trade and barter network * Safer streets: defensible space * Investment in land trusts * Volunteers for the above * Media attention to problems and solutions * Spirit of hope, power, fun

PATCH ADAMS

EXTRA BENEFITS for members: Massage, Chiropractic, Birthing, Hospice, Injury reimbursement, Child care, Acupuncture, Yoga, Exercise, Veterinary, MediCash, Microloans interest-free for home repair and businesses, Insulation buying club, Discounts with Philadelphia healers and other businesses.

BENEFITS TO CITY AND ITS ECONOMY • Diversions from Emergency Rooms • Decreased tax burden for city clinics • Increased sales taxes through increased household discretionary spending not lost to medical costs • Stabilized property values • Stimulation of neighborhood investment and business development • Reduced high school dropout rate through increased interest in learning • Increased sales taxes from medical tourism and greater media attention to Philadelphia • Greater competitive advantage for medical conventions through side trip • Trains workers for green jobs • Increased worker productivity through reduced sick time • Reduced public health costs through reduced contageon risks • Reduced air conditioning costs through urban heat island abatement • Reduced city carbon footprint • Reduced rainwater runoff to storm sewers, reduced sewage to rivers • Expanded reliance on transit

CLINIC BENEFITS TO NEIGHBORS * Quick access to free primary care: medical, dental, optical + referrals * Green jobs training * Youth programs * Fresh food and farmers’ market * Meeting spaces * Recreation: basketball, volleyball, soccer * Picnic areas * Pageant areas, Flea market * Spinoff customers for neighborhood businesses * Community trade and barter network * Safer streets: defensible space * Investment in land trusts * Volunteers for the above * Media attention to problems and solutions * Spirit of hope, power, fun

CLICK TO ENLARGE

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS MAIN FLOOR: Healing !diagnostic

SURROUNDS: !

basketball court !tennis court !soccer field !bike shelter !spyramid !orchard and farm (vegetables/herbs) flea market and farmers’ market edible labyrinth Other ! !windmills and whirligigs health fairs !pageant fields and tents !job counseling: green !Recirculous !education and training Remote Area Medical !medical library !amphitheatre !meeting rooms !classrooms !board games in waiting area !music studios !art studios !concerts in atrium: acoustic !cafeteria: onsite and regional food !food processing !retail shop: local goods only !volunteer lounge

!palliative !referral !minor surgery !urgicare !overnight observation !hospice !dental !preventive counseling !prenatal !birthing pool !watsu pool !whirlpool neonatal !massage “rub room” !acupuncture !shiatsu !physical therapy !chiropractic !herbal !skin care !mental health: group therapy !smoking quit

PREPARE FOR THE

BEST

by Paul Glover (City Paper cover story 1/29/09) The Dark Season closes around Philadelphia. Wolves howl, "Tough times coming!" Young professionals with good jobs study budget cuts, watch stocks flail. Career bureaucrats are laid off; college students wonder who's hiring. Old-timers remember when Philadelphia staggered through the terrible Depression years without jobs or dollars, while crime and hunger rose. Some districts here never escaped that Depression — they're still choosing between heating and eating.

As usual, the future will be different.

Philadelphia's responses to global warming and market cooling, high fuel and food prices, health unsurance, mortgages, student debt and war will decide whether our future here becomes vastly better or vastly worse. Whether we're the Next Great City or Next Great Medieval Village.

Imagine Philadelphia with one-tenth the oil and natural gas.

But to hell with tragedy. Let's quit dreading news.

Take the Rocky road. There are Philadelphia solutions for every Philadelphia problem.

Imagine instead that, 20 years from now, Philadelphia's green economy enables everyone to work a few hours creatively daily, then relax with family and friends to enjoy top-quality local, healthy food. To enjoy clean low-cost warm housing, clean and safe transport, high-quality handcrafted clothes and household goods. To enjoy creating and playing together, growing up and growing old in supportive neighborhoods where everyone is valuable. And to do this while replenishing rather than depleting the planet.

Pretty wild, right?

Entirely realistic. Not a pipe dream. And more practical than cynicism. The tools, skills and wealth exist.

Mayor Michael Nutter foresees we'll become the "Greenest City in the United States." So it's commonsensible to ask, "What are the

tools of such a future?" "What jobs will be created?" "Who has the money?" "Where are the leaders?" "How will Philadelphia look?" "What can we learn from other cities?"

Some of the proposals sketched here can be easily ridiculed, because they disturb comfortable work habits, ancient traditions and sacred hierarchies. Yet they open more doors than are closing. They help us get ready for the green economy, and get there first. Big changes are coming so we might as well enjoy the ride. You have good ideas, too — bring 'em on.

From "Yes We Can" to "Now We Do"

As President Barack Obama says, "Change comes not from the top down, but from the bottom up." Philadelphia's chronic miseries suggest that primary dependence on legislators, regulators, police, prisons, bankers and industry won't save us. They're essential partners, but the people who will best help us are us. As stocks and dollars decay, most new jobs will be created by neither Wall Street nor government.

We and our friends and neighbors will start community enterprises; co-operatives for food, fuel, housing and health; build and install simple green technologies to dramatically cut household costs. Then we can have fun. Music, sex, breakfast. Music, sex, lunch. Music, sex, dinner.

Amid the worst daily news, thousands of Philadelphia organizations and businesses, block captains, landlords, homeowners and tenants are already setting the table for an urban feast. Many know they are part of a movement seldom noted by media; others work alone. Some take big bites of this future; others nibble. Several take large risks; others go slow. Rather than stare at gloom, they fix it. They see a future that works.

From Hope to Nonviolent Revolution

The trumpets and drums of Philadelphia's green symphony are its boldest groups and businesses.

They set the pace for rebuilding the entire city toward balance with nature. While all green actions are celebrated, here are some Philly "Best of Future" nominations. For more details, see greenjobsphilly.org/future.html.

FOOD: Grow it here

Challenges: Like an army camped far from its sources of supply, Philadelphia trucks food from hundreds and thousands of miles away, especially in winter. Costs of harvest, processing and distribution rise, raising prices. Fertile soils were scraped bare. Thousands are

hungry here. Relax, though, we're not riding a spoon to the mouth of doom. An urban food army is marching.

Next steps: Philadelphia has 40,000 vacant lots.

Their best use is now for growing fruits, berries and veggies. Same with many of our 700 abandoned factories: These are prime sites for vertical and roof farms, hydroponics, aquaculture, mushrooms. Plant the parks, too. Greenhouses extend seasons. Land breathes again when abandoned parking lots are depaved. Edible landscaping blooms meals. Edible community centers process neighborhood yields. Fallen leaves stay in neighborhoods to become new soil. Feeding kitchen scraps to worms (vermiculture) builds the food of food.

Local heroes: Mill Creek Urban Farm, Greensgrow, Weaver's Way Co-Op Farm, City Harvest, Youth 4 Good, Philadelphia Orchard Project, Neighborhood Gardens Association, Philadelphia Urban Farm Network, Farm to City, edible landscapers, Philadelphia School and Community IPM Partnership, Henry George School, Philadelphia's greenhouses, Community Supported Agriculture.

World champions: Beijing grows all its vegetables within 60 miles. TerraCycle manufactures organic soil. Guerrilla Gardeners throw seed bombs. Sites: cityfarmer.org, urbanagriculture-news.com, spinfarming.com.

Books: Food Not Lawns, The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book, The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping. Keywords: depaving, urban land reform, solar envelope zoning.

Big picture: Philadelphia can become a giant orchard and year-round garden, housing and reliably feeding more people than live here today.

FUEL: Who lights your fire?

Challenges: Within 20 years Philadelphia businesses, homes and agencies that waste energy will close. Philadelphia Gas Works CEO Thomas Knudson recently declared that natural gas is a "transitional fuel" beyond which this city must evolve. The price of coal tripled last year. PECO rates will leap within two years [end of 2010].

Electric shut-offs rise. So we'll rebuild Philadelphia rather than fade.

Next steps: Establish independent neighborhood utilities with wind, passive solar and microgeothermal. Employ thousands to build and install these. Employ multitudes more to manufacture and install insulation made with newsprint and fly ash (a residue of coal combustion). We'll get free winter warmth from 500,000 solar windowbox heaters. District heating and cogeneration reduce fuel need. Municipal utilities reduce grid costs.

Tree shade reduces cooling costs: Plant a million.

Local heroes: Energy Coordinating Agency, BioNeighbors Sustainable Homes, Roofscapes, Philadelphia Green, Philly Tree People, Urban Tree Connection, green contractors. Harold Finegan's gym needs no fossil fuel for heating and cooling.

World champions: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Rocky Mountain Institute, Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

Book: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It Ourselves Guide.

Big picture: Philadelphia can function even better with one-tenth the fossil fuel. Our lives will be more secure.

HOUSING: Stand your ground

Challenges: Absentee ownership and unemployment discourage repair and foster blight.

Gentrification, foreclosure and taxes pressure humble homes. More middle class become homeless daily. Whether rowhouse or condo, homes won't be affordable unless massively insulated. And hey, river wards, both ocean and sewage are rising.

Next steps: Renters become homeowners through right-of-first-refusal (landlords offer sale first to renters) and sweat equity credits (renters swap community work for houses). Enforce law requiring absentee owners to have local agents.

Shift to Land Value Taxation, which places tax burden on land rather than homes. Equitable development is a legal movement that' prevents gentrification through restraints and incentives.

Enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires lending in low-income neighborhoods (not sub-prime) and prohibits racial lending. Cease evictions based on dishonest loans. Evict shady lenders. As heating bills rise we'll move underground, because deep dirt is the best insulation. Not just elites to bunkers (Bill Gates lives inside a hillside), but all of us into pleasant, sunlit ecolonies. Big solar windows catch winter heat. Amend building codes for green innovation.

Local heroes: Hundreds of local organizations fight for and finance affordable neighborhoods.

Women's Opportunity Resource Center, Women's Community Revitalization Project, Philadelphia Housing Task Force, Community Land Trust Corp., Project H.O.M.E., People's Emergency Center, African-American Business & Residents Association, Henry George School, Habitat for Humanity, Green Roof Philadelphia, Ray of Hope Project, churches. Major underground buildings in Philadelphia include Franklin Court Museum, Wilma Theater, Penn Center shops.

World champions: Germany requires R70 insulation — three times tighter than the typical

U.S. home — in new buildings. National Community Reinvestment Coalition, United for a Fair Economy, Earthships, Boston City Life/Vida Urbana, Equitable Development Toolkit, Shelterforce. Book: The Earth-Sheltered House: An Architect's Sketchbook.

Big picture: Everyone living in Philadelphia in 50 years will be living in earth shelters. Green means we'll all be comfortable. No behind left chill.

HEALTH CARE: Healthy rebellion

Challenges: Corporate insurers raise costs, limit choices, resist paying. They block reform legislation. Premiums rise beyond the reach of millions. ' Taxes rise to cover city employee benefits and indigent care. Thousands of Philadelphians are stuck in jobs they dislike, to keep insurance. ' Philadelphia's 140,000 uninsured avoid care and die earlier, or go bankrupt paying more. Medicaid's waiting list grows. Hospitals close; free clinics lose staff.

Toxic air and chemicals, junk food and lack of exercise cause much disease. Grassroots action will heal city and citizens.

Next steps: While pushing for universal health care (less bureaucracy, lower cost, free choice), gaps can be filled by genuinely nonprofit regional self-financing systems. Fraternal benefit societies and member-owned co-op health plans create independent safety nets and preventive care clinics. Medical centers can barter, accept Philadelphia MediCash.

Local heroes: Thousands of holistic and allopathic healers, Health Care for All Philadelphia, Catholic Worker Free Clinic, Esperanza Health Center, Congreso de Latinos Unidos, Planned Parenthood, Philadelphia Urban Solutions, Philadelphia Community Acupuncture, Philadelphia FIGHT, Philadelphia Health Care Center, PhilaHealthia, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Shriners Hospital for Children. Dozens more at philllyhealthinfo.org.

World champions: Mutual Health Organizations, Ugandan Health Cooperative, Ithaca Health Alliance, Dr. Patch Adams, Healthcare-NOW!, Book: Health Democracy.

Big picture: When sickness is big business, free healing requires insurrection.

MONEY: Give yourselves credit

Challenges: Extreme capitalism and extreme socialism trample humanity. Lack of cash and credit kills businesses, jobs and homes. Some folks still have lots of money, but most of us have less. Dollar power dwindles because dollars are backed by less than nothing: rusting

industry and $10 trillion debt. So we'll print real money — neighborhood currencies — backed by real people.

Next steps: Mutual enterprise systems (neither Wall Street nor Red Square) celebrate the spirit of regional enterprise when it serves community and nature. They applaud innovations — public and private and personal — that meet real needs. Local trading credits based on local land, skills, time and tools refresh the economy.

Poverty is lack of networks more than lack of dollars, and Philadelphia has thousands of networks — business, professional, technical, fraternal, neighborhood, church, union, electoral, senior, youth, racial, sexual, athletic, hobby, family, friends. Woven together they're a powerful base of regional trust, trade and wealth. Take your pick of neighborhood and sector currencies. Cities may not issue them but may accept them for taxes.

Local heroes: Philadelphia's 83 credit unions, Valley Green Bank, e3bank, Equal Dollars, barter exchanges and gift economy, Philadelphia Regional and Independent Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Fund for Ecological Living (PhilaFEL).

World champions: Ithaca HOURS, Berkshares, LETS, Time Banking, National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, Permaculture Credit Union, Grameen Bank microlending, Kiva, Robin Hood Ventures.

Big picture: Dollars control people; local currency connects people.

WATER: Go with the low flow

Challenges: Millions are spent to sanitize polluted river water and pump it to homes. Then we poop into it. Storm drains carry sewage and garbage back to rivers. Sewage treatment does not remove all pharmaceuticals. Old chemical tanks poison groundwater. Sinkholes undermine houses. Bottled-water scam drains local economy. Climate change brings frequent flood and/or drought. ' But new technologies will protect our liquid assets.

Next steps: Amend code to permit filtered graywater yard use, and waterless compost toilets. Install watersaving devices. Collect rainwater in rooftop tanks, barrels and swales.

Plant xeriscapes. Depave driveways and abandoned parking lots. Start Progressive Street Reclamation, converting least-used streets and alleys to playgrounds and gardens.

Local heroes: Philadelphia Water Department taxes pavement, rewards depaving, distributes rain barrels. Friends of the Wissahickon installs compost toilets in the park. These convert turds into clean, sweet-smelling garden soil.

World champions: Swedes collect urine from

apartment houses, store it six months, then use as fertilizer (EcoSanRes). Mexicans collect urine from city hall and schools to fertilize fields (TepozEco). Zimbabweans plant fruit trees atop privy muck (ArborLoo). Book: The Humanure Handbook.

Big picture: Clean water is becoming more valuable than gold. Nobody shits on gold.

TRANSPORT: Be here now

Challenges: Philadelphia's rail system was ripped out for cars, which clog streets and slow emergency response. Cars smash, kill, maim. They inhale paychecks and taxes, exhale rotten air.

They compel war for oil. We'll become stronger and sexier as pedaling bipeds.

Next steps: To risk your life for your country, ride a bike. Hop on the bus. Revive street rail with ultralight passenger cars. Restore regional freight routes. Raise transit funds with local gasoline tax.

Make pathways for bicycles, rollerblades, skateboards, Segways, scooters and wheelchairs.

Restore canals. Zone for mixed use, to reduce travel needs. Live near your work. Employ multitudes making mosaic sidewalks. Convert paving to playgrounds.

Local heroes: PhillyCarShare, Bike Share Philadelphia, Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Neighborhood Bike Works and Bike Church, Critical Mass bike rides, bike shops, Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, Pennsylvania Transit Coalition, PenTrans. Even SEPTA: Trains are clunky and late, but they're there.

World champions: Carfree Cities conferences, carfree.com, World Naked Bike Ride, Urban Ecology.

Big picture: The first cities rebuilt for proximity rather than speed will win this race.

JOBS:

Full employment economy

Challenges: Philadelphia has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs in 50 years. Now we import stuff once made here. Today, millions of American jobs depend on servicing bad things rather than good things. Car crashes are 8 percent of the GDP. How many jobs would end if criminals went on strike? What jobs would be lost if people ate healthy fresh food and exercised? What if we were content with what we owned?' We'll advance from jobs managing damage to jobs creating a beautiful city worthy of beautiful children.

Next steps: All skills can rotate greenward.

Philadelphia needs at least 100,000 green-collar jobs to rebuild, retrofit, plant, harvest, manufacture and repair the homes and tools of the future. Arts and healing arts are green jobs,

too.

Local heroes: Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, American Cities Foundation, Penn Future, Ray of Hope Project.

Green Jobs Philly, Neighborhood Environmental Action Team, Green Labor Administration, several City Council members.

World champions: Blue Green Alliance (enviros and unions united), Green for All, Apollo Alliance, D.C. Greenworks, Sustainable South Bronx.

Big picture: We'll develop new definitions of career, success; build green safety nets.

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY: Luxuriate in Necessities

Challenges: America has been outstanding at pouring concrete, going fast and throwing things away. But high costs of raw materials, manufacture and trucking are causing consumers to quit consuming for the sake of consumption.

Our Next Great Economy will sell more of durable value. We'll all have enough.

Next steps: Regional manufacture will resume as transport costs grow. Top niches will be basics: housing, energy, clothing, housewares.

Orchards and gardens and food processing.

Holistic healing will grow. Likewise, handcrafts. Everything energy-efficient.

Local heroes: Sustainable Business Network, Buy Local Philly, White Dog CafĂŠ, Provenance Architecturals, Re-Store, flea markets, farmers markets, materials exchanges, repair shops, recycling.

World champions: Socially Responsible Investing. 'Magazines: Green Business Journal, Adbusters. 'Site: storyofstuff.org.

Big picture: Smart money invests to raise all boats.

GOVERNMENT: The land is the law of the land

Challenges: Many bureaucrats trained in obsolete systems resist change, defend their turf.

City's health insurers and pensions drag city down.

Next steps: Government welcomes grassroots innovators by passing laws facilitating greening of economy and neighborhoods: urban land reform, urban agriculture, sanitation and water codes, building codes. When urgent change is resisted, citizens underthrow the government.

Local heroes: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, PWD, streets guys who dig on rainy nights.

World champions: City of Curitiba, Brazil,

encourages experimentation and welcomes mistakes. Magazines: Governing, Planners Network.

Big picture: Good government takes risks, makes change easy. "Make no little plans" —Daniel Burnham.

PUBLIC SAFETY: Just be sure to let that happen again

Challenges: Whenever people are hungry, cold or fearful due to unemployment, crime rises.

Isolated resentment becomes street protest or riot. Racism flares. Taxpayers cannot hire enough police to escape chaos. Public safety is secured by creating safety nets for food, fuel, housing and health care.

Next steps: Jobs fight crime. Decriminalize marijuana locally. Hire ex-offenders.

Neighborhood watch instead of neighborhood watch TV. Local heroes: Block captains, Men United for a Better Philadelphia, Ray of Hope Project, City Harvest, People Against Recidivism.

World champions: Time Dollar Youth Court, Rainbow Police. Book: Defensible Space.

Big picture: People who are respected, loved and secure do not kill. '

EDUCATION: Keep it real

Challenges: Curriculums are less relevant to getting jobs or fixing society. Forty-five percent of Philadelphia high-schoolers drop out.

Students are graded like eggs.

Next steps: Respectfully teaching skills of neighborhood management will make learning fun. Teach creativity rather than consumerism.

Local heroes: Thousands of dedicated teachers, Neighborhood Enterprise Schoolteachers, Big Picture schools, magnet schools, Waldorf School. Newspaper: The Notebook.

World champions: Paolo Freire; free university education in Europe.

Big picture: Loving learning is the first lesson.

CULTURE: Life gets highest ratings

Challenges: Media that's cynical about grassroots power features crime and celebrities.

Next steps: Empower average people to make music, art, dance, theater. Revive street-corner singing. Bring back vaudeville. Parachute clowns into parks.

Local heroes: Mural Arts Program, Raices Culturales Latinoamericanas, Spiral Q Puppet Theater, 373 groups listed at philaculture.org.

Locally made homecrafts. Philadelphia's 3,000

murals feature children, heroes, nature.

World champions: El Sistema (Venezuela) makes barrio kids into maestros.

Big picture: Everyone is a creative genius.

Good culture releases that power and beauty.

CONCLUSION Whether you're a student, job seeker, employee or retiree, there are thousands of ways to connect to Philadelphia's green movement. You're the one we've been waiting for. Check the ever-growing list of local green-jobs Web sites. Visit local green businesses and groups. Time to bring those murals to life.

Paul Glover teaches metropolitan ecology at Temple University. He is founder of the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), Ithaca HOURS local currency, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles and other groups.

He is the author of Green Jobs Philly, Health Democracy and Hometown Money. More information at paulglover.org. ______________________________

LINKS TO LOCAL GROUPS NOTED HERE

greenjobsphilly.org makes it easy for Philadelphians to offer and request green jobs, green services, green grants and green loans. You can upload your resume, pitch a business idea.

Green Jobs Philly News is a monthly email featuring the greening of Philadelphia’s economy. A torrent of good news!

Recyclable Products Designers Recyclers metal, paper , plastic , rubber Resource recovery Landfill mining Re-use Centers Roofer, Green Teacher , environmental Shoemaker, recycled materials Soapmaker, Biodegradable, Nontoxic Social Responsibility Manager Soil builder Solar Consultant Solar Engineer Soundproofer Storyteller Sustainability Coordinator Surveyor

Sustainability Advisor - Climate Taxi, Green Teacher, Green Jobs Tour guide/recreational staff Toxicologist Travel, Eco Vacant Lot Remediator Vintner, Viticulturist Waste Compliance Coordinator Water Quality Scientist/Monitors Groundwater Wetland/Plant Ecologist Weed Abatement Manager Wildlife Conservation Wildlife Rehabilitator Wildlife Scientist Woodlot Manager Zoologist

How to Begin

Jump in. Starting is magic. You already have skills to contribute. Learn more from others as you proceed, but don’t be intimidated by official credentials (people without college degrees include Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, George Washington, Aristotle, and Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe). Everyone has much to offer.

Connect to act by: • Educating yourself on any topic by exploring the internet.

• Ask someone you respect to share their skills. Offer to trade services.

• Network by attending meetings and parties relevant to your interests.

• Volunteer for an organization you love. Sometimes they’ll offer a job.

• Start an organization: give it a clear catchy name. Write and/or videotape its manifesto-- what you’re doing and why. Find people who agree by tabling in public places.

• Start a business. See a need and fill it smarter, quicker, cheaper.

Start with whoever’s willing to begin. You are authorized.

Let it grow.

LINK

to Philadelphia groups:

greenjobsphilly.org/future.html

Books by Paul Glover

Glover is founder of 18 organizations and campaigns, including Ithaca HOURS local currency, Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, League of Uninsured Voters (LUV) Patch Adams Free Clinic, Ithaca Health Alliance. He has founded and edited several community newspapers, and taught Urban Studies at Temple University. In 1978 he walked across the United States from Boston to San Diego.

He was invited by the Green Party to participate as a candidate in their 2004 Presidential primaries.

paulglover.org