CITIZEN PLANNERS for FULL EMPLOYMENT, ECOLOGY, and NEIGHBORHOOD POWER
The first work of citizen planners is to redesign as boldly as government and industry do: to plan transformations with solar technology and orchards like commerce plans with highways and realty. We plan broadly enough to coordinate regional use of our resources and flexibly enough to rely on initiatives by individuals and neighborhoods. Citizen Planners recommends that neighborhoods inventory their resources and create preliminary designs to best juxtapose homes with croplands, solar turbines, water mains, and solar freight rail. Citizen Planners prepares orderly transitions, and shows how to fasten the nuts and bolts of metropolitanscale alternate technology. It presents a city wholly different from the one we know. Experience reminds us that even the immediate problems of crime, traffic, poison air, unemployment, and inflation are not relieved by merely patching the urban mess. Time binds us to great change. Here follows a short summary of the inventory's precepts: • A. Natural resources would be used at the rate they naturally renew. This is the heart of ecology. • B. Food and fuel would be produced at household, neighborhood, municipal, and regional levels. This is the heart of social cohesion. • C. The economy would become a "mutual enterprise" system. Work would be apportioned to enable all to labor. This is the heart of dignity. • D. Culture would become decentralized and participatory, releasing the creative genius in everyone. This is the heart of joy.
This is a sample four-block section being gradually rebuilt. Next page shows an entire square mile. Homes are replaced with earthships needing no fuel bills. Broad spaces are orchards.