The car abets obesity / The girth is there for all to see

The car abets obesity The girth is there for all to see There is but one clarion call Cars should be peripheral
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If this appeals,  you might check out  Pattern Language thoughts at
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Think of Making Business Come to You

My headline is speculative but suggestive It suggests we - workers - creators - skilled ones - etc. could turn the tables on the entire control KochWorld now exerts over everyone Simply insist we work where we live The employer must locate  a portion of business where we are or we work remotely from home  or a nearby workplace away from our private space More and more of us will prefer an urban car-free environment  (where vehicles are limited to the periphery) with everything is within walking or jogging distance It will become cheaper and vastly more integral to work remotely  It beats living in a sprawl-burb having cars for every member of the family and commuting your life away If you want to think of a new economy where workers actually have some leverage think of creating a union of all workers who insist on working remotely Think of making business come to you

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Open Source Economics can work in the US under current law

Open Source Economics can work in the US  Cyber-Communities can and should be incorporated as not for profit They do not replace the current economy They enable the expansion of the Open Source model
Like-minded persons should create models of communities sponsor creation of plans and designs and actually build communities using pre-made components such as  standard surfaces  sound-proof walls a matrix made up of modular components   The iteration of these efforts can be hugely profitable via  licensing arrangements royalties and fees
Community that is integral needs to  sieze current imagination An integral Cyber Community is the car-free celebration of the coming megalopolis This is a the major business frontier of this century
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Dear Jeff Bezos, here's your big idea. You can do this.

Jeff Bezos - Forbes http://buff.ly/Y2ja8R
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Jeff you told Charlie Rose you wanted to do something no one else has done Alright Do this
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Hire a team to design a prototype of what I have called a cyber-community A diverse multi-purpose community  of around 10K persons   car-free  with urban amenities  where one lives and works and recreates.  The design should have the following components The community should be compact  no more than a mile from side to side It should have no stairs and no more than four levels It should be built to withstand flood fire and extreme weather It should generate and distribute  the bulk of its own energy It should collect much of its energy  in the form of wind and sun It  should be prefabricated Its surfaces and walls should be smart and dupllicable and easily replaceable A cyber community of this sort would have residences and work spaces and all the public and commercial elements we associate with urban life scaled to the needs of the particular community Stores would be cyber-kiosks  where one could access all products on a large screen and order them for delivery Public facilities would be used in common There would be a public square every 100 yards or so
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Once you get the design and build a model you will be able to market this as the wave of an ecologically sane future When you build your next data center build one of these
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There is much more on cyber-communities on this little blog Believe me Jeff the person who makes properly-scaled integral sustainable living normative will have opened the door to a viable future
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My Progressive Proposal Par Excellence Time for A Mass Migration

Election Data Dive - NYTimes.com: " Romney also won eight of the 10 states with the lowest population density: Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska and Utah. "

'via Blog this'

Every one of my posts is an introduction to this blog which is an introduction to angles of visions shared by many but realized by few.

Part of the problem is one of expression, my own. I know what I want to see but I cannot draw it or even describe it very well.

But it is the solution in almost every area - politics, society whatever.

So here is a chunk. We could profit massively from a mass migration.

We do not need to be in this or that city. With a bit of brain power we could create the cells of urban living anywhere at all.

So go to the states where Romney won. Buy up defunct towns. Build new car-free cities on high enough ground that they will not flood when it rains.

We can solve the problem of polarization and social injustice by making residence voluntary and building in diversity from the gitgo.

Communities would have populations of 5-10K and everything within a walk of up to a mile.

Communities would be car free.

Construction would be cyber-eco past the clunkiness of most comtemporary construction.

This will revolutionize the whole world because it will involve applying smarts to human settlements and introduce community safety and weather-resistance into the discussion ,

Oh, and ...

Once we have the majority in these states we can sleep better on election night.


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Has the computer reduced chldhood to dross

The Original Playstation is quite obviously a call to reconsider the option available to childrenin today's worldwhere the dawning Cyber Age  gradually impacts the waning Industrial AgeThe notion that we will have no outside playassumes that the Industrial Automobile Sprawl Koch Ageis still dominantThe reality is that everything is being transformedfrom the smallest to the largestWhat we call the environment will be the lastWhen that transformation comes we will no longer be a consumer culturelost in sprawlOur environment will enable the creation ofCyber-Community

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Cyber-community 101 - Lesson Three

Cyber-community 101 - Lesson Two | ShortFormContent at Blogger | ShortFormContent at Blogger:

'via Blog this'

 A cyber-community must be dense enough

to enable growth of a viable local economy

Why is this so

In the United States we suffer from 

too much dispersion in rural areas

No local economy can thrive there

In our metro areas

a combination of zoning

and concentration

inhibits the growth of natural

economies

A reasonable density for a viable local 

economy

is between 5,000 and 10,000

Such populations can support

local versions of

commercial

residential

cultural

educational

health

and recreational

facilities

These can be staffed by local people

A viable local economy will need in the future

to generate its own energy

When a community is dense enough 

and is free of most or all automobile traffic

it can develop new ways of

energy generation

even including energy generated by

human activity

and human interaction with

such things as

turbines 

and pendulums

developed for fitness

and play purposes

In the future people will choose diversity

characteristic of cities

in preference to monochromatic

stratified sprawl existence

Communities as envisioned here 

can exist in close proximity

Free Public Transit Video: Post Carbon Institute: There is no tomorrow: 

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Twelve Reasons Romney is Going Down as We Speak

ShortFormContent at Blogger: Mildred Purse says Karl Rove is full of it:

'via Blog this'

Surrounded by neo-cons who counsel war

Tied to Rove and the Koch Brothers 

Identified with Bork and overturning Rowe v Wade  

Health care conundrum
Foreign policy flops
Horrendous media advice

Tepid and borderline endorsements

No honeymoon bounce

Past statements come home to roost

No place to pivot to 

The GOP Congress

On all accounts an undesirable risk

 People's solution - 

Democratic majorities in Congress 

Re-election of the President

Progressive solution - 

Think beyond oil and sprawl and how 

a commitment to that could revolutionize 
our economy and politics

Consider how election of Romney would 

set things back 

Cyber-Community Broadside Number One

10K persons diverse in every way living 

in an area made car free

Sharing a common structure for eco-sustainability

beyond the reach of any individual to afford

Having within walking distance education

health recreation dwellings commercial ventures

squares small play grounds 

A public space

as attracting to people as private spaces

Click to enlarge

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

What is a cyber-enabled car-free community?

ShortFormContent at Blogger: Neither Party Understands the Economy:

'via Blog this'

10K persons diverse in every way living 

in an area made car free

Sharing a common structure for eco-sustainability

beyond the reach of any individual to afford

Having within walking distance education

health recreation dwellings commercial ventures

squares small play grounds 

A public space

as attracting to people as private spaces

Dwellings and all other structures

made of modular mass-produced elements

including smart walls and other surfaces

built-in structures for furniture and work sspaces 

in a safe and cord-free 

environment

In a cyber-community most present 

education and commerce runs out of

kiosk-like small facilities 

that are open much of the time

Education would be at once freer

and more interactive

Everything would be

Current institutions would adapt to the new form

but have functions similar to existing functions

People would live and work in the cyber-community

Most elements of the global culture would be 

available to all in an adaptation of today's 

sports bars

Cyber-communities can spring up

anywhere and become safe  face to face

environments for persons who live by

the shared values of democracy

helpfulness tolerance and non-idolatry

A  cyber-community is not a utopia

It is a grass-roots democracy that

runs as most town governments do

Moving beyond oil, detached sprawl

housing and cars is inevitable because

it creates a system that cannot be 

afforded in the future 

while doing nothing to make society 

more fulfilling

For more please click the 

cyber-community label below

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Neither Party Understands the Economy

The economy will not recover 

Because the car industry was saved

The economy will not recover

Because there is an uptick in housing purchases or construction

The economy will not recover because either party

now has the policies to lead it toward new prosperity

Stasis and sclerosis will endure while both parties

compound delay by arguing for mutually wrong premises

You ask what is the right course

Simply this

Concede that the triumvirate of sprawl

oil dominance and the related businesses 

is anemic and a recipe for a century of

sclerosis war and untold poverty

Concede that a properly densified society

with communities of around 10K

Zoned for everything needed  to live

Car free 

Built on modular principles 

with a shared-ecostructure

Is the right track

Concede that the correct approach is outlined here

under the label cyber-community

The future must be sprawl free

Car free

Face to face community

Enabled by cyber-means

That nobody who should have seen this saw it

is cause for some skepticism that this simple answer

will be known in time to make a difference 

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Mucho Info on Pinterist Virality and Lego Walls

Going Viral on Pinterest: Driving Big Traffic and Making Pinterest a Real Marketing Solution | SEOmoz:

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I liked the part about the Lego Wall the best. Legois the model for the future - for the modular structures of the car-free cyber-community that will become the antidote to sprawl.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Why Cyber-Communities Will Replace Sprawl

Linking logic and emotion is a startLinking these to a third makes for progressLogic - cheaper and better to exchange the oil-automobile (failing) economy for the cyber-community economyEmotion - in two decades the young have begun to pull away from the car-suburb (faux) American DreamBecause Cyber-Community is more rewardingand vastly more affordableThe third to which these two link isthe hypothesisCyber-Communities will replace sprawland with it the oil-car economyOil and car will be replaced byModular elements needed toRevolutionize construction so thatMost of the toxic elements of say the Koch Brothers portfolioWill be unnecessaryIn short the car free cyber-communityeverything-within-walking-distance modelCan and will spring up on the dessicatedcorpses of sprawl elements like mallsHouses will be replaced by mass-produced smart wallsEnergy-yielding floors and flexible ceilingsThe lego-type elements of the futureStaffed and focused specialized cyber-kiosks will replace strip mallsSo forth So onBy choice or inevitablyWere I 25 not 75 I would go into business 

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Help make cyber-community a reality.

Cyber community is my term for what I believe is an entirely new concept for the reformulation of how the world lives. A cyber-community has a general limit of around 10,000 people. Enough for a vibrant local economy. A cyber community is car free, compressed enough to have most social and many wider needs met within a walk of no more than a mile. It is low rise - a max of around four levels. It begs for architectural and design imagination, eco-vision and awareness of how today's society has become dysfunctional due to a lack of face to face community and social stratification. You live, work and play in a cyber community. Quite obviously you also solve the warming problem at the root, by eliminating the necessity for cars. Help make cyber-community a reality.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Krugman is the most almost-right writer in the universe

Krugman because is almost right all the time. He is right in blaming the GOP for its criminal performance.

But he is very wrong on most economic questions for a very simple reason.

We have committed ourselves to a social matrix that is inherently unable to survive in its present form. There can be no recovery of education, of housing, of transportation. Each of these is part of the problem, not an answer.  All of these enterprises are predicated on the "self-evident" of continuing automobile use, continued need for stand-alone houses and continued capacity to afford and benefit from the educational system that we have.

The solution lies in a transition to concentrations of population that can generate bottom-up economies, a recalibration of enterprise so it can serve car-free cyber-communities of up to 10K persons each. These communities would be zoned for everything and essentially emulate cities of the past that were self-enclosed. All current institutions would be resized to serve the cyber-community and thus provide employment to its residents.

Cyber-communities could and would operate at roughly half the expense of maintaining our sprawl society. Cyber-communities would be able to afford eco-sustainability. They would be culturally alive. They would be diverse.

Krugman joins many public intellectuals in rejecting the need for a social sea change. We have had no discussion of these matters since the 1960s when four bullets stopped all discussion for more a half-century.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Regions of between 2 and 10 million are an ideal basis for governance

Regions of  between 2 and 10 million are an ideal basis for governance but we can only think in terms of taking the populations we have and doing what we can to observe this rule in our creation of a new world of car free communities.  The fundamental argument for such population math is economic.
Without a region in which at least 2 million live and move and have their being, we are condemned either to gross congestion or the atrophy of too few people to sustain the basic elements of living.

What my notion of cyber-communities and cyber-cities does is build from the bottom up toward such a regional concept. A cyber-community of up to 10,000 persons can be built from the existing settlements and eventually replace them. These can be connected by yet-to-be invented evolutions of buses and trains - public transit. All communities will be walkable. A cluster of 10 cyber-communities would nest within a larger region containing 100 cyber-communities. A region could consist of from two to ten such nested elements.

Human governance needs to be accessable to communities that are themselves intelligible as living areas. A cyber-community is such a unit. Ten such suggest a reasonable city size.Individual communities would contain a few of the larger structures. Many presently large structures would be be scaled down to function in the cyber-communities. For example a cyber-community would have infirmaries but a hospital would exist to serve ten cyber-communities.

Because cyber communities would be global and trump distances by means of technology there is no reason why, in a nation like the United States, such communities could not be created de-novo anywhere.

Elsewhere I have suggested that interstates be the likely locations for cyber communities.
Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

We lack anything close to an ideal distribution of communities and population

All one needs to do is look at this map to see that we lack anything close to an ideal distribution of communities and population. We are behind the 8-ball economically and this is partly due to population densities. It takes around 10K human beings living in proximity to enable the natural growth of occupations and professions that make for a vital community. I have advocated that the interstate grid be used as the transport matrix for walkable communities of up to 10,000 (I call them cyber-communities) clustered in groups of up to ten to create cyber-cities of 100,000 separated by green space devoted to recreation and agriculture.

A cyber-metropolis would be a regional cluster of ten or so cyber-cities.

The genius of this scheme is that a walkable, car-free community can be built in an area a mile square, a miniscule amount of space. A population of 100,000 could be served by an aggregate of  just ten cyber-communities. Creation along these lines would revolutionize manufacturing because the components would all represent new inventions and designs, from the matrix needed to make each cyber-community ecologically sustainable to the mass-produced but customized  elements of  structures and spaces within the cyber-community.

How do we begin to take what we have now, subservient to the car and oil, and morph it into cyber-communities?. We do it first by creating cyber-communities de novo, from scratch. When we find a gutsy entrepreneur who is tired of gadget-capitalism, the fun can begin.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Imagining Cyber-Communities

Some see a sort of competition between residential areas and countryside when it comes to the "best land". The glorious reality of my cyber-communities is that they could be built on landfill and they would still work. All a cyber community needs is a square mile. Depending on the political state of affairs, it will either be built with serious security in mind or with a degree of openness to the surrounding countryside - or more likely the surrounding sprawl or sprawl residue.

The setting of a cyber community should defer to the availability of lovely land to surround it. It can occupy a declivity, a valley, anything that suggests a degree of protection, since we would wish a cyber-community to withstand most extreme weather without a whimper. That said, we do not build cyber communities next to water or in tornado alleys or anywhere else that extreme weather is predictable. And if and when we build them our suggestive existing model for such a community is a stadium-like structure which may even have a retractable roof or some equivalent both to protect one from deluge and to capture the precious falling drops and process them for human use.




The image above is not my idea of anything but the general
size and heft of a cyber-community. It suggests a matrix
which holds and supports the modular elements which
enclose spaces within the community. It suggests the height,
the walkability within its precincts, And one can readily
infer that 5000-10,000 could live in such spaces and have
plenty of room for other spaces and areas which would
provide any community anywhere with all the institutions
and amenities we associate with urbanity, with the city. 
Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

A reason why Pattern Language (the book) is ignored

I think one reason Pattern Language (the book) is ignored is that it is predicated on the continued domination of the car. It assumes we will be driving forever. Thus when Alexander dismisses the suburb, he does not take the step of going back and admitting that Frank Lloyd Wright was wrong in assuming suburbanites would all have their own veggie gardens, responsibly turning the suburbs into a sort of nuclear family utopia, while at the same time drawing lovely interchanges and inadvertently, perhaps, suggesting the coming invasion of the cars. Alexander and Wright fell to the blandishments of the car. The sort of erroneous distortion of reality that surfaces in the noxious Ram ads now invading TV.  The beauteous countryside has an able partner -- Ram! Think the worst.

If you believe, as I have for fifty years, that the car is not a necessity but a choice, and that it became a necessity only because that was the easy route for capitalism, and that the car and suburb (sprawl) are  now revealed for what they are, then you will find it hard to accept Alexander's notions about country roads enclosing mile square areas and towns of up to 10,000 springing up de novo presently rural areas.

Had Alexander taken the bull by the horns and assumed the crying need for car-free communities, and anticipated the technology that would make the rebuilding of the world not only possible but a good idea,
he might have taken a simple page from Doxiadis and accepted the natural tendency of people to gather at intersections.

Gathering at intersections is why my front yard (the intersection of Broadway, Sizth Avenue and 34th Street is at times the most crowded in NYC. And why we have metropolises. The cyber-community, the car free zoned for everything evolution of the human settlement, is the natural result of putting together the impossibility of sprawl and the inevitability of concentrations of population.
Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Economy is living with the least amount of unnecessary expense

Economy is living with the least amount of unnecessary expense. Cars, sprawl housing and oil represent an increasingly unbearable expense. Living car-free would enable creation of cyber-communities of up to 10,000 living within walking distance in neighborhoods zoned for all purposes. One would live and work and play in or near home. The more public space is made attractive and usable the oless need there is for all the rooms we msay nwe need in a home. The way is paved for mass-produced cyber-spaces which can become the modular elements of a cyber-community. Eventually this could replace the automobile business. Our present way of life is senseless and unaffordable. Safer options exist that are cheaper and more fufilling. 
Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes