Two Strands of Progressive Effort Now Dispersed into The Ether

There were two small strands of renewalist effort nipping at the structures of American Protestantism in the 1960s and 1970s. One could be described as the Renewal Grass Roots Church effort and the other as the Sojourners effort. The difference between the two had to do with ethos. One rose up within the structures of the mainline denominations and of what was then the American Protestant establishment. Folk gravitating to this mode might be at home in any of the offices in the then-bustling Interchurch Center in New York City. The Sojourners strand takes its name from the magazine Sojourners and owes its ethos to the more amorphous but soon to become influential evangelical wing of American Protestantism. There was within the Sojourners constituency a certain element of pacifist sentiment and Roman Catholic linkage. There was a substantial desire to wrest from conservative and fundamentalist Christianity an initiative more faithful to the radical Jesus of the New Testament than the garden variety orthodoxies of, say, the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. 
Both of these strands had influence and more or less rose and fell with personalities who held high the torches of their points of view. On the renewal, local ecumenism side, the trajectory was initially strong but it went the way of the actual leaders of the various denominational and ecumenical efforts of the time. One of the most salient investigations I ever undertook was for the Lilly Endowment under the leadership of my friend Bob Lynn. Bob tasked me to determine the ecumenical hopes of church leaders of the late 1960s. With one exception, all of them predicted that the ecumenical structure of the churches  would move toward local cooperation and even merger over the coming decade. They were dead wrong. Denominations under duress circled their wagons and the local churches remain largely unchanged to this day, save for aging and closing. The shards of our common effort were a few inner city  cooperative ministries and a few other cooperative efforts which could be seen even today as progressive lights under the bushel of a declining enterprise. Oddly, interest in the renewalist grass roots cooperative model still exists. But the denominations are almost gone - shrunk to their current survival mode.
The Sojourners effort was more robust during the decades following the 1960s than the renewalist effort that preceded it. The waters it plied were entirely different from those of the church renewal effort. Sojourners was largely a reactive movement at the edge of the emerging evangelical surge toward a dominant place in American life. As such it was the province of Jim Wallis. a founder of Sojourners, to be a public face of the effort, voicing its progressive premises, with considerable deference to the conservative origins of evangelical theology. Eventually Jim Wallis and perhaps the late Bill Coffin became the voices of Protestant progressivism during the years of the mainline's precipitous decline. 
Though Bill Coffin was a good friend with whom I once lived, I took issue with both Coffin and Wallis who insisted they needed a place in the public square. This seemed to me part and parcel of the move to a talking head culture.As far as I was (and remain) concerned, these voices were a weak antiphon to the rising tide of today's nativist and retrograde GOP evangelicalism. They became locked in the same room with their opponents as the minor key in a major movement. And what remains the problem is the room itself. 
That is really where  this all comes down. In the Grass Roots Church. I said we lacked a theology. That is still the case across the board and today extending through all religion. Observers like Jacques Ellul and my colleague and friend Will Campbell were right in seeing a life beyond this room, beyond the confines of institutional Christianity. 
Today the question is not one of who will control the structures of the churches and decide how their dwindling financial power will be deployed. It is what is reality and what is ethics and what are the aesthetics of life on the planet.  Institutions are articulated by successive generations. The institutions now being empowered are those of the spiritual city. A city that venerates diversity, that espouses sensuality, that is at root iconoclastic. That gravitates toward tolerance, democracy, helpfulness and non-idolatry. It may not look like a city nor does it look spiritual to many, but it is rising as we speak. As it takes shape, thinking is changing. And my hopes lie with the future - a world escaping the deleterious domination of binary understandings, moving toward an appreciation of universality, taking pride in the potential of every person on the planet.

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We will not get the change we need until we are willing to articulate what it is

Yes or no
We want smaller schools we can walk to  with teachers who are part of the community
We want the option of working from home  or at work spaces we can walk to
We want neighborhoods that are face to face and safe from speeding traffic
We want a mix of things we associate with cities scaled down to serve local communities
We want enough diversity near at hand so we can create a vibrant local economy
We do not need to drive to shop if shopping becomes selecting at cyber-kiosks staffed by experts
We would prefer home delivery if we could select from the world at a cyber-kiosk we could walk to
We would prefer a car-free community that is designed as a unified structure that is eco-sufficient
I recognize that much of this is not even within the purview of planners but it should be
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We live in square mile wastelands everywhere I go I see the open spaces moulder in the sun

+ We live in square mile wastelands Everywhere I go I see the open spaces like ruins left to moulder 'neath the sun And I see built around them the relics of a past where building was corrupted retro and where we treated people like things or consumers fish mouths open  sucking in the detritus of our dismal plastic sea + I see these square mile wastelands  turning into stadiums not for teams of Yankees but for all of us to live in walk in work in' enjoy in to get education in to lie sick in bed in  a block or so from home to go to school in  in 100 separate places  to spawn new economies to be sheltered from the flood storms impervious to wind storms Where public is so nice that folk just want to sit there and write their thoughts on tables eat there drink there + I see a rising cluster of such new communities filling up these lost and desolate square miles half medieval cities half  pre-fab custom spaces where walls are thin as paper sound proof as castle walls  Where stairs give way to rising ways and trafficked streets give way to walks Where the commute is over because any work space anywhere connects with spaces anywhere + Yes I see all these things like others who see forward when they pass these wasteland places and reflect that they are but the harbingers of something bold and new + Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

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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More Stacked Images - How Shall We Build for The Future?

I see the future integral and car free  beyond the suicidal commitment to fixed fossil fuel disaster I see an eminently logical conclusion that restores diversity and face-to-face and over-leaps the horrendous boundaries we have erected   by creating what is in effect a pariah class of persons taken to be not who they are but who we project them to be The integral community of the future is car free It has a dense population living in complete privacy within community It walks to work to play to sing to dance to be It has intentional sitting areas There are enough people within a mile  to enable an economy to grow and flourish THE IMAGES The Top First  The dank and darkish hole of a past that has devolved into an oil soaked sprawl Second  A Plethora of Options challenging the existence of a dark dank future Third  An initial Iteration of a walkable cyber-community where principles of pattern language and invention of utterly new construction methods begin to create safe and secure living  How shall begin We already have begun We know image one We sense image two It remains to venture into iteration Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

The Mythological Bipartisan Council of Mega Brains

A few premises one might considerwhen we finally assemble mega experts 
A mega-shift that is neededto recasta society so stratified that it is laughablea sprawl that even now lapses into decaya policy of zoning that only aids stratificationa construction industry that is retro and riddled with corruption an economy that has no relation to life on the ground
A mega shift to create models of communities where having a vital local economy is the starting pointwhere living working and recreating and educatingtakes place in the same walkable areawhere cars and other fossil-fuel suicide machinesare peripheraldesigned to recede not to rule the roost
I shall stop here because I lose peoplewhen I start to actually explainBut at least give me the benefit of your doubt  And if you think this makes sense follow the labels

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Visualizing A Car Free Cyber Community One

Visualizing A Car Free Cyber Community Two | ShortFormContent at Blogger:
The squares are residentialThe rectangles are commercial and institutionalThe circles are squares for sitting and playThe ovals are kiosks and other small structuresrepresenting specialties and local employmentConnections between structures are part of a commonmatrix that serves the wholeA cyber community is made up of a maximum of four levelsThe total area is a mile or so square

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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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Looking Back After The World Ignored The Truth Updated 12/6/2012

Say it's 2050 and though the roads are not as full as now, people make do with cars if they can afford it. Most others stay where they are because there is no way to cheaply go anywhere at all.


Construction has not changed but more and more of sprawl has been abandoned and more large vacated highway spaces have been chopped up into efficiency apartments.

The schools are now moving toward thirtieth worst in the world and higher education is for the wealthy only with a receding  number of scholarships based on merit.

I could go on but let me simply state my theory for the umpteenth time:

We need a totally new theory of settlements based somewhat on Alexander's "Pattern Language" modified to insist that human settlements be car free, that we live in numbers of about 5-10K in a square mile, that all elements of a city be within a single community, and so forth.

We need to generate huge new industries based on creating the modular components of the new construction. We need eco matrix production so that each community can be sustainable in itself, recycling everything, generating its own energy, etc. We need to create local governance that is made up of residents who live and work in these cyber-communities.

I am not saying we cannot adapt what we have now. But we need a model to be built and no one has even drawn it yet.

If this became our plan we would have a vibrant economy and smart solutions and a good future. If we ignore the reality we mark time until we cannot even dream of it.

We will not get the change we need until we are willing to articulate what it is.

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The smart wall says it all Smart surfaces (floors, walls, ceilings)

The smart wall says it all. I sit here day by day presaging the future. It is so different that I doubt anyone believes it.

Take the smart wall. Let's say it is made in Detroit and that one such surface costs as much as a home entertainment monolith. You need four of them to make up a space. You know about wallpaper right. It is now understood to be what you put on your monitor screen. On the smart wall, you can change your wallpaper whenever you like. When it is dreary outside you can make your smart wall cheery.

The smart wall may have little connectors for the addition of smart furniture. Also mass produced, maybe for a new cyber community in a non-cyclone area. All you need for furniture are surfaces and smart cushions. And smart walls.

Smart walls do not exist in isolation from the smart matrix and the smart floor and the smart ceiling. None of these  things exist now because the money is all in Stephenson Nano Land Silicon Role Model Territory. At some point Dreiser and Veblen will reincarnate and we will begin to recover the balance between micro and macro. Micro is soft and we need something more substantial.

All of this rises from a dim but accurate perception. The current world is unsustainable. People are making bold efforts to deny this. The new unbuilt Christie Deep Sixed Hudson River Tunnel is an allegory of our time. There will be no more big digs.

Smart walls says it all. I shall be here knitting away as we continue to avoid the writing on the ...

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Iranian oil squeeze is just a harbinger of the future

Iran Issues Threat to Oil Buyers in Europe - NYTimes.com: "Besieged by international sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program including a planned oil embargo by Europe, Iran warned its six largest European buyers on Wednesday that it might strike first by immediately cutting them off from Iranian oil."

'via Blog this'

As oil becomes more scarce and yes it will

And prices hit the roof and yes they will

We will still cling to cars oh yes we will

Not heeding what will be true still

That we could have a world beyond the car

Beyond the need for oil to travel far

Today's world is the world that Cheney wants

Not you nor I so think and let's move on

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

More on the Matrix That Really Matters

ShortFormContent at Blogger: The Matrix That Really Matters Has Not Been Built Yet:

'via Blog this'

Infrastructure cannot be "repaired" if we have no idea of what we want

Suppose we want something beyond cars and commuting

Beyond detached houses built for size

Suppose we want walkable communities with enough population to enable viable local businesses

A way to work and be educated at or near home

Zoning that integrates everything in a sane and rational way

The miracle of cyberspace means we can choose where and how we live and move and have our being

Once the mind is liberated from resignation to our current sprawl culture

we can see a cyber-community as a giant step beyond what we now have

We could mass produce lego like components for the construction of modular units of space

These could supply the world

We could create a giant matrix that would serve 5-10K

Accommodating myriad forms built from these components
Enabling technological macro elements that no individual could afford
For recycling,
Energy generation
Enjoyable face to face living
A reformed education system
The integration of cyber-capacity with every element of socio-cultural existence

Cyber-communities would be safe from most weather emergencies

They would enable new economies

New jobs

New mobility

More at the link above.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Houses as we know them are passé

Houses as we know them are passéWe need new flat secure thin soundproof walls like lego piecesWe need to create a circulatory system that transcends single dwellingsWe need to mass produce rooms customized like carsWe need to build for billions
Houses as we know them are cash cowsHouses as we know them do not workHouses as we know them speak dispersion
The answer is cyber-communityA physical eco-matrixThat can be the skeleton for all those lego-likeSurfacesThat will be the rooms and spaces of theFuture
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Planning for a nonexistent future

New Auto Technology Can Tell When You’re ‘Driving While Drowsy’ - TIME NewsFeed: "In the age of multilingual GPS devices, driver seat massages and cruise control navigation, it was only a matter of time before manufacturers developed drowsy driver alerts.

That's right – technology to tell you when you're in danger in nodding off behind the wheel, bringing you back to full attention through dashboard icons and warning alarms."

'via Blog this'

This assumes that a century from now there will be fuel to support an automobile world. I have my doubts. I believe the world of cars and sprawl is ending. The future will not be a slow evolution of the infrastructure we have now. It is more likely to be a response to cataclysmic environmental events. It is for this reason that I have proposed the cyber-community as a successor to sprawl-oil society.

Annals of the future - our own room

Having a Room of Your Own Anywhere You Are - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "I suspect we will each have *our very own room*, a changeable but relatively stable set of options that can be recreated most anywhere we happen to be -- a sort of bricks and mortar (though with different and more futuristic substitutes) -- virtual reality, wired with all the appropriate gizmos of the moment, a sleeping situation we like, and appropriate individually-chosen perks. "

More at the link above.


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Finally some intelligence in the mainstream

Does the West need a new growth model? - The Curious Capitalist - TIME.com: No, the problem is not globalization. The problem is how the West has responded to it.

But he's only got half of it. The rest of it is right here on this blog.


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Extreme weather argues for my notion of human settlements

3 die as storm hits Belgium fest; US band safe - World news - Europe - msnbc.com

A recessed stadium like shell with a retractable roof, the skeleton to which we attach the mass produced spaces we require to create a varied and interesting and walkable human community.

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This is the tip of the iceberg

Law Students Sue Their Schools - The Daily Beast: "Maybe they'll get their tuition's worth after all. Lawsuits were filed against Michigan's Thomas Cooley Law School and New York Law School. The lawsuits, which seek class-action status, allege that the schools inflated their post-graduate job prospects by advertising the percentage of graduates who get any kind of job within nine months of graduation—even jobs that don't have anything to do with the law."

The entire apparatus of education is terminal because it is built on the false American dream which only worked for people making over 100K. As that dream crumbles so will every institution that employees the highly-paid and generously pensioned. Those who remake society at the community level will win the ultimate reward. Those who capture the vision of future walkable cyber cities will own the economy of the future.


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We are not an urban world we are a sprawl world

Our world was made by the carIt it operates to the soundtrack of enginesIt is sprawl worldInterchange worldTraffic report worldDead worldWorld that no longer worksWorld that is soullessWorld that must change or perishWorld guided by the values of killing and deathOf lassitude and the craving for comfort at all costsWorld of blinking passivity and sad conformityThis picture is changing in every person of any ageWho resonates to the real meaning of the democratic revolution now in progressThe new world will be beyond sprawl  It already is
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The improvement of society is where recovery lies

Wall St slide continues; Dow plunges 400 points - CBS News

It is not just infrastructure that needs a makeover

It is our society itself

The exciting sign that is the sign of our times is not depression

It is rebirth

Rebirth of a society built less on consumption and glitz and more on the simple and enduring things

A society beyond the constrictions of drugs and the vapidity of the nuclear family

A society with more walking and less driving

A society with more and more varied local businesses and services

With more concentration of population

With more attention to public amenities

With design that stops treating people as objects and things

The recovery must be society's recovery

Does anyone see that

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