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Depaving Portland: Who Says Cities Have to be Islands of Concrete?
The residents of Portland, Ore. are tearing their city up.
Literally.
The Portland-based nonprofit Depave, in partnership with Carfree Portland, has been organizing volunteer work parties to remove thousands of square feet of concrete pavement and "free the soil" beneath. According to Depave.org, getting rid of unnecessary pavement will "reduce stormwater pollution and increase the amount of land available for habitat restoration, urban farming, trees, native vegetation, and beauty, thus providing us with greater connections to the natural world." That's a lot of benefit to leave wrapped in cement.
But it's not all jackhammers and bits of broken rock. Working with local property owners, Depave teams have been replacing barren parking lots with urban gardens and community green spaces—key contributors to healthy, livable cities.
18 Comments so far
Show Allfascinating...this is exactly correct...
great.....and in san francisco....for twenty years housing activists and urban gardeners are doing great work.
Problem is, most of these people, and the people that write articles about it, think this is some kind of solution.
well you're bat shit crazy if you think so.
the US military is the single largest contributor to global warming and etc.
one base in nevada uses more OIL AND GAS A WEEK then the entire bay area does in a year.
coal plants going up every month.....NOTHING done about cargo ships bringing over half of steel and food to the USA from china etc...which POLLUTE more than all americans' cars.
stop thinking local.
stop playing this game with your feel good comfy lives.
the systems must be attacked and dismantled.....
signed,
a 25 years long vegetarian and anarchist and activist
social revolution and class war.
"stop thinking local"
but instead
"systems must be attacked and dismantled"
I'd carefully examine your thinking here:
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html
>>Either/Or Fallacy (also called "the Black-and-White Fallacy" and "False Dilemma"):
This fallacy occurs when a writer builds an argument upon the assumption that there are only two choices or possible outcomes when actually there are several. Outcomes are seldom so simple. This fallacy most frequently appears in connection to sweeping generalizations: “Either we must ban X or the American way of life will collapse.” "We go to war with Canada, or else Canada will eventually grow in population and overwhelm the United States." "Either you drink Burpsy Cola, or you will have no friends and no social life." Either you must avoid either/or fallacies, or everyone will think you are foolish.>>
I suggest that we can dismantle/change/transform/fix the system AND a think and act locally. Your either/or thinking is in need of abolishment. And a new American revolution needs your passion and intelligence.
A beach is made of grains of sand. While the big issues must be addressed, the small issues need attention, too. Portland is an island of sanity in an insane world. I love it that they are doing this. I didn't hear anyone on the tape say that this was going to cure the world. I only heard people talk about 'this place, here and now'. One of the big problems with the progressive movement is how quick progressives are to denounce and belittle anyone who is not doing exactly what the denouncer is doing. Counter productive, sad and very, very small.
I cant stop the Pentagon. I will be happy to participate in smaller good things.
It is only by doing the "smaller good things," that we become capable of doing the larger ones, like dismantling the Pentagon. Why? Because in doing the "small" things, like ripping up concrete to plant a food forest, we build up a constituency of activists who are weaned away from passivity and defeatism, who acquire a new world view, and who are capable of working together. When there are enough active constituencies, in communication with each other, we will be ready to take on the system.
People who can work together, without profit, have already moved beyond the capitalist ethos. I doubt that the people who were in this video would say that ripping up concrete is all that is necessary. When the opportunity comes to do more, they will be more ready than most of the rest of us.
I suspect this is more both | neither than either | or.
Much work involves getting disparate people to a focal point, raising awareness and attentiveness for a coordinated action.
This would appear to accomplish much of that in such a way that gives palpable immediate results, albeit without solving the enormous issue(s) of the military.
I live on the Peninsula, just up from Lockheed and several other Military Industrial Teat Suckahs... I've been thinking that the locals should form committees to meet with the different Boards of Directors and Executive Planners and CEOs to offer suggestions on changing their product lines to meet the needs of the surrounding communities. Suggestions anyone?
Thanks CD editors for posting this. I live near Portland and am glad to see the city with so many bicycles is working on depaving the city. May the effort expand!
Pavement is one of the greatest pollutants of the 20th and 21st centuries. Water drainage patterns that were established by nature over thousands of years are changed.
Let's keep the world in a condition that will make our descendants proud of us and help guarantee them a good life.
Much of it is asphalt, a petroleum product.
Wow, something to not just believe in but something to actually happen. Thus goes my theory that corporate america will not be satisfied even if the asphalted and concreted the whole world. Now, if could only bring down all those ugly as shit sky scrapers.
Bike power.
Earthian is right...it's not either or. Let's do what we can at a local level; otherwise, we'll be in danger of becoming complete cynics, while the government still does what it does.
I felt very inspired by this video...
Been there. Seen that. It's really nice!
This is SO OVERDUE EVERYWHERE!
What I do not understand is WHY it took us THIS long to figure this out!?
"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone. Take paradise, put up a parking lot."
Hi everyone, we have a great "how to depave" document that can help anyone get started with depaving in their hometown. Please download and spread the word. thanks!
http://depave.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/brochure_4.27.pdf
Goosebumps! the emergence begins...