I <3 the Participatory City Foundation's "Every One Every Day" initiative. There is so much wisdom baked into their approach, wonderfully summed up as creating as many opportunities as possible for people to: Co-produce something tangible as a group of equal peers. Thereby creating a participatory culture. Please watch the below video, take the time to study their Illustrated Guide and delve into their Designed to Scale report. And if you work in central or local Government, be sure to … [Read more...]
United Diversity at the London Permaculture Festival
I'm off to Cloud Cuckoo Land Festival now, but thought I'd better whack this presentation I did at the London Permaculture Festival up first. I gives a brief history of United Diversity plus details of our exciting plans going forward. The sound isn't too good so when I get the time I'll do a full transcript with links any everything, but for now, enjoy! … [Read more...]
Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes
I love Pam Warhust. She is such a inspirational, grounded and powerful woman. This is one of my favourite TED talks, by far. Please, watch and share it now. It is about the inspirational story of Incredible Edible Todmorden which has now spawned the Incredible Edible Network. But, as she hints at so powerfully towards the end of the talk, this is about so much more than food. It is about community empowerment. This is about sharing and investing in kindness It is about Community, … [Read more...]
Homes and Hands – Community Land Trusts in Action
We'll never have a peaceful, just and sustainable world (or, as Charles Eisenstein says 'the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible') whilst the land that sustains us all is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of the population. We need to transcend private land ownership. But what is the alternative? Community Land Trusts are a good option and Homes and Hands is a great video that illustrates the different ways that community land trusts operate in the U.S. Produced by Women's … [Read more...]
How Cooperatives and Community Enterprise Will Get Us Out of this Gigantic Mess
I've posted this excellent talk by Janelle Orsi from the brilliant Sustainable Economies Law Center a few times over on our facebook page. The whole presentation is well worth watching, but I particularly like it when she says: What is the entity structure that is most going to ensure that our communities are protected? and what is going to most ensure that the wealth in society becomes distributed more equitably? I keep coming back to the answer of: Co-operatives. Co-operatives, Co-operatives, … [Read more...]
Edible City – Grow the Revolution
Just came across this great film: Edible City: Grow the Revolution is a fun, fast-paced, feature-length documentary journey through the local Good Food movement that’s taking root in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the nation and around the world. Big respect to them for launching the film online for free from the outset. I wish more people would did this. … [Read more...]
Springhill Cohousing
Last Saturday Gloria and I joined members of the North London Sustainable Housing Partnership to visit the lovely Springhill Cohousing community in Stroud. The video above is a quick tour of the site (unfortunately my battery ran out before I got to show you around inside the common house, and I hadn't put the camera in high resolution mode). Below are the photos I took during our tour, where together with lots of outdoor picture you can take a sneak peak inside some of the houses (some of which … [Read more...]
Participatory Budgeting Gains Steam in San Francisco
When Mayor Ed Lee ventured across San Francisco’s 11 districts this spring talking with residents about what to cut and what to save from the budget, he won praise for opening what some called a new era in fiscal discourse: giving people a more direct say about where their money is spent. But what if, rather than the mayor in the driver’s seat, it was the community itself that presented, weighed and voted on district budgets? The idealistic notion under consideration in San Francisco, sometimes … [Read more...]
Building communities we’d like to see
This summer United Diversity is helping the West Lexham Education Centre in a variety of ways. West Lexham Education Centre is an unblemished example of a project providing a leading-edge space that creates innovative services, meaningful training and supports sustainable enterprise opportunities. Located in the beautiful Norfolk countryside, West Lexham engages with both local and national partners to promote sustainability, learning and wellbeing. West Lexham has a number of buildings that … [Read more...]
Transition Tufnell Park
Transition Tufnell Park (TTP) do the Big Dig Up! TPP, part of the wider Transition Network, are one of the latest Transition initiatives in London. Read more of our posts about Transition for more info and be sure to check out the Transition, Relocalisation and Resilience folder in our Tools for Change library (also relevant are the Food, Energy, Peak Oil, Climate Change and Permaculture folders). You may also be interested in our Transition Sessions project … [Read more...]