Finding local solutions for the future
Many of our global problems can be addressed locally, and it is now more urgent than ever to pursue local solutions. Climate change, housing affordability, robust local economies, fiscal solvency of local governments, and public health all present global challenges that must be met locally. Help on these issues will not come from the Federal government.
Climate change is a threat that puts our entire social order at risk, and unchecked will put at risk the Earth’s very ability to sustain humanity. It is a true existential crisis. Cities are key to creating a future where humanity lives within the bounds of the Earth’s ecosystems. Dense, urban, walkable places that are served by transit are places that use less electricity and water, and are places where people spew fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through driving.
Housing affordability is a major issue for many workers around the world. Housing affordability is primarily a supply problem, there simply aren’t enough new homes being built to accommodate the world’s population growth and the concentration of jobs in urban centers. Cities must build dense, walkable communities to accommodate the housing demand in order to lower housing costs.
The conglomeration of businesses in every industry have ravaged our local economies. Factory farms, big box stores, and the offshoring of manufacturing jobs has left many communities without a real economic base. The flow of wealth has increasingly gone from poorer communities to those already wealthy. Communities must find ways to keep and grow local wealth by investing in local small businesses.
Due to expensive infrastructure and a lack of tax base, our cities are going bankrupt. Some places like San Bernardino have already declared bankruptcy, and many other communities have massive unfunded liabilities that they have no hope of fulfilling in the future. Cities must learn to fully utilize the infrastructure they’ve already built, stop expanding existing infrastructure, all while expanding their future tax base. They can do this by intensifying into dense, urban, walkable communities.
As we’ve become more sedate, our health has plummeted. Despite advances in healthcare future generations may have lower life expectancy due to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease than their parents. Even with, or maybe because of, the healthcare advances, an increasing amount of our wealth is going into extending our lives. An alternative is for cities to build places that enable residents to walk to their daily errands, instead of creating a built environment that requires a car by anyone but the most dedicated.
Each of these issues has a steepening problem, they will become harder to solve the longer we wait to solve them. They require urgent and immediate action. Every dollar spent expanding our cities under their existing paradigm is a dollar further from the goal of creating a future that is fiscally and environmentally sustainable, just, and equitable.
This is the start of a long-term project that will explore these issues and their solutions in detail. I’ll be looking at the nature of each of these problems and the factors that contribute to them. I’ll also be looking at specific solutions local communities can implement to help solve these problems. Many of the solutions will elegantly address multiple problems at once. However, these solutions will not manifest themselves without the action of passionate community members championing them and leading their neighbors to a more just, equitable, and sustainable future. To help you be an advocate in your community, I’ll be providing guidance on how to find like-minded neighbors and building a coalition that enact change for a better future. This is a project that began prior to the 2016 election, but is now being pursued with increased urgency. Let’s get started.
