Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Ecovillages as a solution to urban growth problems

[Fred H. Olson (fholson]

nicka [at] well.com
is the author of the message below but due to a problem it was posted
by the Fred the list manager: owner-cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Hi Kevin -

What you have to say makes much sense and in fact it is not 
particularly unique.  New England as I remember it from decades ago has 
grown gradually for centuries by retaining village centers.  I think the 
reason is that the land was broken up into small pieces very early on so that 
developers have only rarely been able to obtain multi-hundred-acre tracts for 
instant transformation.

We same to have an annexation-for-growth pattern in California, but 
annexation to hold the line is probably Davis's answer if feasible.  I 
wonder if it wouldn't change the city's politics much for the worse, 
though.  As soon as people got serious about your idea, the corrupters 
might jump into Davis in a big way.

Whatever you can do to keep Davis from becoming a San Francisco suburb 
will do all of Northern California a major favor.  We have to remember, 
though, that there are no magic formulae for survival in a world in which 
human population tries to be limitless.  That is an overwhelming problem, 
but we cannot ignore it (not that you are) merely because of that.  It will 
destroy Davis, it will destroy the rain forests, it will destroy health care 
systems, it will destroy climate stability, in short order it will destroy 
everything we value.  So in Davis and everywhere else we need to ask what 
to do about the booming population - not so much how to manage its 
warehousing, as how to control the numbers.