RICHARD REGISTER’S BLOG

by RICHARD REGISTER

It’s time we put economics into some sort of physical scientific context that makes sense. Economists have drifted off into a disconnected world where, blinded by massive amounts of money and mystery, they see themselves as a kind of high priesthood calling the shots for practically everything, then saying they were blindsided by the debacle in the real estate world and the up-trading in wildly irresponsible and, strictly honest to say, greedy derivatives. READ MORE

A friend wrote recently saying she wasn’t aware of “ecovillages” that had a strong edge between higher density full community and immediately adjacent open space. Since I think the visual image of such an arrangement is so interesting and important, I’ll just record my response here.

Thanks for your note and observation. I have seen some regular villages, not self-consciously ecovillages, that are extremely compact, in China in the 3 story range, in Turkey and Nepal in the six story range, with natural, grazing and/or agricultural land or waters immediately next door. City walls up against open space. There is Tori Superiori in Italy where a group of people hoping to create a self-conscious ecovillage purchased this almost single structure hyper compact small medieval village. Looks fascinating. I’d love to visit. READ MORE

Richard Register

If we take up less room there’s room for all of us, including the other animals and the plants of this planet. There are three largest categories of shrinking back to this generosity of living: 1.) heading toward far fewer of us, leaving room for a smaller “all” of us humans, 2.) reducing the scale and impact of our agriculture system and 3.) building our cities, towns and villages literally much smaller, based on the human body’s dimensions and needs for energy, shelter and land as compared with building cities for the demands of automobiles. Get those three very large topics covered and we might just get to live here in style (if not oppulent waste) for a long, long time. READ MORE

Richard Register

Sixty years ago it was the American rush to the suburbs financed by the national government of the USA: GI loans, deductible house interest payments at tax time and free, free at last, thank God all mighty free at last freeways. (Actually, the term was coined by Brooklyn, New York lawyer and urban planner Edward Basset in 1930 but coming on strong only during and since the 1950s.) READ MORE

Richard Register

…..That’s pronounced CAR-cen-taur-OP-olis.

While I was living in Lost Angeles in the 1960s, lost in the smog, back when each breath seared your throat and lungs and hot tears rolled down your cheeks under dark mid-day skies, this European journalist came touring through town. He was writing an article about the city of car centaurs, the LA citizens that were half car and half person. “Truly said,” I said, “this here is Carcentauropolis, for sure.” It was the city to coin the term, piecing together smoke and fog. It was the city of the future with its own PR department called Hollywood, leading the charge to super mobility, the envy of the world – and the world is still dreamily following. Carcentauropolis victorious! READ MORE

I was in Korea recently sharing the stage with futurist Jim Dator. He’s head of the Research Center for Future Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Privately he told me he thought signs were very bad, that we probably would not make it, that is, that humanity and the biosphere would undergo catastrophic collapse taking all his futuristic dreams with it. READ MORE

Richard Register

I have noticed that there were few tools offered in my memory of the Degrowth conference for actually bringing in a new economics that embodies degrowth. I followed Joan Martinez-Alier’s links and some of the text of the contents of the publication he mentioned, in an issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production, and it seemed to me, as usual among business people, economic theorists and even climate change solutions advocates, the built environment and what its variety of expressions imply was completely omitted. Since various different designs and layouts of cities vary massively in their impacts, this line of investigation seems to me to be crucial. READ MORE