Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
With “ambitious but achievable” transportation and land use proposals left off the table, California’s first climate protection mandated Sustainable Communities Strategy aimed high but did not quite achieve setting the San Diego region on a long-term course toward sustainability.
San Diego, a militarized metropolis with a deeply stratified economy, began as a series of villages amid canyons served by public transit, transformed into freeway-close suburban sprawl, but slowly reimagines the sustainable village model.
The US Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers resolved their differences and advanced one of the largest sprawling developments ever contemplated in California on 12,000 acres along the Santa Clara River in northwest Los Angeles County. Newhall Ranch would create a city for 60,000 on a six-mile stretch of the wild, open, agricultural, free-flowing river flood plain.
The time is now to invest in walkable neighborhoods accessed by mass transit with opportunities for cultural coming together and societal participation, instead of environmentally-destructive sprawl, cultural intolerance, societal alienation, and personal anonymity.
It’s the widest-ranging native land animal in the Americas, yet is declining throughout much of its range. Wilderutopia carries an interview with big cat expert Dr. Howard Quigley about the status and research implications of the elusive, enigmatic, and unique cougar.
Helicopter photos by Christoph Gielen reveal the beautifully-designed patterns and shapes of our auto-dependent homes on the range, walking not preferred, neighbors as yet uncontacted, wildlife unwelcome, sustainable future in question.
One method to rescue this unsustainable, fossil-fuel-addicted, disease-inducing polluted mega-metropolis from its sterile streetscape of cars, exhaust, and non-descript sidewalk-life, is to provide alternative transportation that cuts out the need for parking and forces people to walk.