An Array of Utopian Flowers
-
Native Habitat: Preserving the Wetlands of the World
Posted on June 20, 2022 | No Comments -
Solidarity Actions on Climate Justice – Stopping Pipelines and Dirty Banks
Posted on June 13, 2022 | 1 Comment -
Climate Change in the Desert with Ecologist James Cornett
Posted on June 5, 2022 | 1 Comment -
30 Days of Wearing My Trash with Rob Greenfield
Posted on May 29, 2022 | No Comments -
Reforest the Earth: Planting Old Growth Trees in Fight Against Climate Change
Posted on May 22, 2022 | No Comments
-
WilderUtopia in 102 Languages
Daily Dose of the Wild
Twittering from the Trees
‘Medicine Walk’ Featured in SBLitJo
Santa Barbara Literary Journal released ‘Bellatrix: Volume 3’ in June 2019, which among adventurous fiction, poetry, essays, and lyrics, features an excerpt of Jack Eidt’s psychic-animism fiction, Medicine Walk. Buy the book!
Utopia Archive
Iannis Xenakis and the Notion of a Cosmic Utopia
Posted on February 21, 2018 | No CommentsIannis Xenakis, the Greek-French experimental composer and protege designer for the famous architect Le Corbusier, advanced theories of the vertical "Cosmic" city as the only sustainable way forward. Here, he wrote this essay in 1966, decrying decentralization (read: suburban sprawl) in favor of building up, up, up...5 million inhabitants to be housed in a single megastructure, a hyperbolic paraboloid of more than 3,000 meters high and 50 meters wide.Max Talley Story: A Secret Utopia Called Devorah
Posted on July 28, 2016 | 1 CommentMax Talley's surreal and disturbing story posits a lone traveler who stumbles into an eerie alternative universe, a quiet utopia, or a slow death trap. Read the entire story for free online at Chantwood Magazine.Convivial Degrowth: An Ecologic Reckoning for an Ailing Planet
Posted on December 6, 2014 | No CommentsThe model planners and economists touted as "sustainable development" has only exacerbated ecologic distress and community dislocation through its focus on wealth-creation. The needs of our ailing planet facing an impending 11 billion population calls for ecology and human welfare to dominate economy, but how to achieve this in a world bought and paid for by finance capitalism?Communal Utopia: The Farm in Rural Tennessee
Posted on October 9, 2013 | 16 CommentsOnce the largest hippie commune in the US, the Farm persists as an intentional community in rural Tennessee, based on principles of nonviolence and respect for the Earth. It now advocates permaculture, sustainable and renewable energy, a vegetarian diet, and midwifery.Songdo, South Korea: Utopian City of Big Data and Urban “Sustainability”
Posted on October 1, 2013 | 11 CommentsThe idea of the "utopian" community began in 1516 with Sir Thomas More's fictional perfected society to present-day attempts to build the most sustainable urban ecosystem. With the case of Songdo International Business District, South Korea, we begin a series of case studies in the success and failure of utopian experiments in living sustainably.African Garden Cities: Urbanization Without Planning for People
Posted on May 7, 2013 | 2 CommentsMaster planned, self contained New Cities have appeared all over Africa. Emulating models from the global north, private-sector boosters advance them without considering factors such as environment, economy, context and even poverty. Nairobi-based urban practitioner Jane Lumumba argues they might only make social and economic problems worse.Honduras: Neoliberal Utopias Advance on Indigenous Land
Posted on February 23, 2013 | 2 CommentsThe government of Honduras plans the creation of neoliberal free-market enclaves, unaccountable to national laws and governed by foreign corporate interests. Stipulated for territory inhabited by Garifuna people and campesino farming communities, with propaganda about democracy, economic innovation and humanitarian justice, "President" Pepe Lobo should first refrain from presiding over the coup-backed "illegitimate regime."Arcosanti: Paolo Soleri’s Visionary Eco-City Prototype in Arizona
Posted on January 18, 2013 | 6 CommentsA visionary eco-city in the Arizona desert, Arcosanti is an urban laboratory created by Paolo Soleri. Based on the concept of Arcology, or ecological architecture, it presents a compact, sustainable, energy-efficient urban form that confronts environmental destruction, economic collapse, and social dislocation.China’s Urbanizing Utopia: Ghost Cities and Propaganda Theme Parks
Posted on December 19, 2012 | 3 CommentsChina has been building ghost towns for years, and like a never-ending vaudeville show, the bizarre overbuilding never stops. Here are four of recent eyebrow-raising developments.Honduras: Neo-Colonial “Free Market” Charter Cities, Democracy Not Included – By Annie Bird
Posted on September 25, 2012 | 5 CommentsFree marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world's first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land "purchased" from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras.Chinese Mega-Cities Contrasted with Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities”
Posted on August 13, 2012 | 2 CommentsRapid industrialization in China has caused a massive migration to crowded, faceless and polluted urban mega-cities of 10 million residents or more. They should consider Italo Calvino's utopian "Invisible Cities" to rethink the role of imagination in urban planning.Model Cities: Neo-Colonialists Seek Submissive Wild For Capitalist Utopia
Posted on May 15, 2012 | 6 CommentsNeo-colonialism in Honduras: Paul Romer's Charter Cities movement advocated suspension of sovereignty and democracy in the service of unfettered capitalism. Unfortunately, the enabling legislation was deemed by the Honduran Supreme Court as unconstitutional. While the coup-backed government of Honduras presses the issue forward, resistance members and indigenous and labor organizations continue to fight this libertarian dream on the Coast of Trujillo.Mother-Nature Is Not A Wicked Witch: Oren Lyons on Oz
Posted on February 20, 2012 | 2 CommentsBaum's "Wizard of Oz" as a Utopian American Dream soft-peddles an anti-nature-prejudice amid dazzling urban-industrial landscapes. This bias at the expense of the earth's resources has led us to today's environmental and economic collapse.China’s Utopian-Growth Overdose: Cities for Nobody
Posted on April 5, 2011 | 2 CommentsChina's planned mega-city for 42 million people has created vacant rows of overpriced high rise apartments and office buildings, sprawling malls without tenants or shoppers, freeways and transit lines constructed for no one.Planned Petrodollar Utopia for Kazakhstan?
Posted on August 16, 2010 | 4 CommentsCalled Astana, it is the world's latest example of a rare but persistent type, the capital built from zero. It is in a line that includes St Petersburg, Washington DC, Canberra, Ankara and Brasilia and like them it provokes a question: can a city, in all its teeming complexity, really be planned? Or does the attempt lead only to a synthetic simulacrum, a kind-of city that is not quite the real thing?