Chapter 4: Three Little Pigs

July 30, 2015

The Personal Imperative

This chapter draws on the critical role of getting your house in order, sustainable infrastructure and transportation infrastructure, before you begin the big issues, getting energy right, densification, enhancing social connectivity by increasing green space and eliminating dead space. It also illuminates the co-benefits of acting in one area, leading to spill-over benefits in others. For example, densification leads to improved health outcomes, as more people walk in their neighbourhoods. A recent Time magazine article pointed to a co-benefit from Obama care, very unanticipated. The ‘sharing economy’ is growing, why? Because people are no longer hanging onto jobs they dislike because they need the health benefits, they are now free to take more risk and innovate.

Chapter Quote

“The way we design our neighbourhoods and our cities shapes our habits, affects our health, and our relationships to one another and to our sense of place. If you don’t know a place, you can’t love it, and you won’t save it. This applies equally to biodiversity; if you have no opportunity to see flora and fauna, to experience wilderness, to feel the wind rustling through the trees, the sun on your face, or watch creatures in a stream. We can redesign our built environment to reintegrate nature and biodiversity into our lived urban experiences.” (p. 51)

– Ann Dale, Edging Forward: Achieving Sustainable Community Development