Renew Fairfield | CityDesign / Urban Agriculture and Landscaping browse

"Permaculture is the art and science that applies patterns found in nature to the design and construction of human and natural environments. Only by applying such patterns and principles to the built environment can we truly acheive a sustainable living system. Permaculture principles are now being adapted to all systems and disciplines that human settlement requires. Architects, planners, farmers, economists, social scientists, as well as students, homeowners, and backyard gardeners can utilize principles of Permaculture Design." ~Larry Santoya

~SITES TO SEE~

~About Sustainability "The Center for Ecoliteracy is dedicated to education for sustainable living." READ MORE: http://ecoliteracy.org/education/sustainability.html

~Smart Growth "If we don't plan for the future, the future will come without a plan." ~B. Schweittzer, Montana Governor READ MORE: http://www.smartgrowth.org

~Urban Permaculture "Today the world is being forced to choose between feeding people and feeding cars; Cars are happiest when there are no other cars around, people are happiest when there are other people around." READ MORE: http://www.urbanpermacultureguild.org/

~Improve your soil...through vermiculture! READ MORE: http://growbiointensive.org/

~Ecocities "We must not build housing, we must build communities." READ MORE: http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/

~Green Roof Resources READ MORE:

~Local Landscaping Services Contact Brian Robbins: flippingpancake@hotmail.com

~Recommended Reading To avoid mismatches between land use(building) and the environment, check out Landscape Planning by William M. Marsh & learn the more sustainable/regenerative approach to building.

�I think there is great potential for really spectacular permaculture systems in Southeast Iowa. The soils and terrain are moisture and nutrient retentive and well suited to pond and swale system. There is the largest variety of native fruits, nuts, and useful plants of any place I have seen outside the tropics.� - Douglas Bullock

Excerpted from an EarthLight magazine article by Jeff Brown The Problem is the solution. Follow the bread crumbs backward. When asked to visualize a sustainable living environment, many of us envision a rural farm-like setting with lots of land and plenty of natural resources around that can support our needs. The reality, though, is that most North American's live in cities.

So we are faced with the difficult question. "How can permaculture address life in a city?"When applying Permaculture to an urban environment, it is especially important to understand the principle, "the problem is the solution." We all know that it is very easy to identify problems in most cities, but this can work to our advantage if we are intent on creating solutions rather than merely drawing attention to the problems. First, we might think of a city's characteristics in terms of an ecosystem such as a forest. A mature forest has a forest canopy, which in a city is the top of tall buildings. Mid-sized buildings can be anagolous to the forest understory. Small buildings and other human and natural structures are parallel to a forest's shrubs and ground cover. Finally, the city equivelant to a forest's soil could be streets, sidewalks and yards. Once we look at the city's elements as opportunities to create beauty through design, we begin to fiind solutions, including:

Building greenhouses and planting gardens in vacant lots. Turning our grass lawns into gardens that produce food and are aesthetically beautiful. Creating community by combining backyards with our neighbors, tearing down fences to create bigger parcels of usable land. Using the presence of buildings to cultivate plants that need partial shade or vertical climbing space. Designing a water catchment system on the roofs of our houses that can provide all the water needs for the garden. Building bridges between biological, cultural, social and economic sustainability. Remember, it is a conscious choice for us to see "impediments" to rebuilding sustainabale cities and "resources" and "opportunites." Urban areas have lots of energetic people who, when putting their minds and hearts together, can create beautiful, healthy, liivng environments in the midst of supposed chaos.

~QUOTABLES~

"We're only truly secure when we can look out our kitchen window and see our food growing and our friends working nearby."

-Bill Mollison, co-founder of Permaculture

"Grow food where you live, turn industrial farms into forests, create a whole new continent for our grandchildren to explore." ~unknown
"In a quality city, a person should be able to live their entire life without a car and not feel deprived." -Paul Bedford
"A street is a spatial entity and not the residue between buildings." -Anonymous
"God made us walking animals-pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy." -Enrique Penalosa