Expanding Beyond Capacity to Sustain

 ". . . what happens when you force human communities, families, ecosystems to kneel before the dictates of the market."

This is one of the quotes from a profoundly disturbing interview of Chris Hedges by Laura Flanders of Grit TV, titled "The Absurdity of American Empire."

Encinitas is clearly not a part of a sacrifice zone discussed in the book being reviewed, yet we have the same fissures out of sight but threatening our lives.  We do share the nationwide problem of "the invisible - banished from our consciousness." Said another way from another source,

"The fabric of our nation is being torn apart. MANY familiies are struggling so badly, either due to low-income wages (against rising cost of living prices), or a substance dependency issue brought on by the depressing nature of our times, or a health issue. Then there are the families broken up due to the race-based War on Drugs, and the families broken up due to the hunts for "illegal" aliens, and the families headed by overworked single Moms..."

Keeping the larger picture in view, despite the utter lack of conversation in the Encinitas political community of these monstrous national and international problems via empire is one great freedom seized by we bloggers, unfettered by power systems. (And, respectfully, there is a tradition of local elections being non-partisan.) We are a progressive blog with liberal opinions.  That's the point of creating a space where minority voices can be heard and further explored. These voices have been disallowed, marginalized or ignored in our council chambers, the press and existing blogs. Presumably those who are unable to hear or process anything outside his or her world view aren't hanging out here anyway.

Denial, religiosity, fantasy thinking and other ways to anesthetize are all around us. We are soaking in it.

Transition Towns - Alternatives

Going on right now in real time in the real world are people making choices to reject the takeover in their local community of the big money control in banking, energy and food production.

The Transition culture in the UK and around the world now, started about six years ago in Totnes in Devon, UK.  The slow and steady rise of a maturing resilience is building, where neighbors and friends are coming up with alternatives from within their own communities and sharing these ideas for free to the rest of the world. Yea internets.

The Brixton (South London) video below is one of the best in years to capture in a few minutes the essentials of local resilience to the stressor of a failed economy, extractive energy structure and dependency on all the unknowns of agribusiness for food.  It has the added feature of showing a realigned emphasis on people and community over a financialized culture.

It's offered here on Encinitas You Need Us as one of the many alternatives we should be allowed to envision and share with others and with our local government officials.  If we think of twenty years into the future it is easier to come up with ways to empower ourselves, the people, to make change happen at our own pace.

The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Crash Course Part 1

No, this isn't about our local man found guilty last year and finally surrendering (?) on Monday for his massive Ponzi scheme. The following isn't even written to specifically describe Encinitas. But, for the next five days this crash course in local government and the financial failures in store are spelled out to describe exactly how Encinitas is structured.

In the great American experiment of suburbanization following World War II, we redirected our county's extensive resources into a living arrangement unseen at any point in human history. We abandoned thousands of years of history, knowledge and tradition in building cities and towns in order to try this new -- and completely untested -- approach.

In a way, this was an odd thing for such a pragmatic generation, having been conditioned on financial depression, scarcity and war, to undertake. I don't think they ever saw it that way, however. The Great Depression had cut short efforts to improve the industrial city. With the automobile offering the promise of mobility for all, it was seemingly within our grasp for each American family to one day live the life of European royalty, complete with a country estate outfitted with all the modern trappings. America's ascendancy and absolutely financial domination worldwide made this dream appear possible. We likely never stopped to think it through.

What is more puzzling -- at least to those that think about it -- is how there has been so little questioning of the logic behind this arrangement. American suburbanization is a grand experiment, but one where the hypothesis -- suburban development provides prosperity -- is never really tested. It is basically a law, not a theory, that has crept into our ethos. It is only the collapse of the housing market, along with the much less talked about but even more consequential collapse of the commercial real-estate market, that has allowed critics of suburbanization to avoid the label "kook".

Suburban development has become equated with the American dream. It's continual propagation is nearly unquestioned. Even those who think we are in a deep financial hole that will take years to correct ultimately envision "recovery" to include a return to building more and more of this same pattern. But is that even possible?

Following World War II, there are four ways that American cities have grown (we call these the Mechanisms of Growth). They are: 

1. Government Transfer Payments
2. Transportation Spending
3. Debt
4. The Growth Ponzi Scheme 

Focusing initially on the first three, they all share two things in common. First, the initial cost to the local government for new growth is minimal. If the state or federal government provides a grant or low-interest loan to subsidize a project -- for example, the extension of a sewer or water line -- the local government may have to pay something, but it is nowhere near the total cost. Where the DOT comes in and builds a highway, widens a road, puts in a signal, builds an overpass, etc... there may be some local funds contributed, but again, the vast overwhelming majority of the money is spent by the DOT. When a developer comes into a community and uses leverage to finance a development project, and then when families or business owners come in and take on mortgages and real estate loans to acquire a property within the development, the local government spends little or nothing to make this happen.

That is the first characteristic these growth mechanisms share: a low initial cost of entry for cities. Even though the city gets local tax revenue from the new growth, it usually doesn't cost them much up front.

The second characteristic they share is that, with each increment of new growth, the city assumes the long-term liability of maintaining all improvements deemed "public". This typically includes sewer and water systems as well as roads and streets, but will also include treatment systems, pumps, water towers, meters and even storm water ponds. All of this stuff ages, degrades, breaks and ultimately needs to be replaced.

Put these two characteristics together and you have a key insight; Cities routinely trade near-term cash advantages associated with new growth for long-term financial obligations associated with maintenance of infrastructure.

To financially sustain itself then, a city or town utilizing the American suburban development pattern and making this tradeoff must believe one of the following two assumptions to be true:

1. The amount of financial return generated by the new growth exceeds the long-term maintenance and replacement cost of infrastructure the public is now obligated to maintain, OR
2. The city will always grow in ever-accelerating amounts so as to generate the cash flow necessary to cover long-term obligations.

Of course, with the suburban model, it is physically impossible for a city of finite dimension to grow indefinitely, let alone at amounts that accelerate forever. Even realtors are now starting to acknowledge that assumption #2 is not true. Later this week we'll show how assumption #1 is also not true, and by extension, why our pattern of development is a classic Ponzi scheme, one that we cannot fix or "recover" from.

by CHARLES MAROHN 

This Crash Course is a product of Strong Towns and use is authorized via  a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 

Revolution in Quebec

Press CC for English subtitles . . .

A great inspiration for budding film makers besides being relevant to our California student protests against tuition hikes and a great deal more in the US of A.  And corruption, misuse of police force, lack of humanity and greed are present here and millions of others towns and cities around the world. 


Remember this from last week?  

Citizen Tip = "All movements are born out of grievance." 

"This week the connection between our local reality, local grievance is linked to the worldwide, nationwide changes in full view of the world through live stream.  The corporate press in this country is still mostly absent in this global  story unfolding.  But, the vastness of millions protesting around the world is happening even if the US public is largely unaware of what is going on in this country and abroad." 

 And, sometimes its difficult to keep expectations excruciatingly low.

Via Common Dreams

Did Anyone Else Notice?

What a fine bunch of things happened at the last meeting?  It started with Vice President of the San Dieguito Water District Board, Teresa Barth conducting that first meeting. Wow, what a great change.

 

A wonderful young man was recognized for his saving a life.  His response was so genuine, so charming. 

A local activist gets a promise  (through Teresa Barth) from the city manager and council vote for an ecologically sound treatment for toxic soil, bio-remediation, onto the agenda.

 

And on this day, public sentiment won the day when nine people who live along Manchester Avenue spoke without a shadow of doubt that the proposed alignment and widening of their street, Manchester Avenue, should not be aligned and widened. 

Maybe it was due to the Deputy Mayor not being there? Kidding. I suspect the mayor bending over backwards to be charming (cloying) was due to the youth attending or the campaign advice from rational sources or maybe just to appeal to the wealth in the room last Wednesday. Whatever, it was a refreshing experience overall. And Nancy Nelson on behalf of her mother, Carol Nelson, a resident of Encinitas for almost fifty years, chewing out the whole council majority and demanding an apology from Kristin Gaspar was the biggest kick of all.

Quote of the Day

"We are writing you today as professionals, academics, and policy experts who have researched, analyzed, and defended against security threats to the Internet and its infrastructure. We have devoted our careers to building security technologies, and to protecting networks, computers, and critical infrastructure against attacks of many stripes. We take security very seriously, but we fervently believe that strong computer and network security does not require Internet users to sacrifice their privacy and civil liberties."—From a letter to members of the US Congress, from "a group of prominent academics, experienced engineers, and professionals [who oppose] CISPA and other overly broad cybersecurity bills."

It's a great letter, and you can read the whole thing here.

Though not specifically a local issue, the internet is vital to be informed citizens in this age of corporate infotainment that passes for news. CISPA is going to the floor of congress this week.  It is only one of many cybersecurity bills - written through well financed lobbying interests.  Please keep this on your radar as a public service dedicated to connectivity and security in a time of divisiveness and fear.