Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
UK, including Totnes, Ivybridge, Falmouth and Stroud, had become 'transition towns',
with others, like Lampeter in Wales, showing considerable interest. The Transition
movement now has roots in the major cities throughout the world and is seen as
quite the small town, middle-class activist movement it once was. In Totnes,
community working groups focusing on healthcare, energy, food, local government,
livelihood, economics, the arts, the psychology of change, housing, transport,
education, youth and community have been established. A pilot local alternative
currency, the 'Totnes pound', was launched in March 2007 to engage a wider
number of local people and businesses. Inspired by regional alternative currency
models developed in Germany and the southern Berkshire region of Massachusetts
in the US, the aim is to strengthen the local economy by keeping money circulating
within a geographically bounded locality, which in effect is the same as attracting
new money and owes much to the theories of economic localization or local
protectionism (Crowther
et al
., 2002) and that of the New Economics Foundation
(Ward and Lewis, 2002). As Douthwaite (1999a: 1) has written, local and alternative
currencies are nothing new. In the past they have helped fashion different types of
societies and cultures by establishing an ecology of money: 'if we wish to live more
ecologically, it would make sense to adopt monetary systems that make it easier for
us to do so'. Transition also has shifted much of its promotional and campaigning
emphasis away from peak oil and energy to sustainable local economic development
and social issues, thereby attracting new supporters who were initially not particularly
attracted to the more narrowly defined or conventional green activities (Blewitt and
Tilbury, 2013). As Rob Hopkins writes:
Transition may well be most successful if it retains its broadness rather than
focusing too closely at any one facet of the process. It will do best if based on
practical action, community appeal, inner Transition, social entrepreneurship,
social justice, careful attention to deep engagement, using the best evidence,
creating new economic models for inward investment, and finding ways to involve
local businesses and local government. Its strength and resilience will be in its
breadth; in its ability to keep moving forward on all those fronts.
(2011: 290)
New urbanism
The recent development of 'urban villages' may offer environmental benefits,
high-quality and affordable neighbourhoods, and mixed-use urban space with stable
and diversely populated communities. 'New urbanism' (Katz, 1994) has set about
redefining the American Dream, replacing suburban sprawl with higher densities,
open space, less pollution and:
neighbourhoods of housing and parks, and schools placed within walking
distance of shops, civic services, jobs and transit - a modern version of the
traditional town. The convenience of the car and the opportunity to walk
or use transit can be blended in an environment with local access for all the
daily needs of a diverse community.
(Calthorpe, 1993: 6)
