Tag Archives: sustainability

Model Sustainable Community

Posted on December 22, 2006 | Leave a comment

New German Community Models Car-free Living

This German Community has made the site of a former military base into a virtually car-free sustainable community. Residents have incentives, such as free passes on mass transit. This is an intriguing model of how we can redesign our living on this planet.

The Vauban neighborhood in Freiburg, Germany, is being developed as a model sustainable district on the site of a former military base. Many of the houses produce more energy than they use. Other buildings are heated by a neighborhood-scale combined heat and power station burning wood chips. (Photo by Jayson Antonoff)

Walmart’s “Community Store”

Posted on December 21, 2006 | 1 comment

Walmart will stop at nothing until it has its presence in every community.

After being denied a permit to build a big box store in a Utah community, it has now reapplied for a permit to build a “community” store.

I really wish that communities would examine the issues beyond revenue. It is getting more and more difficult for small business owners to survive, let alone starting a business. It would be nice to see communities promote and value buying local and building local – and providing resources to support locally owned business.

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Tagged corporations, sustainability, walmart

Buy Local First Week

Posted on November 10, 2006 | Leave a comment

Second Annual Buy Local First Week is November 11^th-18^th

Nationally recognized author to provide perspective on what communities can do to support locally owned, independent businesses

Salt Lake City – Local First Utah celebrates its second annual Buy Local First Week (BLFW) November 11^th through the 18^th. The purpose of Buy Local First Week is to remind consumers and government officials of the importance of locally owned, independent businesses. The celebration will extend throughout the state with many Local First member businesses offering customer appreciation discounts all week long. Nearly 700 local, independent Utah businesses can be found in our online directory at http://www.localfirst.org.

This years BLFW centers on the importance of government actions and policies that support local businesses and dont put them at a disadvantage in relation to large national chains. As the central event of BLFW, Stacy Mitchell will lead a governmental roundtable for planners, elected officials, Planning Commission members, and Economic Development officials cosponsored by the Utah League of Cities and Towns on November 14^th (See details below). Mitchell, the author of a new book, The Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for Americas Independent Businesses, will discuss the ways our communities are in danger of becoming Anywhere, USA, and the things city planners and citizens can do to nurture and rebuild the unique place we call home.

The same evening Local First Utah and The Kings English Bookshop are sponsoring an hour long presentation by Stacy Mitchell for the public followed by a question and answer period (again, see details below).

Stacy Mitchell knows more about the issues involving community and commercial development than anyone on the planet! said Betsy Burton, Local First Board Chair and proprietor of The Kings English. All of us care about community¾which is why none of us can afford to miss this event.

Local First Utah, a 501(c)3 non-profit is working to strengthen communities and local economies through public education and the promotion of locally owned independent businesses throughout Utah.

Buy Local First Week is a way of focusing our attention on an extremely important part of our community and its economy¾ locally owned independent businesses, said newly re-elected Salt Lake County Councilman, Jim Bradley. If we do buy locally, our community will remain healthy, diverse and vibrant.

Buy Local First Week Events

Caputos Winter Market– Make a new tradition this holiday season…buy local on Saturday, Nov 11th, and Saturday, Nov 18^th, 11 AM-1 PM at 314 W 300 S (the Local First Office). This farmers market will continue every Saturday through the off-season. Vendors include: Morgan Valley Lamb and G Bar Ranch selling lamb and beef products, Fowers Fruit selling a variety of apples and pears, holiday pie orders will be available from Carluccis, Caputos will have local goods in stock, including Crumb Bros. bread, Colosimo Sausage, and more. Turkey, vegetable, and egg vendors will be announced soon. This event is jointly sponsored by The Downtown Alliance, Tony Caputos, and Local First Utah.

Stacy Mitchell Planners Roundtable Nov 14^th 3:30 PM, 4^th floor of Main Library. The press is welcome to attend this invitational event cosponsored by the Utah League of Cities and Towns and Local First Utah. A press conference will precede the event at 3 PM (details coming soon.)

Stacy Mitchell Public Presentation: Nov 14^th at 7 PM at Westminster Colleges Gore Business Auditorium. This is the main event for the public during BLFW, which is sponsored by Local First Utah and the Kings English.

For more info, visit www.localfirst.org.

David Korten Appearing in Salt Lake City

Posted on October 21, 2006 | Leave a comment

DAVID KORTEN Author of When Corporations Rule the World, will be speaking Sunday and Monday at these times:

Sunday, 1 p.m., First Unitarian Church, 569 S. 1300 East

6 p.m. at the Main Library, 210 E. 400 South

Monday, 7 p.m., Westminster College’s Jewett Center for the Performing Arts, 1250 E. 1700 South
All admissions are free.

For information, call Sam Weller’s Bookstore at 801-328-2586.

Considered by many to be the “bible” of the emerging global Living Democracy Movement, When Corporations Rule the World has become a modern classic with a message that seems increasingly prophetic with each passing day. Its central message is a clear and unequivocal wake up call to humanity. The global economy has become like a malignant cancer, advancing the colonization of the planet’s living spaces for the benefit of powerful corporations and financial institutions. It has turned these once useful institutions into instruments of a market tyranny that is destroying livelihoods, displacing people, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for money. It forces us all to act in ways destructive of ourselves, our families, our communities, and nature. This destructive process is driven by a combination of institutional forces and an extremist ideology of corporate libertarianism that invokes the theories of Adam Smith and market economics to advance policies that systematically undermine both the market and democracy.

Human survival depends on a community-based, people-centered alternative beyond the failed extremist ideologies of communism and capitalism. This alternative is already being created through the initiatives of millions of people around the world who are taking back control of their lives and communities to create places where people can live and grow in balance with the living earth. When Corporations Rule the World provides an agenda of national and global reforms by which we may reclaim our power to localize economies while globalizing consciousness.

The newly released second edition features a Foreword by activist/actor Danny Glover and five all new chapters:

	“Introduction: Deepening Crisis–Cause for Hope” frames the rapidly deepening struggle between the forces of corporate globalization and the forces of a globalizing civil society.
	“Making Money, Growing Poorer” updates the deepening human crisis of an economy that is making money for the rich at the expense of the life of society and the Planet.
	“The Living Democracy Movement” documents and examines the nature and implications of the growing citizen movement that has emerged in response to corporate globalization’s assault on life and democracy.
	“A Civil Society” provide a framework for describing the critical role of spirit and culture in distinguishing between a civil society and a capitalist society. It also addresses the centrality of culture to the political and institutional changes ahead.
	“Epilogue: A Story for Our Time” places the current struggle between the forces of democracy and corporate tyranny in its larger evolutionary context to provide insight into its deeper purpose and meaning.

This book was written as a project of the PCDForum to help take the analysis and vision of the alternative development movement into the mainstream.