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Richard Risemberg | 1 Nov 2002 02:06
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New Issue of New Colonist

The New Colonist presents its November 2002 issue, online today at 
http://www.newcolonist.com. This month we are presenting The Best of 
The New Colonist, a selection of our favorite articles, essays, and 
features from the last two years. Click on over and see what you've 
missed if you just got to know us, or, if you're one of our "charter 
readers," see whether you agree with our selections. And don't forget 
our editorials, new for this month, with links to the editors' favorites 
listed beneath each excerpt. All on The New Colonist, at 
http://www.newcolonist.com.
--

-- 
Richard Risemberg
http://www.living-room.org
http://www.newcolonist.com

"Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is 
just like the roads across the earth. For actually there were no roads 
to begin with, but when many people pass one way a road is made."

Lu Hsun
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paulparma | 1 Nov 2002 16:24

Getting Carfree Concept into American Lexicon

OKay this is serious. Really. A few extremists (like myself) are not 
going to get the concept into America's lexicon. Ok, getting Smart 
Growth and New Urbanism into it has helped get us nearer to being 
accepted, but carfree isn't yet even being OFFERED for acceptance; 
not really.

If you don't see it on network TV, it ain't topical in the main stream 
right? Well how do you get it in the main streams' eye sight enough 
for networks to feel compelled to cover it a bit if nothing else just 
to show the main stream that the networks are hip to new main stream 
trends? And if the network's start touching on the concept, the 
parties, first the democrats and then the republicans in reaction will 
bring it up, and then you got yourself some potential boys.

One idea really can be bumper stickers. I think stickers sold at cost 
at Smart Growth receptive functions, like biking gettogethers, 
neighborhood meetings, etc. could help.

The best one I think is "Just Say NO! to the CARFREE Option!

Think about it. Its on the Agenda if we get enough seed stickers, 
strictly because so many people do LOVE cars (as much, I think, and 
this is hard for me to fanthom, but fanthom I must, as much as I LOVE 
Italy!) But here's another austensible car lover; they're driving a 
car right, saying there is a carfree option threatening OUR RIGHT TO 
DRIVE! You know that at a gut level they feel a wacky, ill thought out 
carfree, car-hating community is really out to get rid of cars. Maybe 
they'll start checking out the OPTION aspect after they calm down. 
Because its SO reactive, we would only need a seed level of sticker 
density!
(Continue reading)

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Richard Risemberg | 1 Nov 2002 16:50
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Re: Getting Carfree Concept into American Lexicon

paulparma wrote:
Hell, I bet even The New Colonist will
> put 'carfree' into their web pages keywords for web searches, which
> they understandably don't do now; BECAUSE ITS NOT IN THE LEXICON
> YET!

Okay, thanks to your eltter, The New Colonist HAS put "carfree" and
"car-free" into its meta tags. As of five minutes ago.

Richard

--

-- 
Richard Risemberg
http://www.living-room.org
http://www.newcolonist.com

"Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is
just like the roads across the earth. For actually there were no roads
to begin with, but when many people pass one way a road is made."

Lu Hsun
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erik_rauch | 2 Nov 2002 02:42
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Grants from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 18:59:58 -0500
From: Bryce Nesbitt <bryce2@...>
Subject: Active Living By Design

FYI: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just launched a multi-year
$16.5-million initiative to encourage 'active living' -- community
designs that encourage non-car transportation trips. Grants of up to
$200,000 are available for a wide range of interdisciplinary projects:

http://www.activelivingbydesign.org/
http://www.rwjf.org/newsEvents/mediaRelease.jsp?id=1033151614023

Maybe this grant is of interest to you also.

(The Community Path organization was contacted and invited to apply,
though an integrated approach [health, education, safe routes to
schools, TDM, shared/zipcar, transit, public policy] would be stronger
than a simple path construction grant. With connections to three subway
lines, though, RWJ really likes the path.).

-Bryce
http://www.pathfriends.org

http://www.pathfriends.org/alewife/section_boston_north_simplified.gif
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J.H. Crawford | 2 Nov 2002 12:21
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Re: Getting Carfree Concept into American Lexicon


Paul Parma said:

>OKay this is serious. Really. A few extremists (like myself) are not 
>going to get the concept into America's lexicon. Ok, getting Smart 
>Growth and New Urbanism into it has helped get us nearer to being 
>accepted, but carfree isn't yet even being OFFERED for acceptance; 
>not really.
>
>If you don't see it on network TV, it ain't topical in the main stream 
>right? Well how do you get it in the main streams' eye sight enough 
>for networks to feel compelled to cover it a bit if nothing else just 
>to show the main stream that the networks are hip to new main stream 
>trends? And if the network's start touching on the concept, the 
>parties, first the democrats and then the republicans in reaction will 
>bring it up, and then you got yourself some potential boys.

I agree. I've been thinking the past few weeks about the agenda for
the next Car-Free Cities conference, in Prague. This one is sponsored
by Car Busters and is scheduled for March. I've recently said on that
list that we need to think about becoming a thousand times more 
effective in terms of results than we have been. After all, things are
still getting worse--more cars, more oil, more pollution, more death,
more intrusion into the public realm. We're not yet have any effect.

I'm starting to thing that, much as I hate it, we're going to have to
resort to TV to get the message across to millions. This is actually
"good" televison, because the issue is very graphic. If we could put
together some good programs that contrast auto-centric cities with
carfree areas, I think people might: 1) be exposed to the idea, and
(Continue reading)

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J.H. Crawford | 2 Nov 2002 12:44
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Re: Grants from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation


Erik Rauch posted the RJW piece.

It's good to see these grants being made, but they seem to be
for small, on-the-ground projects, so I don't know if they'd
even entertain a proposal from us. They don't even have a link
to Carfree.com, despite having hundreds of other links.

Regards,

>FYI: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just launched a multi-year
>$16.5-million initiative to encourage 'active living' -- community
>designs that encourage non-car transportation trips. Grants of up to
>$200,000 are available for a wide range of interdisciplinary projects:
>
>http://www.activelivingbydesign.org/
>http://www.rwjf.org/newsEvents/mediaRelease.jsp?id=1033151614023
>
>Maybe this grant is of interest to you also.
>
>(The Community Path organization was contacted and invited to apply,
>though an integrated approach [health, education, safe routes to
>schools, TDM, shared/zipcar, transit, public policy] would be stronger
>than a simple path construction grant. With connections to three subway
>lines, though, RWJ really likes the path.).
>
> -Bryce
> http://www.pathfriends.org
>
>http://www.pathfriends.org/alewife/section_boston_north_simplified.gif
(Continue reading)

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paulparma | 2 Nov 2002 15:15

Re: Grants from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

--- In carfree_cities@..., "J.H. Crawford" <mailbox <at> c...> wrote:
> 
> Erik Rauch posted the RJW piece.
> 
> It's good to see these grants being made, but they seem to be
> for small, on-the-ground projects, so I don't know if they'd
> even entertain a proposal from us. They don't even have a link
> to Carfree.com, despite having hundreds of other links.
> 
Joel, what if you go after $200K for a Documentary?

Then a seperate $200K for a 3D simulation?

Both using grad students, etc., (Hey, spielberg was a hungry grad 
student once.....) and activist volunteers (as upon request advisors 
and gophers to keep the #$% <at>  out of the way), make your self 
co-executive producer along with someone who understands the costs, 
and general how tos of making movies for the documentary.

the Simulation could be spliced into the movie... 

Austin is a Movie Center want to be place. All the the PC downturn, 
DotCom bust and general slowdown has hit us harder than other US 
cities, so alot of us are hungry; maybe it could be done for the 
$200K per. The University of Texas Community and Regional Planning 
department might be interested but may not hav ethe computer and 
personel resources to a Simulation. HOWEVER, the 
Mechanical Engineering department here (and at Texas A&M near by, by 
Texas standards)is strongly tied to some guys who do such simulations 
for |Light Rail promotions and of all things, Traffic accident
(Continue reading)

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Richard Risemberg | 2 Nov 2002 16:32
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Re: Getting Carfree Concept into American Lexicon

I've been harping on this for a while on the Urban Ecology forum. I 
agree that we need to be on TV and in mainstream print forums. My 
partner in New Colonist is a videographer and I know at least one other 
who would be sympathetic to the cause; both have editing equipment. I 
know other folks who would work cheap. (I live in Hollywood.) NC is 
planning an educational video already; I and other can write and 
storyboard, and, as I said, we can probably find production folks who 
would work cheap.

I have been mulling a story concept for a carfree cities ad in my head 
for a while. A couple, actually. I think we could get a series done 
fairly cheaply--thinking with wild optimism, I suspect we could do four 
30-second ads for about ten thousand bucks. TV quality is low; anything 
that would play well on a computer monitor would play well on TV, so we 
could produce in some digital format for editing if we had to and then 
transfer to tape.

The hard part will be getting placement. Adbusters 
(http://www.adbusters.org/home/), which does this sort of thing with 
their "uncommercials," has had placement refused even when they were 
willing to pay undiscounted ad rates. It took a court order, I believe, 
to get a network to play one of their ads for pay, as if they were any 
other advertiser! But the ice is broken; it can be done.

If it looks like we can get serious, I will formalize my ad concept, 
storyboard it, and put it out for criticism. The NC project is not 
strictly speaking carfree--more of a general overview of livable 
cities--so we'll go that alone.

I'll make the time to work on this IF it looks like we'll actually be
(Continue reading)

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J.H. Crawford | 4 Nov 2002 16:40
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Re: Getting Carfree Concept into American Lexicon


Richard Risemberg responded:

>I've been harping on this for a while on the Urban Ecology forum. I 
>agree that we need to be on TV and in mainstream print forums. My 
>partner in New Colonist is a videographer and I know at least one other 
>who would be sympathetic to the cause; both have editing equipment. I 
>know other folks who would work cheap. (I live in Hollywood.) NC is 
>planning an educational video already; I and other can write and 
>storyboard, and, as I said, we can probably find production folks who 
>would work cheap.

I agree--based on the little I know, prodction is not a great problem
with today's technology.

>I have been mulling a story concept for a carfree cities ad in my head 
>for a while. A couple, actually. I think we could get a series done 
>fairly cheaply--thinking with wild optimism, I suspect we could do four 
>30-second ads for about ten thousand bucks. TV quality is low; anything 
>that would play well on a computer monitor would play well on TV, so we 
>could produce in some digital format for editing if we had to and then 
>transfer to tape.

Sounds right AFAIK.

>The hard part will be getting placement. Adbusters 
>(http://www.adbusters.org/home/), which does this sort of thing with 
>their "uncommercials," has had placement refused even when they were 
>willing to pay undiscounted ad rates. It took a court order, I believe, 
>to get a network to play one of their ads for pay, as if they were any
(Continue reading)

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Erik Rauch | 4 Nov 2002 22:45
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Re: Getting Carfree Concept into American Lexicon

On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, J.H. Crawford wrote:

> I'm thinking more in terms of feature-length stuff that would run on
> Discovery, NGS, PBS, etc., and might actually put money in the till
> from royalties. I think we could do a 23-28 minute show (in various
> lengths for commercial/non-commerical stations) for something on the
> order of the $10,000 we're talking about for four ads, and then we
> wouldn't need money to broadcast it.

PBS (American public television) has carried programs recently which
indicates their possible receptiveness, such as:

"Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town"
http://www.pbs.org/storewars/story.html

"Think Tank: Suburban Sprawl"
http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/show_724.html

There have also been several features on News Hour.
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Gmane