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ecopolitics | 1 Apr 2005 04:36
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Re: programme TCFC-V Budapest 2005

Hello  Everybody,

"Activist-oriented"  vs  Academic lecturing  or  Political platform 
presentation, to  answer Todd's question.

Yes, the programme does have  a very good  content  for activism. 
Not  being very familiar with  Budapest's  environment, physical or political,
I can only add that  if this conference would ever take place in Toronto,  I
would  strive to add  2  issues that would stimulate activism:

. Challenge  the government to  prioritize on alternative technology  for
  economic development, instead of  monopolysing on auto-industry as the 
  pivotal mode of the state's welfare.

. Draft a Protocol to be signed by the governing officials of the City, to
  initiate car-freeness and  sustainable environment.

To both these  issues, the public would have  reasons to pressure and  expose
any  digression  or undermining  by  hypocritical or  leaderless politicians.

Lela  Gary

Quoting "autofrei-wohnen.de" <info@...>:

> Hi all,
> as I remember, in TCFC-IV Berlin 2004 it was wished to have the next
> conference more "activists-oriented", because we had this very academic
> programme in Berlin.
> 
> When the programme committee (WCN/Prague, Clean Air Action Group/Budapest,
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Gus Yates | 1 Apr 2005 05:28
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Carfree Cities and New Urbanism


I will be representing Carfree City, USA at the Congress for New Urbanism 
XIII conference in Pasadena, June 9-11. I signed up to lead a round-table 
discussion "salon" with the following title:  "The Next Step: Carfree 
Cities".  Are new urbanism and carfree development simply two shades of 
gray on a continuum of strategies that overcome problems associated with 
automobiles, or does removing motor vehicles entirely from a mixed-use 
development cross a threshold at which entirely new benefits are achieved?

My general feeling is that new urbanism is fine, but why stop there? In any 
case, I would like to hear from the larger carfree community to better 
prepare myself for this discussion.  I have no idea how carfree design will 
be received by the new urbanists.

Gus Yates

P.S. To find out more about new urbanism, try this link:

http://www.cnu.org/about/index.cfm
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J.H. Crawford | 2 Apr 2005 10:50
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Re: Carfree Cities and New Urbanism


>

Hi Gus,

>I also appreciate your comments on Christopher Alexander.  I finally went out and bought a copy of "A
Pattern Language" and was surprised to find lots of things I disagreed with.  

oh yeah

>Some of the patterns seem to hit the nail right on the head, but quite a few of them were either inconsistent
with my personal experience, impractical/extreme, or likely to create significant adverse impacts of
their own (such as spreading human development across the entire landscape at an average low density).  I
was thinking it might be worthwhile winnowing through his concepts to sort kernel from chaff.  This might
take the form of going through all 253 patterns and ranking them into categories such as "right on!",
"questionable", "ridiculous" and "bad idea". It would be interesting to see if others share the same reactions.

You'll note that he has done this himself (the "star" rating), 
but I think an "independent review" might be worthwhile.

>I'm looking forward to meeting you in Budapest.

Likewise!

Joel

------                           ###                             -----
J.H. Crawford                                           Carfree Cities
mailbox@...                             http://www.carfree.com
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Andrea Herrmann | 2 Apr 2005 11:11
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[Fwd: FW: Sign-on letter to auto industry]

If you are interested in the attachment, write to me! 
Andrea

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> *Von:* Lee Hayes Byron [mailto:lhbyron@...]
> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 19. März 2005 02:16
> *An:* CAN Talk
> *Betreff:* [can-talk] Sign-on letter to auto industry
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Dear CAN,
> 
> Attached is an international sign on letter to the major auto
> producers
> who are suing the state of California trying to stop the California
> regulation of greenhouse gases from vehicles (more information
> below).
> We would like for this to be signed by a broad range of groups in
> auto
> producing nations to show a common global commitment to hold them
> accountable for obstructing progress on global warming in the U.S.
> If
> your organization is in a major auto-producing/exporting country
> (Germany, Japan, the UK, Sweden, Canada, France, Italy, Korea, etc;
> see
> list of companies participating in the lawsuit below)  we would very
> much appreciate your help with this letter.
>
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CEB | 2 Apr 2005 23:16
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Carfree Day on Google?


"....The Toyota Prius is currently the most popular hybrid car, and is even the vehicle of choice of Larry
Page and Sergey Brin - the founders of internet search engine Google..."

that was from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4092707.stm

----

Anyway, as many of you may have noticed, Google alters the design of the eponymous logo on various holidays
and even "International Days" such as World AIDS Awareness Day, Breast Cancer Awareness Day, Earth Day etc.

See: http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

So...

I propose that Google gets approached about a carfree logo on Sept 22nd. (EU "Day without my car", World
Carfree Network et. al. "World Carfree Day"). I mean no disrespect here of other "Carfree Days". It is just
that we now have a little next less than six months til 22.9. (plus some other reasons, read on...)

Possibly millions of people would "see" the logo in one day of "Googling", if just 1 percent actually notice
it consciously it would be great, and if just 1/10 of one percent go to a carfree link which I think could be
part of it (see below) that could be thousands and thousands who have never had a link to even something like
European Mobility Week.

I am not sure if Google.com would do it, but there are of course Canada, Germany, Japan, Spain etc versions
which serve their countries/languages but also link to the main Google database.

So, at the European level at least there is a chance to do it on the .co.uk, .de, .fr Google sites as this could
be helped by direct communication from DG Environment (the part of the European Commission which
supports Mobility Week and "Day without my Car").
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ecopolitics | 3 Apr 2005 21:26
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Infrastructure vs Economics


Hello  All,

First I want to thank  Andrea for the informative and  stimulating  article  
sent me in response to my request for an argument against  the Economics giant
of auto industry that many countries, especially Canada, has depended on.

Following the info on the California  news on same subject, I had a chance
yesterday to  ask the environmentalist David Suzuki in Toronto, at the talk he
gave on  Climate Change, about his response to such a  deterrent against
carfree infrastructure.  His argument was that emissions create many health
effects which  become an economical burden to  public health insurance as 
Canada has.

Both arguments,  health costs and  car-costs in favour of labour-intensity
jobs,
are quite well-known to governments;  yet,  still they insist that the 
economic advantage of auto industry  with all its  shortcomings, is  more
profitable than any other industry.

I think this is an  issue we  should be discussing and consider it vital to
carfree  agenda, if we are to  seriously  challenge   myopic or  cowardly
governments.

Lela
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CEB | 4 Apr 2005 02:26
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Re: Infrastructure vs Economics

Hi,

I agree with Lela but would be interested in seeing a simple way of how the numbers ("economic gain/jobs" vs.
"loss due to health, pollution, etc") stack up against one another (I am thinking how this would look in a
full page ad in The New York Times, for example :-) - which simplifies the argument for relatively mass digestion....)

ALSO, we would really really really REALLY need to "find" other jobs for these people! We should probably do
that first, then get the numbers together..... headache.

This is becoming a kind of theoretical discussion so if someone wants to propose some kind of global or
country or auto industry economic study which WCN could help sponsor or support that would be great BUT
otherwise this discussion should be moved off the list sooner rather than later. The Carfree Cities list
is more theoretical so you can probably get some more help there from theorists.

Todd

______________________________________________________________
> Od: ecopolitics@...
> Komu: carfree_network@...
> CC: 
> Datum: 04.04.2005 01:16
> Předmět: [carfree_network] Infrastructure vs Economics
>
> Hello All,
> 
> First I want to thank Andrea for the informative and stimulating 
> article 
> sent me in response to my request for an argument against the Economics
> giant
> of auto industry that many countries, especially Canada, has depended on.
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CEB | 4 Apr 2005 03:25
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Re: Carfree Day on Google?

Hi everyone, 

Since I wrote this post (and it took over 24 hours to show up) I have (through the Carfree Cities list)
received some pretty concrete info on how to do the Google thing. So if you thoughts on this issue please
write me off list at cyklopraha@... I will send you back the
discussion we have been having....

I definately do not want to jeapordise this idea by communicating with Google until we have a solid
proposal. Please dont forward this email to anyone.

Thanks,
Todd, 
WCN Steering Committee
(oh, I should add that I am not speaking for the Steering Committee - that is just for identification - this
Google thing is just my idea)

_
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Dan Kliman | 4 Apr 2005 04:17
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Re: Infrastructure vs Economics

--- ecopolitics@... wrote:
> Both arguments,  health costs and  car-costs in
> favour of labour-intensity jobs,
> are quite well-known to governments;  

A small wrinkle in the argument here is that car
emmisions might actually cut health care costs.  I've
been told this is true for smoking by another doctor
at my hospital.  He claims there are backing studies,
but I've not seen them.  The theory basically goes
that people who smoke consume less health care monies
as they die earlier, thereby saving society from
caring for them as they develop the diseases of aging.

The health care argument might not hold up from an
economic point of view.  This is one of those things
that actually need to be studied before even
preliminary conclusions can be made.

Dan

http://www.geocities.com/dankliman
http://www.sorryeverybody.com
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CEB | 4 Apr 2005 04:35
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Re: Infrastructure vs Economics

Dan,

I agree that this needs to be studied etc before any conclusions are made.

BUT...

I am really sorry but that argument you made about smoking or pollution  being beneficial is the most cynical
and narrowminded piece of ..... . Even if it is true in a tini-tiny way it can basically be shot down with one
illustration: 

The scene is some kind of office, a really really, big one. In the clouds. With storks coming and going.

There are babies. There two lines. One line says "People who suffer due to pollution including second hand
smoke". The other lines says "People who smoke".

People go the front of the line. The clerks at the front of both lines decide at what point in their life their
economic productivity will stop or be outweighed by their  "burden" on society. The clerk writes this date
down and the person goes on their way.

The date, which the clerk writes down, is the date when the State will execute that person.

Todd

______________________________________________________________
> Od: dankliman@...
> Komu: carfree_network@...
> CC: 
> Datum: 04.04.2005 04:18
> Předmět: Re: [carfree_network] Infrastructure vs Economics
>
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Gmane