Social Sustainability in Backyard Gardens

One of the most eloquent examples of creating social sustainability can be found in a simple vegetable garden. In places where green space, healthy foods and economic resources are all in short supply, a backyard vegetable garden can help provide all three.

An article in today's New York Times describes a group called La Mesa Verde, which goes into people's homes in low income Latino neighborhoods to plant backyard organic gardens.

It's so simple: planting edible gardens contributes to economic sustainability by providing inexpensive, readily available food. One participant in the La Mesa Verde program described saving $90 a month on grocery bills because of the garden.

And the benefits extend beyond the pocketbook: Providing people with the means to accessing inexpensive, healthy foods is important to promoting health equity. An endemic problem in low income communities of color is lack of access to healthy foods (i.e., fresh produce) and a predominance of cheap, unhealthy foods. This, in turn, exacerbates health inequality. The article describes the efforts of La Mesa Verde, started by Raul Lozano, son of farmworkers and a passionate gardener, as part of a national movement "to make healthy food readily accessible to marginilized urban neighborhoods."

Participants also describe the social benefits of bringing their families together, of connecting with children and enhancing community connectedness. And, of course, planting a garden brings with it innumerable benefits to the planet.

Healing and Natural Disasters

There's an important link between sustainability and community healing after natural disasters. This is a link we are exploring in our new book, tentatively titled Healing Green. Beyond the way devastating destruction holds the promise of regeneration and the implicit opportunity to rebuild in a new and innovative way, we think that rebuilding sustainably after natural disasters serves an important healing function for the communities most effected.

We are thinking a lot about this promise of healing as we grieve for the thousands upon thousands of people who have lost their lives, their families, and their communities in Haiti. It's hard to find words to describe the magnitude of such loss and easy to feel helpless as we watch on our television screens, donating money to organizations we hope can help ease some of the suffering. And though against the backdrop of such urgent need, it's hard to imagine a future in which rebuilding will be the focus, such a future will come and we are heartened to see efforts already underway to incorporate green community practices into the rebuilding effort.

The Clinton Foundation has been working with Haiti to "build back better" in the aftermath of the hurricanes that battered the country in 2008 and plans to continue that effort when rebuilding begins this time. The USGBC is working with the Clinton Foundation in these efforts and they will look to, and learn from, the experiences of other communities that are rebuilding green after being crippled by natural disasters. Communities such as Greensburg Kansas which was virtually demolished by a tornado in 2007. The town decided to rebuild as a model green community. Check out the Greensburg Green Town website to learn more. A significant portion of the recovery effort in New Orleans has also looked toward green building principles and practices as they rebuild.

We think it is of crucial importance to build social sustainability into the recovery efforts in Haiti--as the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, much of the current devastation can be linked directly to poverty and injustice. Without building codes or adequate infrastructures, with a public health crisis in existence even before the earthquake, the damage is much greater than it might have been had this disaster struck somewhere else. And in order to answer the promise of building back better, economic and social injustices will have to be addressed along with environmental ones. As we write about the rebuilding of communities in our book, we will continue to look for lessons about how incorporating social sustainability into rebuilding can help heal the wounds wrought by natural disasters.

Living Green Book Launch

We had a great time last night celebrating the publication of our book, Living Green, at the San Francisco Center for the Book. It was a thrill to see the book in print and to have so many of our friends show up to mark the occasion. Margaret Fabrizio was our honored guest and we were thankful she was there to talk about, and show images of, the amazing land and art featured in the book.

Linking Communities and Built Environments

Building Magazine has just released our first web exclusive promoting our forthcoming book, Living Green: Communities that Sustain. Building magazine is a leading voice on the news and issues of Canada’s building development industry. We are thrilled they have chosen to discuss our book on their website. The excerpt selected summarizes the scope of the book and our effort to sketch the best practices for enhancing community through the built environment. We, at Social Green , are currently explanding this research with a specific focus on the ways community + built environment influence health. A place based approach to health and health inequality, we believe, needs to be understood and incorporated into current building designs to best meet our 21st century goal of environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

The Commons, Part I

In our forthcoming book, Living Green: Communities that Sustain, we describe ten principles, derived from our research, that are key to making a community sustainable: We call these the Ten C’s of Social Sustainability. One of these is the principle of the commons.

The model of the commons understands the Earth and its resources as shared gifts, rather than private property. Perhaps the most practical and specific lesson we learned about what makes a community sustainable over time is the way that sharing resources enables each person to live higher quality lives with less of an environmental impact. From shared spaces and car shares to clothing swaps and shared infrastructures, the possibilities for commons abound and the impact on people’s everyday lives can be profound.

We found this video on YouTube and it inspired us to investigate a bit more the ways activism around the idea of the commons is emerging at different sites.

Many of the planet’s natural resources--water, forests, wildlife--have traditionally been commons, shared resources. Historically, in Europe, the commons were shared agricultural, grazing and open lands and they were steadily enclosed and privatized over the course of many hundreds of years. The privatization of public resources is not new, but it is expanding through regressive politics and policies and as new technologies enable different kinds of enclosures: patenting seeds, genetic materials, claiming parts of outer space and cyberspace and probing more deeply into the earth’s core.

Protecting the water commons has become a particularly intense site of activism. Many believe that as a non-renewable, essential resource, water should exist outside the realm of private property. But, as the planet’s water supply dwindles, private sector interest in it grows. The Blue Planet Project asserts that over one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and more than one million children die each year of diseases caused by unsafe water and lack of sanitation. In response, the organization and others like it around the world are working to protect water from commodification and maintain free access.

For an excellent articulation of the water commons, the group On the Commons has published an extensive report which you can download here. In it, they describe some of the ways private interests have encroached upon the water commons. One of these is the bottled water industry which has taken, virtually without limits, from the water commons and then sold it back to us at enormous profit. Also at a signifiant environmental cost. Another pathway to privatization is through the industries that have emerged around cleaning and reclaiming water--these provide an expensive and easily privatized solution to the water crisis, which might also be addressed by stopping pollution and ensuring the safety of the water commons for all.

Champions of the commons argue that if we see water as a commons, we are more likely to feel shared ownership of it and be invested in keeping it clean or cleaning it up. This is evidenced in the many victories of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an alliance of organizations that empowers citizens to get involved in protecting lakes, rivers and streams in their own communities.

The air we breathe, the atmosphere, the sky, outer space can be seen as another commons. In his recent book, Who Owns the Sky, Peter Barnes proposes the idea of a “sky trust” to protect this commons. The Sky Trust would require companies to pay for the right to release their carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The money would then be placed into a Sky Trust owned by all citizens--thus providing financial incentive to reduce emissions. The money from the sky trust would belong to the public to be used for common benefits.

Perhaps the most powerful example of protecting the commons can be found in the work of Vandana Shiva and her organization Navdanya (which literally means, nine seeds). Central to their work has been protecting the rights of farmers to freely use seeds, protecting seeds from patents and privatization at the hands of large corporations and in the process, protecting farmer’s rights to earn their livelihood as well as protecting all of our rights to biodiversity.

Green Alley Projects

Among developers and city planners, there is an increasing emphasis on building green neighborhoods, not just green buildings. New Urbanism has been a force within urban planning and architecture to bring the components of a village - walkability, mixed-use, neighborliness - back into North American planning. As medical sociologists, we study and document the connections between communities and human health and well-being. At the center of sustainable urbanism is an intention to, among other things, create, support or revitalize neighborhoods where the requirements for achieving a high quality life can all be met without ever getting into a car. When sustainable communities happen, they not only improve environmental conditions, but they get people exercising, experiencing nature and breathing clean air both indoors and out. As creatures of the planet, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that what’s good for the planet’s health is also good for ours. Douglas Farr documents this well in his book, Sustainable Urbanism.

Green Alley Projects are one such way to increase human health and wellbeing. And they are popping up in most major cities across the United States, Canada and elsewhere. As featured on Planetizen in collaboration with grist, these projects are designed to convert concrete alleys used mostly for garbage disposal, parking, and as throughways through urban areas into shared community, green spaces. In Los Angeles, for example, the city's alleyways account for more than 900 linear miles of pavement. Research by the University of Southern California's, Center for Sustainable Cities has shown that activity occurs in alleys only about 20% of the time – and much of that activity involves either driving or walking through.

But today, city alleyways are being converted into shared green spaces that provide community space, planting areas, and for some cities, permeable areas that absorb stormwater. For the cities of Seattle and Vancouver such projects have shown to reduce stormwater flooding and facilitate groundwater recharge. In a two-year study of one pilot project, the amount of stormwater leaving the street was reduced almost completely.

South Los Angeles is home to a high concentration of alleys found in dense single-family residential neighborhoods. The city's Green Alleys Program has the goal of converting these from unsafe, dirty alleys into shared green areas. Similar to Baltimore’s Community Green: Shared Parks in Urban Blocks project that we study, the Green Alleys Program is currently in the process of establishing design and project selection criteria to begin alley conversion.

The importance of these urban alleyways to human health and well-being must be better understood. It is not only the benefits to the aethetics or the improved water or air quality of the neighborhoods, it is also the impact of these gardens on what urban planners and sociologists call social capital. By getting people walking in their neighborhoods, by encouraging participation in local economies, people become more tightly woven into their communities. In our research, we found that having social connections and meaningful bonds facilitate environmental sustainability at both an individual and a community level. In our current research and book project, Healing Green, we are exploring the health impacts of built and non-built environments.

Living Small

“Better living through simplicity” is the motto for the small house society, an organization dedicated to the promotion of smaller homes. Their mission is “to support the research, development, and use of smaller living spaces that foster sustainable living for individuals, families, and communities worldwide.”

Jay Shafer, one of the groups founders, has lived in tiny houses (all less than 100 square feet) for over ten years now. On his website you can view videos of some of these remarkable spaces and hear Shafer describe what motivated him to embark on this small living adventure. Sustainability was high on his list of reasons: recognizing the impact any sized house has on the environment and wanting to minimize that impact by minimizing the space to what was absolutely necessary. He also hates vacuuming.  Shafer’s philosophy is “dream big, build small” and his company, Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, creates an array of models of truly tiny houses.

We saw how living in smaller spaces makes a huge difference for environmental sustainability at many of the sites we visited for our book Living Green: Communities that Sustain. Places like Los Angeles Eco-Village emphasize higher quality lives with less space. When you live in less square footage, you consume less energy and, importantly, by necessity, have less stuff. At a place like an Ecovillage or a co-housing community, the downsides of having less space (i.e., no guest room for when Aunt Mildred comes to visit) or less stuff (i.e. no table saw when you need one) are tempered by the ample shared space and shared stuff.

And, the benefits of living with less are not only environmental. A growing number of people are finding themselves drawn to the “small house movement” because of the economic implications. Less square footage and less stuff is cheaper to maintain.

Andy Thomson, founder of Sustain Design Studio has created the miniHome. In an interview by David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things, Thomson described how the fact that we in North America currently consume so much energy that we would need ten additional planets to sustain ourselves, led him to try and create a house that would use one tenth of the energy of a standard house--thereby reducing our consumption to a sustainable, one planet level. The result is the miniHome.  It's an off-the-grid, prefabricated, modern home that stands at just 325 square feet.  Thompson lived in one (may still live in one) with his wife and two young children. Check it out on the Sustain Design Studio website.

Social Sustainability Site of the Week

One of the key components of social sustainability is changing people’s mindsets. Getting people to think differently is the first step toward getting them to act differently. As Sociologists, one of the things we know is that, sometimes, the best way to create the possibility to think about something in a new way is to radically alter one’s taken-for-granted reality.  It’s like the fish that doesn’t know it’s in water until you take the water away: if we fundamentally disrupt taken-for-granted reality, we can see those aspects of our everyday life that are so ingrained that we don’t even think about them. And, once we are able to look self-reflexively at them, it’s possible to imagine that things could be otherwise.

These are the thoughts that come to mind as we explore this week’s social sustainability site: Karma Kitchen. Inspired as a way to promote the value of a gift economy, several volunteers started Karma Kitchen in 2007. Today on any Sunday, everyone is welcome to eat delicious vegetarian Indian food at Karma Kitchen, which is located at a local restaurant, “Taste of Himalaya.” As with any other restaurant experience, you come in, you sit down, and you are served a delicious meal. But here, when your bill comes, the total reads $00.00. With it, comes the message that you may pay the generosity forward in any way you wish. Receiving that bill is a profound moment: an opportunity to re-examine preconceived notions and expectations. To ask oneself, How can I contribute?

"Run by volunteers, our meals are cooked and served with love, and offered to the guest as a genuine gift. To complete the full circle of giving and to sustain this experiment, we leave it to the guest to pay it forward, expressing their goodness in whatever way they wish. One immediate option is to contribute toward the cost of serving a future guest. In keeping this chain going, the generosity of both guests and volunteers helps to create a future that moves from transaction to trust, from self-oriented isolation to shared commitment, and from fear of scarcity to celebration of abundance."

The philosophy here inspires its participants to think differently about economic exchanges, to think in terms of reciprocity, trust and generosity instead of monetary transactions. Experiencing something familiar (eating out at a restaurant) in a context which has shaken up the usual rules of the game provides an opportunity to look critically at our standard operating procedures and imagine that there are alternatives to our taken-for-granted reality.

Breathing a Little Easier

Asthma is a growing public health concern in North America: it is the leading cause of chronic illness among children and the rates for children are steadily increasing.  It is also an illness which disproportionately effects people in low socio-economic statuses and its symptoms are exacerbated by compromised indoor and outdoor air quality. 

One of the ways this public health problem is being addressed in Seattle is through innovations in the built environment.  In the High Point neighborhood in West Seattle, 35 Breath Easy homes targeted for low-income renters are helping to mitigate the impact of asthma and hoping to reduce asthma attacks by improving indoor air quality.  

Breath Easy Homes include:

• Airtight construction, insulated windows and an insulated foundation, minimizing dust, pollen and other contaminants that can enter from outside.
  
• Positive ventilation to remove stale air and filter incoming fresh air.
• Hydronic, instead of forced-air heating, reducing airborne particles and organisms.
• Hard flooring surfaces such as linoleum, replacing carpet that can trap dust and allergens.
• Window blinds, instead of curtains, to reduce trapped dust.
• Low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) emitting paints and cabinetry materials, reducing potentially harmful chemicals in the air.
• A HEPA filter vacuum, efficiently removing dust and other toxins and debris.
• Landscaping designed to reduce seasonal pollens.

At High Point, residents were chosen to live in the Breathe Easy homes based on the severity of asthma and have agreed to participate in a study that will assess what kind of impact living in the homes has on their illness.  The study is being conducted by King County Health Department and the University of Washington’s Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Community Medicine. 

Living Green due in stores in May 09

We are thrilled to report that the copy edits are in and Living Green: Communities that Sustain is now in press. Living Green showcases communities across North America that are living in ways that protect the environment and contribute to social justice.

The green building movement has incorporated the concept of the triple bottom line to assert that sustainable long-term progress in terms of environmental quality, economic development and social well-being needs to be balanced: One aspect cannot be emphasized over another. Yet the factors that best promote social well-being are the least understood. Living Green: Communities that Sustain, identifies and describes the ten mechanisms we found to be most central to a successful sustainable development. These mechanisms are built into communities and enhance social along with economic and environmental concerns. In this book we outline these best practices of social sustainability along with specific examples from our field research.

Through stories of extraordinary communities across North America, Living Green examines the impact living in these communities has on personal health, well-being, and the capacity for pursuing sustainability. It includes interviews with developers, architects, and residents, highlighting personal ideals and efforts to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. The book’s three parts explore:

• How community is central to sustainable living in everything from cohousing to communes (Takoma Village Community Co-Housing, Eastern Village Co-housing, Ouje-Bougoumou, Twin Oaks Commune);

• Communities that specifically integrate green building design components with social justice politics such as racism, poverty, and urban alienation (L.A. Ecovillage, Chez Soi Green Energy Benny Farm, Folsom Dore);

• Housing options geared toward mainstream living that offer individual choices to those who wish to live green (Michelle Kaufmann Designs, Cazadero Nature and Art Conservancy, Dockside Green).

This is the first book in our co-authored Social Green Series. It is being published by New Society Publishers, a publishing house that not only brings to press fantastic books on sustainability and social justice, but operates by those principles itself: it is in its third year of being a carbon-neutral operation. You can pre-order the book now at New Society Publishers. We will keep you posted about upcoming book events this Spring and Summer.

Sustainable West Seattle

This week we traveled to the High Point neighborhood of West Seattle to begin our new research project.  The project is an NSF funded qualitative research project in which we will be investigating the mechanisms by which people are able (or not) to live in more sustainable ways in various communities and neighborhoods.  Taking off from what we learned in our book about sustainable communities (Living Green: Communities that Sustain, forthcoming in June 09 from New Society Press), we are interested in learning more about how one's built environment and community promote or prevent them from taking actions in their everyday lives that contribute to sustainability. 

High Point is a new neighborhood, a redevelopment in a Seattle suburb that has a history of vibrant cultural diversity as well as economic hardships.  It is designed to be the most progressive, environmentally friendly community in the country and is Seattle’s first Built Green™ neighborhood.  It is situated on 120 acres in the middle of West Seattle, about ten minutes by car to downtown Seattle.  When we went, we took an express bus that buzzed us into downtown Seattle in no time.  

Wandering through the streets of High Point on a spectacular Seattle Fall day, we were glad we chose it as our first site to visit. The native landscaping includes big old trees and newly planted ones lining the wide streets and many were still a-blaze in Fall color. The reds and yellows and oranges made even more brilliant thanks to the clear blue of the sky and bright sun that began to glow orange as it set on our walk.  

The neighborhood includes a wide variety of housing types--single family attached, detached, apartments, townhouses--each sharing a distinct style and most including front porches and a neighborly atmosphere. Already active and well-lived in, High Point is also still under construction: the final of its phases is slated to be complete in 2010. It is expected to accommodate over 4,000 residents in approximately 1,600 homes, about half of which will be owned and the other half rented. The housing targets a multiple range of income levels, but with an emphasis on affordability. In addition to standard single-family residences, there is a seniors' residence and an assisted living home on-site. All homes meet a minimum of Built Green 3-Star standards, with many achieving 4-Star level and ENERGY STAR® certification.

In addition to the homes, the neighborhood also includes a beautiful public library and a community health center. A grocery store and other retail stores are in the plans. These will be an important addition to the social sustainability of the neighborhood.

Interspersed amongst all of these buildings there are large areas of greenspace: grassy lawns in front of and between houses are larger and more communal than in most neighborhoods, multiple well-appointed playgrounds pepper the site, a protected greenbelt hugs one side, there is a lovely pond and wetland populated by birds, and intertwined in all of this are multiple community gardens.  As we walked, we noticed signs explaining some of the green features of the neighborhood like the porous concrete that made up the ground beneath our feet. We look forward to learning about what these and other sustainable features of the High Point community mean to the residents and what other, less visible elements are also impacting their lives.