Agenda for a Shrinking Planet

A discussion of personal choices and public policy options that address the population boom and resource crash we face in the next 30 years, with an emphasis on what you can do in your life today. [Delivered as a talk at the True Nature Country Fair in Barnardsville, North Carolina, Sept. 26, 2009] – Cecil [...]

No free parking

Based on my long experience examining and reporting on Asheville’s dance with parking spaces and lots and decks, and based on recent reading, I now question the development rules we are using which require developers to provide parking for new structures. While provision for parking SEEMS to be a solution, it has proven to be the problem in cities across the country.

We can move away from parking and traffic. Now.

Here’s a short video that explains how NYC transformed a jammed city street into a public space and reduced traffic while increasing parking availability by eliminating cars. We can do this in Asheville, too.

The filing speech video

A new spirit of patriotism: my filing speech

I delivered this speech on the steps of the Buncombe County Board of Elections after filing as a candidate for Asheville City Council, on Monday, June 6.
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I have just filed as a candidate for a seat on the Asheville City Council. I do so in part as an answer to President Barack Obama’s call for a new spirit of patriotism. It is also partly my answer to the first presidential speech I can remember hearing as a child, when another young president suggested we not ask what our country could do for us, but to ask what we could do for our country.

[photo by Edwin Shelton]

Looking at the numbers – are we past “Peak Car”?

I’ve been looking at statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation and it appears that we may have passed the point of peak automobile use in this country. [to read more, click on the header]

Big wheels keep on turnin’- some thoughts on transportation

We all learn in school about the invention of the wheel about 7,000 years ago, originally used for throwing clay pots and later turned sideways for use in transportation. Wagons, chariots, carts and wheelbarrows were invented in the next few millennia, though widespread use of wheels didn’t emerge until the invention and construction of smooth roads. Later we invented engines to move the wheels on bigger and better roads, developed cheap fuel and personal vehicles, and then all headed out on the highways—until, as Cat Stevens put it, “They just go on and on ’til it seems that you can’t get off.” … [click on the header to read more]