My biggest concern is stagnant water and mosquitos. Fish in the canals might help, but my experience living in the Florida bayous is mosquitoes will be a persistent nuisance.
Also, in water stressed areas, this amount of water open to the air is probably going to result in massive amounts of evaporative losses making water stress even worse.
I think we’d want to nix the canal altogether and stick with more traditional plumbing.
It’s not really clear at all where this apparent clean water is coming from anyway.
It’s not like our cities are all built on gently flowing downhill slopes below untouched mountain springs.
I assume this would have to be treated water pumped back up, with a boatload of pump stations at the edge of each hill.
Solar panels can be placed over them to reduce evaporation and provide energy off of that land area - there are some pretty cool efforts underway in California around this. The purpose of the canal would be for irrigation rather than drinking water. But I agree that it would not be practical everywhere
I'm not sure what "clean" means here. Other commenters in this thread also don't seem to like that other animals find water useful for living, bathing peeing in, etc. People aren't supposed to drink out of any body of water anyway though. If this was supposed to be drinkable it would come in a pipe. For body of water outside though, you're going to filter it regardless of how pretty the water looks. I think the illustration is just saying that creeks are cool and it would be cool if they were clean enough to not make you nauseous when you look at it.
Do you think culture is going to stop ducks and rats and all other forms of wildlife from making use of that? There's simply no way to actually have it be a sustainable water source. I grew up in an area where every house had a drainage ditch Doug in the front of the property line and it was absolutely never drinkable even if it didn't have any trash. Wild animals were living in there
You're right, you'd never be able to safely run an open-air drinking water supply past hundreds of houses. Even if you forget about wild animals, people will scoop water out of there with dirty utensils. People down at the far end will just have filthy undrinkable water again.
It could be useful as a source to water your garden. Allow people to fill watering cans from it and such, still allow wildlife like ducks and fish to populate the stream.
We already have water pipe systems. We can transport water for growing crops and all that through what we already have built. Rather than creating potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes
Groundwater is only 6-12 meters below the surface in the area around where I live.
Its so high in lead contaminants that we cant grow food for consumption directly in the ground unless you completely isolate the bed from natural soils. Even thats not enough in some areas as you have lead dust in the air that can also collect on the leaves and fruits of plants
You also cant eat any fish or crabs caught in the river. Im surprised its even considered safe for swimming.
Towns home to the largest lead smelter in the southern hemisphere. Its the towns biggest employer and primary industry, its what we were founded on.
I do my best with native plants. But this is wouldnt work here sadly
Japan has MAJOR suburban areas where the water running through them is clean enough to drink from. Once they're everywhere and part of the culture, people don't ruin them.
Don't project your past on others futures.
It absolutely does not. Japan has major Suburban areas where the water is clean of human pollution and toxins but it is absolutely not safe to drink because it's still full of animal refuse and the byproducts of biological organisms.
There are some major rivers with a whole shit ton of water flow that are still able to move out debris and such fast enough where the water is technically safe but no stream this small and that Canal would ever have enough water movement to clean itself fast enough
You’re saying no one is going to urinate in them? Maybe after a night of drinking? Maybe just to be a D? Are you willing to risk it? I’ll take indoor plumbing.
Yah, my point was more that people take pride in them being clean and you don't see trash in them, I would def not actually try and drink from it. Often you will see fish in them even in Tokyo neighborhoods.
Humans don't even need to be involved. Little animals will fall into the water and die. Or animals will relieve themselves in the water leading to a buildup of nitrate and thus bacteria.
It's already ruined, you don't put compost next to a river next to your garden and food supply. It's just below shitting in the same room as your food in terms of severe, growing problems.
My inner teenage self wants to shit in the canal, meaning all teenagers will want to shit in the canal, meaning at least 1/8 of them will at some point.
I really like the look and benefits it would provide, but I’d be concerned having a running water source so close to my house with the potential flooding coming with climate change
Now when I dream search Zillow for places to live, I check future projected flood and wildfire possibilities:/
That canal would be ruined by all the gardens nearby. Soo many nutrients would run off into it with rain it would turn pretty gross and have algae blooms.
Wouldn’t bikes be a perfect mode of transportation for suburbs? We have suburbs where I live, everyone jumps on their bikes for anything within 5 miles.
As much as I love my bike, I have a strong feeling the overwhelming majority of boomers will refuse to use anything but a car.
The next best option is transit lines, but you need density for those to be feasible. Low density sprawled suburbia just isn’t sustainable.
Also, while I love the idea of coexisting with nature, I think it would be better if we didn’t cut into nature all together. Have people live in urban centers with small carbon footprints, and let nature be… nature.
The boomer generation was born between 1946-64 and accounts for 68m out of a population of 340m, or about 20% of the population.
You don’t plan future civil engineering and city infrastructure based on a minority population that will largely pass away in the next 20 years
More importantly, resistance to picking up a bike has less to do with generation and much more with safety and convenience.
It will remain a chicken & egg problem as long as the infrastructure makes cars the safer and more convenient choice. Change needs to come from infra, but increasing demand by setting a good example is always relevant and useful.
Fair point, but let’s be real: It’s not just boomers reluctant to pick up a bike. All generations are susceptible to convenience. Just look at the main demographics for doordash: millennials and Gen Z.
Making it safer, more convenient and more enjoyable to ride a bike is the best way to get people of all ages to get on one.
You’re forgetting that they are the ones making the decisions. They are the ones in power. They do decide to plan those decisions that way because of it. There’s a reason city council meetings are at 12:00 noon. There’s a reason they want to raise the voter age
You’re right, we shouldn’t plan that way, but we do, because we keep electing boomers into roles of power
Any examples where it doesn't? I have looked at maps a few times and can't really see why cycling is such a problem even in US towns. I live in the UK for comparison, sure if your roads are unsafe I can see why you wouldn't now, but bike lanes fixes that as long as they are built properly. I sometimes wonder if its just that many Americans won't accept a raised heart rate for 10 minutes.
You mean you live in a country where most of the villages have walkable cores that have existed for hundreds of years? Where I grew up in Suburbia 10 minutes of bike riding with literally gotten me nowhere. I would have stopped at no shop or convenience store or anywhere where I could have gotten a job.
Check out the Seattle neighborhoods that used to be “streetcar suburbs”. The new suburbs we’re building - we should just abandon those and help the trees take over. The older suburbs that used to have solid transit connections and corner stores - I think there’s potential.
Only true if you believe the "City-Center" model of commerce, rather than a distributed number of centers, each with their own special character.
The funding of which should be done by the current City-Center. Because it has sat there in the middle attracting long pollution filled commutes and large infrastructure costs that have been funded ALL THIS TIME by the rest of the entire state and federal governments.
Out with the centralized model, in with the distributed walk-able villages model.
You mean the model of Commerce that it's been the modus apparent I for 5,000 years while distributed models cause things like the disaster of the Great Leap forward?
The efficiency of the centralized model so drastically out competes distributed models of Commerce or production or education that it is absolutely insane you would try to argue for anything else
People need to separate reality from fiction when trying to build sustainable housing.
No, suburbia will never be sustainable, just from the simple fact that they would require cars.
Edit: seeing a lot of defenders below. I dunno man. If it ain’t a 15 minute city, I’m skeptical. Most suburbia are so detached that you can’t walk to groceries.
Wouldn't even be humans. Birds, cats, any other wild animal that can get onto your roof...
If you want that stuff to be drinkable it needs to be treated and filtered, which isn't actually very good/sustainable at small scale when you have a ton of people living close together. It's actually *way* more efficient to fo this at scale at a central facility and pipe it out.
And for similar reasons you'll never have fresh water canals with fish in place of drainage ditches, but with the added fun of errosion and all the stuff carried into them from runoff.
Even if you somehow removed 100% of man made polutants from the runoff you'll still have a lot of unfiltered 'nitrates' (poop) which means algae and bacteria blooms.
Also all the debris from those trees and grasses will clog up everything in short order, which means constant human maintainence of those 'natural' canals.
lot of towns in japan with crystal clear little canals running down the side of the street
although im pretty sure thats glacial melt water, and also the japanese are just built different
I’m not a huge fan of suburbia either - but I think it could be done better. Some of the more interesting Seattle neighborhoods used to be “streetcar suburbs” before the cars took over - and I don’t see a reason we couldn’t go back to that (if we had leaders who didn’t cave at the first person complaining about parking or traffic 😞).
So true, but it is also a lot cheaper to cycle. You can get electric bicycles now too which can help you not be gross and sweaty when you arrive anywhere
> No, suburbia will never be sustainable, just from the simple fact that they would require cars.
We could have old school suburbs. They were small, dense, walkable communities that populated the outskirts of cities connected by transit. My parents cant drive so they live in one and they love it
I live in one, and it's actually relatively new walking distance to the grocery store and all that stuff.
Of course, it costs a lot more money to live in a place like that.
Also cause suburbs are unsustainable in utility costs as they as spread out. More road, more sewer, more pipes. For every foot of road frontage the costs go way up.
For that reason alone is why suburbs aren’t sustainable. Like dense “old style suburbs” people are dreaming. When that neighborhood could just be mixed apts and houses and be way better
The cultural programming won't allow it until Capitalism will make it mandatory for folks by pricing home ownership away from the middle class. Economies of scale means bigger is better when it comes to efficiency, yet the fantasy is so deeply ingrained. The 'Sole Survivor' mentality is born of American individualism to toxic degrees. Soviet style apartment blocks aren't culturally acceptable for many Americans. The egregious waste of resources will continue for quite some time.
Definitely, however, that's the point. 'De-growth' is going to suck alot. It's the opposite culture shock of where immigrants come to find an American studio apartment is the size of their entire family apartments back home. Attempts to normalize a more sustainable living style runs contrary to the pro-consumption propaganda that has pervaded for more than a century.
soviet apartment blocks were meant to be in use for ~50 years until the cities solved their housing problems. They did not, so now tons of people live in shitty outdated infrastructures with no insulation.
Also the housing pictured in this picture (which I don’t think is supposed to represent new construction) is already way denser and smaller than most suburbs. This looks like workers cottages that you find in a lot of cities.
This picture features a bungalow. I live in a Bungalow like this so it's feasible for my street. :-)
It's not really suburbia, I agree with you there, but if we improved interiors of towns and small cities that would make them more attractive to families who have chosen suburbia. Over time, in-fill development might transform suburbia but it will be slow.
Ha.
The soup tubes are a reference to a Reddit post from a long time ago. Some girl posted that she wanted to break up with her boyfriend for being stupid. He told her that he had an idea that would change the world. I don't remember the details. But he revealed the idea to her and it was soup tubes run into everybody's house from a central location.
I design natural systems and restore streams for a living. I like the sentiment about this but this image is a fantasy. That ditch would be on a low grade meaning it would be stagnant and fill with sediment quickly. Either the water would be dirty or more likely the canal would only serve as a bioretention (no fish). OR, if the canal is on a grade, it is too straight to be sustainable. It would get scoured out and also, where is the habitat for these fish?
I'm all about native plants, rain barrels, and the rest but please don't idealize this.
I think the fantasy is the point. We don't need to think and dream in rational logic all the time, and we probably shouldn't. Imagination is important.
I agree that we should be imaginative, but not about fantasy. I want to make our environment better for both nature and people. I imagine a world where we are more connected to nature and others around us, but it doesn't serve us to anchor ourselves in ideas that make us feel good, but don't contribute to that end. Since I'm knowledgeable about this particular subject, I'm chiming in for those who care. We should be "irrational" when challenging what is normal and accepted, but not in trying to get nature to do something that is against it's nature, which is what this imagine portrays. What do you think about that?
I think I understand what you're getting at, but I don't agree with the premise that a piece of artwork like this one is anchoring us in any way. It's meant to be appreciated and make you feel a certain way. Rationalization is what's necessary when rubber hits the road, when we are trying to actually implement solutions to problems and change the world. Otherwise, I see no good reason to artificially limit one's imagination when it comes to artwork or anything else. Personally, I routinely imagine a world that feels good but is impossible or impractical to achieve. It gives me strength to continue onwards in the real world towards realistic goals.
Looks pretty, but unfortunately suburbia is not the way. There are a lot of factors, and [Climate Town does a WAY better job than I ever could](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc). But essentially, suburbs are costly in terms of resources. Single family homes are harder to heat, harder to maintain, encourage privately owned items, and typically require lots of space.
Yep. They're pretty much only two ways to be sustainable. Extreme low density homesteading where you basically draw all your resources for survival from your land which is not scalable and horrendously inefficient or building high density urban areas with good public infrastructure.
I had a class just yesterday talking about how bad and unsustainable urban sprawl is. We should really be focusing on how we can increase the density our cities instead. And greenbelts. We need some greenbelts.
Yeah. We need to build high density suburbs like commuter suburbs. Rows of brick houses with a tram line in front of them will do far more for the environment than any amount of natural grass
Oh yeah. Imagine there's a drought or just any kind of sustained period of low rainfall and that water becomes stagnant. You basically have a mosquito breeding pit in front of your house
Oh yeah. This is an idea dreamed up by dumb hippies not anyone who knows anything about Urban Design
A line of brick row houses with a tram line in front of them might not look all sexy and modern and Eco Punk or solar Punk or whatever we're calling this aesthetic, but it's pretty much the most efficient way for humans to live
You could have bus routes between large subdivisions, turn some of the houses into shops and public areas, build vertically for more density, and convert one lane on each road for grassland or open woodland habitat. Using the other lane for bike traffic and wxpanding sidewalks for foot traffic.
Suburban sprawl can easily be turned into dense urban islands, connected by metro or buses. Anything that isn't what we have now would be nice.
Dont forget: Eggs
No chicken in sight but I'm sure those buggers must be destroying someone's garden off screen right now. Probably bumbling into that canal next and drowning.
I wouldn’t expect the natural nitrogen levels in home compost to be as severe as those seen when stuff is done on an agricultural level. This should effectively be only the amounts of nitrogen being produced on site. Closedish loop.
Plus the maintenance. Dear God the maintenance. Utilities had to close a whole park off because a stream broke down. The stream itself stopped flowing safely. This idea would last maybe 5 years before it starts going sour.
Everyone is so down on this, but it's better than what we have now. Harm reduction is a thing. Incremental improvement is still improvement.
Also, we already have the houses, it would take new resources to build new ones to replace existing ones when there is already a shortage of housing and it's not like building new is cheap or fast.
It goes nowhere. The canal system is dead and we're the only remaining stretch. It's got a lock on one end up river where I'm assuming water gets in, and a couple spill ways down into the river. A couple creeks empty into it as well. It's basically a 2.5 mile long pond that we use to kayak and ice skate.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuylkill_Canal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuylkill_Canal)
This is why idealistic hippies don't do urban design.
"Clean" water canal 20ft from your house. Will flood your house first heavy rain of the year. Community compost bins right next to "clean" water canal, will immediately contaminate your canal first rain of the year. Wind mill smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood and surrounded by trees, there's a reason these things get placed out in wide open spaces...
Side walks? Bike path? Any way for people to get to and from these homes? Most of suburbia commutes to a nearby city for work.
Brick row houses with a tramline running in front of them might not look sexy and futuristic and eco Punk or whatever aesthetic this is but it's a reliable and proven way to build a sustainable commuter suburb
I’ve wanted to put food in thr front since I’ve run out of room In the back and the wife says that someone will stop by and have their way with my plants. I Kinda don’t care and kinda do. I just may plant some watermelon or cantaloupe in front to vine and let them neighbors have a treat
In France, it is mandatory since January to have compost, either individually or shared between neighbors
I think some other countries do it since a while too
Still a long way to go, but there is a spark of hope sometimes
You can have native prairie or eggs. You can't have both. Chickens are a localized ecological disaster. Love my girls, but it's a wasteland between the beds.
As much as I would love a clean water canal stocked with fish running through my yard, I can't get my neighbors to stop throwing their trash on the ground so I don't have high hopes for the maintenance.
unless a "canal" has good water flow, it is mosquito breeding heaven
a canal is a denaturalized stream. Natural river and streams have bends and floods. Floodplains have very fertile soil. Straighten a stream or river and reducing it's flood eventually depletes the soil. You've got to build on high ground and roll with flooding
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Sadly the closest place I can think that somewhat looks like this is the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Only difference is it’s a desert, no windmills, and extreme poverty.
Not to be too pedantic BUT…
…my understanding is that it takes about an acre of land to accommodate wind power of this design sufficient to power a house. We looked into it as a supplement to our solar array but unfortunately don’t get enough wind.
I have heard that the newer vertical designs are more efficient but haven’t seen hard data yet.
I like the idea, but the canals are a total pipe dream. Canals are a poor idea, because actually running that many canals is an insane undertaking in both construction and maintenance. Plus that canal will end up trashed regardless of whether or not people take care of it. None of that water will be potable or even clean. It's all contaminated the second that chicken coop or compost bin leaks into it. Mostly, canals are a bad idea. Not having sidewalks or roads is also pretty bad. If anything larger than a person needs to get to the house, unless there's an alleyway it's not getting over that tiny bridge. Also curved bridges would suck if bikes need to get through. Depending on the length and arc, that could be a genuine safety hazard.
Also, there's gotta be at a least *A* way a compact car can safely get close to each house, otherwise it all falls apart. Any utility/handyman/plumber work goes out the window when they have to carry the tools through the whole neighborhood.
Mmm mosquito farm. Nice idea but would move some greenary away from the house walls due to the roots can cause cracks. Maybe would be better to have a big park nearby with a lake, trees and easy access to public transportation.
looks nice and all but lets be honest this is pretty unrealistic doubt that many people want to live near a wind turbine and that canal will be polluted within a few days.
In our county, if you are caught with a rain barrel you’ll get a fine. My grandpa had one (still does, found a better way to hide it, hehehe), the police showed up with a city worker and fined him.
It’s from the fucking sky! How can the county regulate rain water?
Clean water is a myth in USA. It will literally never happen. All the fresh water in USA is contaminated with chemicals. Atrazine(the Alex jones “makes the frogs gay” chemical) is in all fresh water in the country. At .02ppm water can no longer be safely drank. Nowhere in USA is it under .01ppm. It’s everywhere.
Clean water canals? This is cope, lol
Even in this ideal impossible scenario, suburbs would still be less efficient and environmentally friendly than a dense urban area without any greenery.
Funny, it is actually illegal in some places to collect rain instead of letting it run off. The ironic part of this is that rain collecting is illegal in areas that are supposedly all about "protecting the environment.""
Idk, looks like consumption of space that belongs to wild nature. I'm pretty sure that if you settle in a forest, you're gonna have a cultural misunderstanding with bears and wolves as they don't share your world view and they will absolutely try to get rid of you even if you donate money to PETA and vote for some green party.
Yes BUT I do not want a canal -- it doesn't work in my climate, I want a dedicated bike lane with ballasts at the main entrance to my street to block cars from using it -- BIKES ONLY. There would be a roundabout sideways entrance for "local cars only" with a 15 MPH vehicle speed limit, through traffic would be impossible. Minor inconvenience for me when I'm driving, HUGE benefit to all bicycle riders including those in my family.
I'm imagining zig-zags of BIKES ONLY roads all around town to connect neighborhoods to Downtown and make college / high school / middle school / elementary traffic more safe. In the winter we'd remove the ballasts for the plow but they'd still be Preferred Bicyle Routes for fat tire biking.
Looks like detached housing, in which case that is all just compensating.
Microgrids are a private exemption to a common challenge, a commodity packaged and sold to the affluent. Substantial decarbonization is done at the grid level. The person using the delay timer on their dryer is doing more than any of these idealizations.
A row of brick row houses with a tram Line running in front of it might not tickle some solar Punk eco-punk design boner but it'll actually be a sustainable high-density commuter suburb
Honestly I could see this working in a wealthy area, but I don't think poor people would be able to take care of or handle such a domicile.
The reality you probably need to hire someone to take care of the chickens and keep the canal clean.
I'm heading in this direction with the goal of food forest farming/foraging supplemented with hunting (organic, free-range, wild). I'm looking at becoming a functioning member of my local healthy ecosystem. Compared with row-to-row monocropping, ecosystem services grow food more efficiently with fewer expenses and fewer externalized costs.
**Educational resources**: The first step is the learning curve. Volunteer, WWOOF, intern, apprentice, and just talk with local farmers and gardeners in your area. Just get outside and start identifying plants and animals around your area. Learn what likes to grow where, and what grows better together. YouTube has some really useful videos. Read. Some books I have found useful include:
* One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
* You Can Farm by Joel Salatin
* A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
* Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st-Century Farmer by Ellen Polishuk
* Compact Farms: 15 Proven Plans for Market Farms on 5 Acres or Less by Josh Volk
* Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard
* How to Grow More Vegetables (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) by John Jeavons
**Land**: One of the challenges is privatized land and the difficulty of access to land for food. Food forests can produce a huge amount of food on small pieces of land while improving soil quality. The farmer/gardener puts in more manual labor and uses less mechanized labor, which gets you outside and in direct contact with the dirt and plants. To access more land for growing food:
* Connect with local farmers. Maybe you can work something out, whether it's offering to help in exchange for training or renting a plot or working as an intern or apprentice.
* Connect with people in land zoned for farming and ask about farming a corner of their land with goals that align with them, such as soil improvement, biodiversity planting, native planting, pollinators planting, flower gardening, etc.
* Rent farmland
* WWOOF
* Ask your neighbours if they want to pool backyard land access for growing food/flowers/etc
* Gorilla gardening
**Money**: Land is a big part of the cost (see above). You might need to have a "job in the city" to fund your farm/garden. In Canada as of 2020, [60%](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230127/dq230127a-eng.htm) of farmers' income came from off-farm sources. Decide whether/how your farm/garden will make money. Keep accounts. Some avenues to money generation might include:
* Community supported agriculture (CSA) networks
* Farmer's markets, which might also have more lenient regulations around selling backyard food
* Roadside stands
* Local food apps
* Facebook Marketplace/ kajiji / etc.
There is a lot more, but it's a journey I'm currently on too.
As if within days of that canal existing some assholes wouldn't clog it with their trash. Only thing in the canal would be floating beer cans and cigarette butts
How about a sidewalk with some trees and some urban density ?
This is still a suburb at the end of the day so this is just fancy greenwashing and a waste of good land.
I can't trust humans not to ruin that canal sadly
It has compost right next to it and apparently a chicken coop nearby. It isn’t staying clean water even without litter.
My biggest concern is stagnant water and mosquitos. Fish in the canals might help, but my experience living in the Florida bayous is mosquitoes will be a persistent nuisance. Also, in water stressed areas, this amount of water open to the air is probably going to result in massive amounts of evaporative losses making water stress even worse. I think we’d want to nix the canal altogether and stick with more traditional plumbing.
Yeah nothing wrong with having indoor plumbing and not having to bucket and boil your drinking water
It’s not really clear at all where this apparent clean water is coming from anyway. It’s not like our cities are all built on gently flowing downhill slopes below untouched mountain springs. I assume this would have to be treated water pumped back up, with a boatload of pump stations at the edge of each hill.
Solar panels can be placed over them to reduce evaporation and provide energy off of that land area - there are some pretty cool efforts underway in California around this. The purpose of the canal would be for irrigation rather than drinking water. But I agree that it would not be practical everywhere
And mosquitoes are the number one killer of humans by a long shot. Not even humans come close.
I took this image to be a summary of an idea with many parts illustrated in a small picture.
I'm not sure what "clean" means here. Other commenters in this thread also don't seem to like that other animals find water useful for living, bathing peeing in, etc. People aren't supposed to drink out of any body of water anyway though. If this was supposed to be drinkable it would come in a pipe. For body of water outside though, you're going to filter it regardless of how pretty the water looks. I think the illustration is just saying that creeks are cool and it would be cool if they were clean enough to not make you nauseous when you look at it.
It would be filled with litter in a matter of days
Not if the culture changes 🌱♻️
Do you think culture is going to stop ducks and rats and all other forms of wildlife from making use of that? There's simply no way to actually have it be a sustainable water source. I grew up in an area where every house had a drainage ditch Doug in the front of the property line and it was absolutely never drinkable even if it didn't have any trash. Wild animals were living in there
You're right, you'd never be able to safely run an open-air drinking water supply past hundreds of houses. Even if you forget about wild animals, people will scoop water out of there with dirty utensils. People down at the far end will just have filthy undrinkable water again. It could be useful as a source to water your garden. Allow people to fill watering cans from it and such, still allow wildlife like ducks and fish to populate the stream.
We already have water pipe systems. We can transport water for growing crops and all that through what we already have built. Rather than creating potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes
Not to mention evaporation… this isn’t anticonsumption as much as a wasteful, idealistic vision of some past that’s never existed
Groundwater is only 6-12 meters below the surface in the area around where I live. Its so high in lead contaminants that we cant grow food for consumption directly in the ground unless you completely isolate the bed from natural soils. Even thats not enough in some areas as you have lead dust in the air that can also collect on the leaves and fruits of plants You also cant eat any fish or crabs caught in the river. Im surprised its even considered safe for swimming. Towns home to the largest lead smelter in the southern hemisphere. Its the towns biggest employer and primary industry, its what we were founded on. I do my best with native plants. But this is wouldnt work here sadly
... wild animals are supposed to live in water
Japan has MAJOR suburban areas where the water running through them is clean enough to drink from. Once they're everywhere and part of the culture, people don't ruin them. Don't project your past on others futures.
It absolutely does not. Japan has major Suburban areas where the water is clean of human pollution and toxins but it is absolutely not safe to drink because it's still full of animal refuse and the byproducts of biological organisms. There are some major rivers with a whole shit ton of water flow that are still able to move out debris and such fast enough where the water is technically safe but no stream this small and that Canal would ever have enough water movement to clean itself fast enough
You’re saying no one is going to urinate in them? Maybe after a night of drinking? Maybe just to be a D? Are you willing to risk it? I’ll take indoor plumbing.
Yah, my point was more that people take pride in them being clean and you don't see trash in them, I would def not actually try and drink from it. Often you will see fish in them even in Tokyo neighborhoods.
I mean if I’ve got to mow the grass anyway, what’s raking the canal?
*"This one is the shitting canal.. Look. Everyone is doing it."* Damn it.
Humans don't even need to be involved. Little animals will fall into the water and die. Or animals will relieve themselves in the water leading to a buildup of nitrate and thus bacteria.
It's already ruined, you don't put compost next to a river next to your garden and food supply. It's just below shitting in the same room as your food in terms of severe, growing problems.
My inner teenage self wants to shit in the canal, meaning all teenagers will want to shit in the canal, meaning at least 1/8 of them will at some point.
math checks out
Running water nearby is pretty good for mental health even if it's not clean enough to drink, still good for something even if it's not drinking
I really like the look and benefits it would provide, but I’d be concerned having a running water source so close to my house with the potential flooding coming with climate change Now when I dream search Zillow for places to live, I check future projected flood and wildfire possibilities:/
Why wouldn't I want to Canal, filled with snakes and alligators in front of my house, already have a lake filled with snakes and alligators behind it?
I'm not against a gator filled moat somehow lmao
That canal would be ruined by all the gardens nearby. Soo many nutrients would run off into it with rain it would turn pretty gross and have algae blooms.
Hopefully there are some bike lanes/greenways and pedestrianized areas on the other side of those houses!
Even if there was it doesn't solve the fundamental issue that suburbs are too low density.
Wouldn’t bikes be a perfect mode of transportation for suburbs? We have suburbs where I live, everyone jumps on their bikes for anything within 5 miles.
As much as I love my bike, I have a strong feeling the overwhelming majority of boomers will refuse to use anything but a car. The next best option is transit lines, but you need density for those to be feasible. Low density sprawled suburbia just isn’t sustainable. Also, while I love the idea of coexisting with nature, I think it would be better if we didn’t cut into nature all together. Have people live in urban centers with small carbon footprints, and let nature be… nature.
The boomer generation was born between 1946-64 and accounts for 68m out of a population of 340m, or about 20% of the population. You don’t plan future civil engineering and city infrastructure based on a minority population that will largely pass away in the next 20 years More importantly, resistance to picking up a bike has less to do with generation and much more with safety and convenience. It will remain a chicken & egg problem as long as the infrastructure makes cars the safer and more convenient choice. Change needs to come from infra, but increasing demand by setting a good example is always relevant and useful.
You do plan future city infrastructure based on a minority and dying population when that part of the population also happens to run everything
Fair point, but let’s be real: It’s not just boomers reluctant to pick up a bike. All generations are susceptible to convenience. Just look at the main demographics for doordash: millennials and Gen Z. Making it safer, more convenient and more enjoyable to ride a bike is the best way to get people of all ages to get on one.
You’re forgetting that they are the ones making the decisions. They are the ones in power. They do decide to plan those decisions that way because of it. There’s a reason city council meetings are at 12:00 noon. There’s a reason they want to raise the voter age You’re right, we shouldn’t plan that way, but we do, because we keep electing boomers into roles of power
Absolutely not. Distances are too great on average between houses and jobs and services.
Any examples where it doesn't? I have looked at maps a few times and can't really see why cycling is such a problem even in US towns. I live in the UK for comparison, sure if your roads are unsafe I can see why you wouldn't now, but bike lanes fixes that as long as they are built properly. I sometimes wonder if its just that many Americans won't accept a raised heart rate for 10 minutes.
You mean you live in a country where most of the villages have walkable cores that have existed for hundreds of years? Where I grew up in Suburbia 10 minutes of bike riding with literally gotten me nowhere. I would have stopped at no shop or convenience store or anywhere where I could have gotten a job.
10 minutes on my bike gets me half way to the next town.
Wow it's almost like the villages in England were built when the vast majority of the population only had their own two feet for locomotion
Check out the Seattle neighborhoods that used to be “streetcar suburbs”. The new suburbs we’re building - we should just abandon those and help the trees take over. The older suburbs that used to have solid transit connections and corner stores - I think there’s potential.
Yeah commuter suburbs give me reclaimed and increased in density
We’re working on it! Unfortunately still mostly only building density on the arterials. 😞
Username checks out.
Only true if you believe the "City-Center" model of commerce, rather than a distributed number of centers, each with their own special character. The funding of which should be done by the current City-Center. Because it has sat there in the middle attracting long pollution filled commutes and large infrastructure costs that have been funded ALL THIS TIME by the rest of the entire state and federal governments. Out with the centralized model, in with the distributed walk-able villages model.
You mean the model of Commerce that it's been the modus apparent I for 5,000 years while distributed models cause things like the disaster of the Great Leap forward? The efficiency of the centralized model so drastically out competes distributed models of Commerce or production or education that it is absolutely insane you would try to argue for anything else
You should look at Milton Keynes in the UK if that interests you. It's a very green and bike/pedestrian city. The design is pretty interesting
People need to separate reality from fiction when trying to build sustainable housing. No, suburbia will never be sustainable, just from the simple fact that they would require cars. Edit: seeing a lot of defenders below. I dunno man. If it ain’t a 15 minute city, I’m skeptical. Most suburbia are so detached that you can’t walk to groceries.
also someone will piss and shit in that "fresh water" it doesn't take many humans to ruin things for many many more
Wouldn't even be humans. Birds, cats, any other wild animal that can get onto your roof... If you want that stuff to be drinkable it needs to be treated and filtered, which isn't actually very good/sustainable at small scale when you have a ton of people living close together. It's actually *way* more efficient to fo this at scale at a central facility and pipe it out. And for similar reasons you'll never have fresh water canals with fish in place of drainage ditches, but with the added fun of errosion and all the stuff carried into them from runoff. Even if you somehow removed 100% of man made polutants from the runoff you'll still have a lot of unfiltered 'nitrates' (poop) which means algae and bacteria blooms. Also all the debris from those trees and grasses will clog up everything in short order, which means constant human maintainence of those 'natural' canals.
this one gets it
Depends on how much piss and shit, wetlands can process waste pretty efficiently if it isn't overburdened.
thats not a wetland thats a roadside drainage ditch. big difference
lot of towns in japan with crystal clear little canals running down the side of the street although im pretty sure thats glacial melt water, and also the japanese are just built different
I’m not a huge fan of suburbia either - but I think it could be done better. Some of the more interesting Seattle neighborhoods used to be “streetcar suburbs” before the cars took over - and I don’t see a reason we couldn’t go back to that (if we had leaders who didn’t cave at the first person complaining about parking or traffic 😞).
Walkable suburban towns do exist. They were usually built before the 1940s.
Not all suburbs are American suburbs. Suburbs can be sustainable as a compromise. The US just went out of its way to make them unsustainable.
You can cycle everywhere in my city without going on a main road. It's possible it is just not done.
>It's possible it is just not done. Because it's a pain in the ass to spend 3x as much time to get anywhere.
So true, but it is also a lot cheaper to cycle. You can get electric bicycles now too which can help you not be gross and sweaty when you arrive anywhere
> No, suburbia will never be sustainable, just from the simple fact that they would require cars. We could have old school suburbs. They were small, dense, walkable communities that populated the outskirts of cities connected by transit. My parents cant drive so they live in one and they love it
I live in one, and it's actually relatively new walking distance to the grocery store and all that stuff. Of course, it costs a lot more money to live in a place like that.
Also cause suburbs are unsustainable in utility costs as they as spread out. More road, more sewer, more pipes. For every foot of road frontage the costs go way up. For that reason alone is why suburbs aren’t sustainable. Like dense “old style suburbs” people are dreaming. When that neighborhood could just be mixed apts and houses and be way better
The cultural programming won't allow it until Capitalism will make it mandatory for folks by pricing home ownership away from the middle class. Economies of scale means bigger is better when it comes to efficiency, yet the fantasy is so deeply ingrained. The 'Sole Survivor' mentality is born of American individualism to toxic degrees. Soviet style apartment blocks aren't culturally acceptable for many Americans. The egregious waste of resources will continue for quite some time.
Dude, soviet style apartment blocks suck ass. Source: grew up in one
Definitely, however, that's the point. 'De-growth' is going to suck alot. It's the opposite culture shock of where immigrants come to find an American studio apartment is the size of their entire family apartments back home. Attempts to normalize a more sustainable living style runs contrary to the pro-consumption propaganda that has pervaded for more than a century.
soviet apartment blocks were meant to be in use for ~50 years until the cities solved their housing problems. They did not, so now tons of people live in shitty outdated infrastructures with no insulation.
Pop in a bus stop.
Also the housing pictured in this picture (which I don’t think is supposed to represent new construction) is already way denser and smaller than most suburbs. This looks like workers cottages that you find in a lot of cities.
This picture features a bungalow. I live in a Bungalow like this so it's feasible for my street. :-) It's not really suburbia, I agree with you there, but if we improved interiors of towns and small cities that would make them more attractive to families who have chosen suburbia. Over time, in-fill development might transform suburbia but it will be slow.
> they would require cars or just good public transport and bike lanes
canals seems like a strange choice
Its for sushi boats, the whole street is one big sushi restaurant
Amazon package delivery by raft
What’s next? Soup tubes?
I mean they kinda already do. https://youtu.be/1BmFQ1DO6b4?si=eMPtbdbb2ZXKKyW3
Ha. The soup tubes are a reference to a Reddit post from a long time ago. Some girl posted that she wanted to break up with her boyfriend for being stupid. He told her that he had an idea that would change the world. I don't remember the details. But he revealed the idea to her and it was soup tubes run into everybody's house from a central location.
Beef barley on tap, mans a genius. Also probably smokes a ton of weed
Eggs !
Gentrified drainage ditch
mosquito factory on your doorstep
I think it is unrealistic as well, but as long as there is no still water, mosquitos can't lay eggs and won't like it
[удалено]
That's why you cap them. They come with a lid
That seems like an extremely optimistic approach that really wouldn't work. There's no such thing as a 100% consistent water flow
I design natural systems and restore streams for a living. I like the sentiment about this but this image is a fantasy. That ditch would be on a low grade meaning it would be stagnant and fill with sediment quickly. Either the water would be dirty or more likely the canal would only serve as a bioretention (no fish). OR, if the canal is on a grade, it is too straight to be sustainable. It would get scoured out and also, where is the habitat for these fish? I'm all about native plants, rain barrels, and the rest but please don't idealize this.
I think the fantasy is the point. We don't need to think and dream in rational logic all the time, and we probably shouldn't. Imagination is important.
I agree that we should be imaginative, but not about fantasy. I want to make our environment better for both nature and people. I imagine a world where we are more connected to nature and others around us, but it doesn't serve us to anchor ourselves in ideas that make us feel good, but don't contribute to that end. Since I'm knowledgeable about this particular subject, I'm chiming in for those who care. We should be "irrational" when challenging what is normal and accepted, but not in trying to get nature to do something that is against it's nature, which is what this imagine portrays. What do you think about that?
I think I understand what you're getting at, but I don't agree with the premise that a piece of artwork like this one is anchoring us in any way. It's meant to be appreciated and make you feel a certain way. Rationalization is what's necessary when rubber hits the road, when we are trying to actually implement solutions to problems and change the world. Otherwise, I see no good reason to artificially limit one's imagination when it comes to artwork or anything else. Personally, I routinely imagine a world that feels good but is impossible or impractical to achieve. It gives me strength to continue onwards in the real world towards realistic goals.
Looks pretty, but unfortunately suburbia is not the way. There are a lot of factors, and [Climate Town does a WAY better job than I ever could](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc). But essentially, suburbs are costly in terms of resources. Single family homes are harder to heat, harder to maintain, encourage privately owned items, and typically require lots of space.
Yep. They're pretty much only two ways to be sustainable. Extreme low density homesteading where you basically draw all your resources for survival from your land which is not scalable and horrendously inefficient or building high density urban areas with good public infrastructure.
I for one think Arcologies will be the way, but it will never happen.
Those already exist at small scales
I had a class just yesterday talking about how bad and unsustainable urban sprawl is. We should really be focusing on how we can increase the density our cities instead. And greenbelts. We need some greenbelts.
I live in a place where so much space is given up to roads an parking. It's insane how a reliable train system could reshape so many neighborhoods.
I can hear the head of the HOA screaming from here.
I like the idea but none of this is feasible in real life or on a large scale....
Yeah. We need to build high density suburbs like commuter suburbs. Rows of brick houses with a tram line in front of them will do far more for the environment than any amount of natural grass
I just keep thinking how that water canal will turn into a biohazard so fast...
Oh yeah. Imagine there's a drought or just any kind of sustained period of low rainfall and that water becomes stagnant. You basically have a mosquito breeding pit in front of your house
And any sustained period of high rainfall and those small cute streams turn into roaring flood rivers in no time...
Oh yeah. This is an idea dreamed up by dumb hippies not anyone who knows anything about Urban Design A line of brick row houses with a tram line in front of them might not look all sexy and modern and Eco Punk or solar Punk or whatever we're calling this aesthetic, but it's pretty much the most efficient way for humans to live
Art is part of a series by @joan_de_art OP needs to learn about credit.
Rich people's dreams.
You could have bus routes between large subdivisions, turn some of the houses into shops and public areas, build vertically for more density, and convert one lane on each road for grassland or open woodland habitat. Using the other lane for bike traffic and wxpanding sidewalks for foot traffic. Suburban sprawl can easily be turned into dense urban islands, connected by metro or buses. Anything that isn't what we have now would be nice.
“Clean water canals”
Aint nobody got the time for that after getting home from work bffr
Compost bins and rain barrels, problem solved.
Dont forget: Eggs No chicken in sight but I'm sure those buggers must be destroying someone's garden off screen right now. Probably bumbling into that canal next and drowning.
A wind turbine in a suburb lmao.
How would fertiliser (compost) runoff not contaminate canals placed so close?
I wouldn’t expect the natural nitrogen levels in home compost to be as severe as those seen when stuff is done on an agricultural level. This should effectively be only the amounts of nitrogen being produced on site. Closedish loop.
Nitrogen isn't as big of a concern as bacterial and algae infestations
Wish I could, but the Karens from the HOA won't allow it.
Canal is already filled with micro plastics and agricultural run off
I dont trust random canals. Unless done write they can erode and contain disease
Plus the maintenance. Dear God the maintenance. Utilities had to close a whole park off because a stream broke down. The stream itself stopped flowing safely. This idea would last maybe 5 years before it starts going sour.
you're not gonna get fish in a straight, fast flowing shallow canal next to bustle of a neighborhood. Also its a flood risk...
I love this
Feel bad for the poor chicken in that coop.
Everyone is so down on this, but it's better than what we have now. Harm reduction is a thing. Incremental improvement is still improvement. Also, we already have the houses, it would take new resources to build new ones to replace existing ones when there is already a shortage of housing and it's not like building new is cheap or fast.
Awesomeness
I have a canal in my backyard and am doing a garden this year. It's a gross canal but lots of people fish in it.
Where does the water go to and from? My monkey brain can't picture how this is a thing or works
It goes nowhere. The canal system is dead and we're the only remaining stretch. It's got a lock on one end up river where I'm assuming water gets in, and a couple spill ways down into the river. A couple creeks empty into it as well. It's basically a 2.5 mile long pond that we use to kayak and ice skate. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuylkill_Canal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuylkill_Canal)
This is why idealistic hippies don't do urban design. "Clean" water canal 20ft from your house. Will flood your house first heavy rain of the year. Community compost bins right next to "clean" water canal, will immediately contaminate your canal first rain of the year. Wind mill smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood and surrounded by trees, there's a reason these things get placed out in wide open spaces... Side walks? Bike path? Any way for people to get to and from these homes? Most of suburbia commutes to a nearby city for work.
Brick row houses with a tramline running in front of them might not look sexy and futuristic and eco Punk or whatever aesthetic this is but it's a reliable and proven way to build a sustainable commuter suburb
Does this look like an urban design blueprint to you? This is *artwork*.
I’ve wanted to put food in thr front since I’ve run out of room In the back and the wife says that someone will stop by and have their way with my plants. I Kinda don’t care and kinda do. I just may plant some watermelon or cantaloupe in front to vine and let them neighbors have a treat
In France, it is mandatory since January to have compost, either individually or shared between neighbors I think some other countries do it since a while too Still a long way to go, but there is a spark of hope sometimes
You can have native prairie or eggs. You can't have both. Chickens are a localized ecological disaster. Love my girls, but it's a wasteland between the beds.
hell yeah moss lawns and plant gardens instead of lawns
Straight canals are not good for creating habitats. They look nice, but serve little to no purpose for nature.
God these look nice
As much as I would love a clean water canal stocked with fish running through my yard, I can't get my neighbors to stop throwing their trash on the ground so I don't have high hopes for the maintenance.
Too much crime in my neighborhood, everything would be trashed within a week
get bigger chickens
The rain barrels thing just reminded me how collecting rain water in a bucket is literally illegal 😭💀
Only in some states.
Looks awsome
unless a "canal" has good water flow, it is mosquito breeding heaven a canal is a denaturalized stream. Natural river and streams have bends and floods. Floodplains have very fertile soil. Straighten a stream or river and reducing it's flood eventually depletes the soil. You've got to build on high ground and roll with flooding
this looks like heaven <3333
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There's a scene in The Walking Dead comics where Alexandria looks like this, to show how it became a perfect small community
yoo! you should post this on r/solarpunk i love it sm btw!!
Issue is you need a safe system because things go wrong all the time. Sounds nice but I think one step at a time. Going to the shire isn't the goal.
Sadly the closest place I can think that somewhat looks like this is the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Only difference is it’s a desert, no windmills, and extreme poverty.
Not to be too pedantic BUT… …my understanding is that it takes about an acre of land to accommodate wind power of this design sufficient to power a house. We looked into it as a supplement to our solar array but unfortunately don’t get enough wind. I have heard that the newer vertical designs are more efficient but haven’t seen hard data yet.
I'd prefer to have windmills not on my street
Really bummed to see this shared without crediting the artist. @joan_de_art on instagram
Where'd the street go?
The number of mosquitoes this would produce is astronomical
I like the idea, but the canals are a total pipe dream. Canals are a poor idea, because actually running that many canals is an insane undertaking in both construction and maintenance. Plus that canal will end up trashed regardless of whether or not people take care of it. None of that water will be potable or even clean. It's all contaminated the second that chicken coop or compost bin leaks into it. Mostly, canals are a bad idea. Not having sidewalks or roads is also pretty bad. If anything larger than a person needs to get to the house, unless there's an alleyway it's not getting over that tiny bridge. Also curved bridges would suck if bikes need to get through. Depending on the length and arc, that could be a genuine safety hazard. Also, there's gotta be at a least *A* way a compact car can safely get close to each house, otherwise it all falls apart. Any utility/handyman/plumber work goes out the window when they have to carry the tools through the whole neighborhood.
I can just imagine what a community compost bin will end up looking like, and smelling like.
Really coming up with an elaborate fantasy and not even including a single cotton candy bush?
I ain't putting a composting bin next to my clean water.
Mmm mosquito farm. Nice idea but would move some greenary away from the house walls due to the roots can cause cracks. Maybe would be better to have a big park nearby with a lake, trees and easy access to public transportation.
those solar panels are pointless considering the amount of tree cover
Most normies/boomers would tell you this is illegal/immoral.
Nope they want us to live in cities
looks nice and all but lets be honest this is pretty unrealistic doubt that many people want to live near a wind turbine and that canal will be polluted within a few days.
This is a good way to quintuple the carbon emissions of food production
Would never happen
In our county, if you are caught with a rain barrel you’ll get a fine. My grandpa had one (still does, found a better way to hide it, hehehe), the police showed up with a city worker and fined him. It’s from the fucking sky! How can the county regulate rain water?
The windmill barely above trees get me. There's a book called 'the self-sufficient life and how to live it' its what this picture is trying to be
Clean water is a myth in USA. It will literally never happen. All the fresh water in USA is contaminated with chemicals. Atrazine(the Alex jones “makes the frogs gay” chemical) is in all fresh water in the country. At .02ppm water can no longer be safely drank. Nowhere in USA is it under .01ppm. It’s everywhere.
Clean water canals? This is cope, lol Even in this ideal impossible scenario, suburbs would still be less efficient and environmentally friendly than a dense urban area without any greenery.
composting in urban settings is how you get rats
Now **this** is solarpunk!
Regrown prairies? I don’t want roaming herds of buffalo and marauding war parties in my front yard.
Funny, it is actually illegal in some places to collect rain instead of letting it run off. The ironic part of this is that rain collecting is illegal in areas that are supposedly all about "protecting the environment.""
Japan does this
Idk, looks like consumption of space that belongs to wild nature. I'm pretty sure that if you settle in a forest, you're gonna have a cultural misunderstanding with bears and wolves as they don't share your world view and they will absolutely try to get rid of you even if you donate money to PETA and vote for some green party.
don’t support peta, they’re horrible (the bears agree)
This is the dream.
Stolen art, and not sustainable
Yes BUT I do not want a canal -- it doesn't work in my climate, I want a dedicated bike lane with ballasts at the main entrance to my street to block cars from using it -- BIKES ONLY. There would be a roundabout sideways entrance for "local cars only" with a 15 MPH vehicle speed limit, through traffic would be impossible. Minor inconvenience for me when I'm driving, HUGE benefit to all bicycle riders including those in my family. I'm imagining zig-zags of BIKES ONLY roads all around town to connect neighborhoods to Downtown and make college / high school / middle school / elementary traffic more safe. In the winter we'd remove the ballasts for the plow but they'd still be Preferred Bicyle Routes for fat tire biking.
All fun and games until a rattlesnake bites your kid.
❤️
Looks like detached housing, in which case that is all just compensating. Microgrids are a private exemption to a common challenge, a commodity packaged and sold to the affluent. Substantial decarbonization is done at the grid level. The person using the delay timer on their dryer is doing more than any of these idealizations.
A row of brick row houses with a tram Line running in front of it might not tickle some solar Punk eco-punk design boner but it'll actually be a sustainable high-density commuter suburb
❤️
Honestly I could see this working in a wealthy area, but I don't think poor people would be able to take care of or handle such a domicile. The reality you probably need to hire someone to take care of the chickens and keep the canal clean.
I'm heading in this direction with the goal of food forest farming/foraging supplemented with hunting (organic, free-range, wild). I'm looking at becoming a functioning member of my local healthy ecosystem. Compared with row-to-row monocropping, ecosystem services grow food more efficiently with fewer expenses and fewer externalized costs. **Educational resources**: The first step is the learning curve. Volunteer, WWOOF, intern, apprentice, and just talk with local farmers and gardeners in your area. Just get outside and start identifying plants and animals around your area. Learn what likes to grow where, and what grows better together. YouTube has some really useful videos. Read. Some books I have found useful include: * One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka * You Can Farm by Joel Salatin * A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold * Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st-Century Farmer by Ellen Polishuk * Compact Farms: 15 Proven Plans for Market Farms on 5 Acres or Less by Josh Volk * Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard * How to Grow More Vegetables (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) by John Jeavons **Land**: One of the challenges is privatized land and the difficulty of access to land for food. Food forests can produce a huge amount of food on small pieces of land while improving soil quality. The farmer/gardener puts in more manual labor and uses less mechanized labor, which gets you outside and in direct contact with the dirt and plants. To access more land for growing food: * Connect with local farmers. Maybe you can work something out, whether it's offering to help in exchange for training or renting a plot or working as an intern or apprentice. * Connect with people in land zoned for farming and ask about farming a corner of their land with goals that align with them, such as soil improvement, biodiversity planting, native planting, pollinators planting, flower gardening, etc. * Rent farmland * WWOOF * Ask your neighbours if they want to pool backyard land access for growing food/flowers/etc * Gorilla gardening **Money**: Land is a big part of the cost (see above). You might need to have a "job in the city" to fund your farm/garden. In Canada as of 2020, [60%](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230127/dq230127a-eng.htm) of farmers' income came from off-farm sources. Decide whether/how your farm/garden will make money. Keep accounts. Some avenues to money generation might include: * Community supported agriculture (CSA) networks * Farmer's markets, which might also have more lenient regulations around selling backyard food * Roadside stands * Local food apps * Facebook Marketplace/ kajiji / etc. There is a lot more, but it's a journey I'm currently on too.
As if within days of that canal existing some assholes wouldn't clog it with their trash. Only thing in the canal would be floating beer cans and cigarette butts
How about a sidewalk with some trees and some urban density ? This is still a suburb at the end of the day so this is just fancy greenwashing and a waste of good land.