Guiding our communities from oil dependency to local resilience
 
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Visioning "Village LA"
A collective tapestry of how we imagine our communities in Los Angeles
 

What is your vision for what Los Angeles could possibly be like in 2040? 

What could a resilient, more sustainable, self-sufficient, resource-conscious greater L.A. area be like? 
Too big to imagine?  Then, what could your immediate neighborhood be like?

 
As TLA speakers ask these questions of audiences around the area, we're getting answers.  Add your answer in the comments section below, and you might see it posted here next time you visit us!
 
Los Angeles in 2040 ...
Last Metro Line Opens, Completing City Network ... Migratory Birds Return by the Thousands to Ballona Wetlands ... 2010 Garden Boots Back in Style ... Bicycle Lanes Expanded on 405 ... Last Car in Mar Vista Broke Down ... Win a Free Trip on Mr. Worthington's Hay Wagon ... Final Remaining Lawn Dug Up at Westchester Home ... Blue Butterfly Community Farmland Now Open on site of old airport ... Record Number of Neighbors Attend Weekly Social ... Manure Composting at old Bank Building Promises Great Yields ... Add your vision in the box below!
 
We all have our gardens on our property. We all bike or walk to different businesses in our neighborhood instead of driving to Target.

We won't be relying on cars, things will have to be closer to where we live. We can buy in our neighborhoods. Local store owners open back up again and we'll have communities again.

Collecting water in cisterns, every drop that falls on the house. Using it several times before it escapes into the outdoor planting beds.

Horses ... wonderful creatures to work with. [We'll rebuild] the relationships with our animals that we used to have.

A legitimate subway system that goes at least from downtown to the beach and hopefully a lot more expansive than that. Some neighborhoods where cars aren't allowed, period. Pedestrian friendly, bike friendly. High speed trains up the coast.

Community bread ovens and that sort of thing. Large scale projects-oriented spaces for each block or each neighborhood. Foster the climate of tactile expertise.

Composting toilets.

Tool libraries where you can take the thing out for the day. Access to all these resources without having to have ownership of them.

More barter in trading for things.

I can grow 300 yes 300 lettuce in a space 18x18 inches!

The city is QUIET.  You can hear your neighbor whistling as he hoes his vegetable garden, or hear the soft sounds a chicken makes.  We look back on the noise (airplanes, leaf blowers, traffic) and the go-go-go stress as a distant ugly memory, the way that people in 2010 might look back with a sense of "ugh" at the filthy coal-burning and horrible factory conditions of the 1910s

Adults like being with children; most activities have mixed age groups. Human development knowledge belongs to everyone. Children and adults understand child development because the olders are bringing up the youngers.

Billboards-as-Energy Architecture:  Los Angeles's freestanding billboards have been transformed into solar electricity-generating towers -- south-, southwest- and southeast-facing structures supporting solar-photovoltaic panels and DC-to-AC inverters that feed solar electricity into adjacent electric lines and the power grid, or perhaps fed "directly" as direct current into parked electric vehicles in adjacent lots.  Other billboard structures have become aerial urban wildlife habitats of volumetric foliage, flowers, cover and food for birds and bees. ...

It is no longer less expensive to buy new stuff than to repair old stuff.

Sepulveda has NO huge stores -- they have been replaced with local shop owners and co-ops (food, used items, recycling of products, shared tools, repair shops, sewing shops).

Music and the arts will be performed live (no canned music)

college/university programs & departments are no longer afraid to pursue issues that are most pressing, without fearing lack of funds that are today channeled toward "growth"-oriented paradigms.  Experts communicating with community.  2-way dialogue.

I will be able to kayak or canoe non-stop from the headwaters of the LA River to the bay, the entire distance through naturally restored waterways.

Drought-resistant landscaping, lots of community gardens, many places to meditate with guidance, more intential community, community colleges and libraries increase.

Revitalize the small communities that have been absorbed into L.A.

Focus on working in your community -- playing there, kids walk to school, etc.

Rid ourselves of central banking and debt-based currencies

Neighborhood night watch -- neighbors volunteer with whistles to raise the alarm (with often comical results)

Co-housing; gardens on all empty lots;

gangs being trained by unions for green construction/reconstruction;

aspalt = white and water-absorbent -- collects rainwater;

all waste composted or sent to farms for fertilizer

all water becomes gray water -- reused

no plastic stuff -- collect what we have, keep reusing it, recycling it using renewable energy

People working remotely from home and homeschooling / get an education through online schooling

clusters/small communities

fewer people & thinner people

distributed water storage/collection

distributed energy generation

reprocessing of resources, including water, metals, lll

many gardens & farms

repair shops, local production facilities

Religions experience a renaissance -- actually support and eliven communities.

Indoor/outdoor life with "small as the new big":  small indoor spaces & lots of time outdoors.

Living in eco-village ... there are no cars anymore, cars are outside the core area where I live and work ... I can walk or bike. There's no more noise ... the inner streets are turned into farms ...

Around the rapid transit stations ... there's concentration of population instead of sprawl and you can get a bus every 5 to 8 minutes ... there's another coming along

In the South Bay there are solar farms taking the place of Chevron tank farms and refineries

Highways are multiple use with public transportation and growing food. You get off a train or bus and there's an orange tree. You can pick a strawberry right there

Lots more horses, less concrete

Biking paths, walking paths

Less backyard swimming pools

Intergenerational entertainment at night, stories outreach to children. the separation is gone

Return of the zepplin (the blimp)

In Santa Monica, a community-owned wind farm coming off the ocean

No more food deserts in L.A. ... farmers markets and CSAs

Golf courses turned into vegetable gardens

Communal living instead of in our own separate homes. That would create a lot of extra lots ... fences come out as well

The hills return to native, drought resistant habitat, welcoming the deer and coyotes back

Cleaner, clearer water systems

More foot paths. neighborhoods where you walk to stores.

Shared bike systems

Working out in the garden while it is cool to grow my food. when it is too hot outside, come in for siesta. wake up later and return to work and entertainment

Wasteland into farming land

No parking lots

More restaruants I can walk to [serving local food]

Employment chosen rather than of someone elses choosing [because of profit]

[doing so many things, thus] no unemployment

Retrofitting places to be areas of community pr exchanging goods or performing arts. retrofitting spaces for people to go to for exchange

The "greater than human" community is considered. going back to Native American system of government which included speakers for the land and the water and animals and future generations.

Local currency

Sleeping under the stars

SEEING the stars!

Celebration of diversity

Multigenerational housing, where children and elders are helping each other

More live instruments, people playing music, live entertainment

More trees and forested areas, a million trees planted in downtown L.A.

Fruit orchards

Growing arbors over our walkways [for heat/shading]

Horse sharing, you can borrow horses. bicycles of various kinds doing hauling.

We can see the Milky Way at night.

 
 
It's your turn ...
What are your visions for a Los Angeles that is resilient, self-sufficient, low carbon, powerdown, more sustainable, socially-just, resource-conscious ...

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Your Vision of L.A. in 2040
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"We need a chart. 
We need a compass. 
Indeed, we need some North Star to guide us into a future shrouded with impenetrable uncertainties."

--Martin Luther King

 
     
     
     
     
 

"Humans are capable of a unique trick, creating realities by first imagining them, by experiencing them in their minds.  ... As soon as we sense the possibility of a more desirable world, we begin behaving differently, as though that world is starting to come into existence, as though, in our mind's eye, we are already there.  The dream becomes an invisible force which pulls us forward.  By this process it begins to come true.  The act of imagining somehow makes it real ... And what is possible in art becomes thinkable in life."

--Brian Eno

 
     
 

 

 

 

 
     
     
     
     
     
 

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Would you like to submit illustrations or artworkSongs or lyrics?

Electronically: Please send a link to your .jpg or .mp3 file, together with Creative Commons permissions.

Hardcopies: Please send copies (not originals) -- together with Creative Commons permissions -- to: Transition Los Angeles, 6700 West 83rd, LA 90045

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
 

VISION FOR A LOCAL FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE

"We can see a LETS scheme or time bank being used for local production and exchange of things we can produce at home or in a local community ... More complex goods would be produced by local businesses, perhaps using a local or regional scrip ... or a business-to-business exchange.  More local production could be developed using local currency loans, or through a local bank ... Special-purpose currencies could finance local food production and Community Supported Agriculture, and local power generation ..."  -- Peter North, Local Money