Author: jennynazak

(Posted this comment in the Non-consumerist group in response to some mean-spirited comments on a post, but this could apply to any anti-consumerist/footprint-lowering-type counterculture group. Feel free to copy-paste and adapt according to your needs.)

This is a group where we have the opportunity to support each other in alternatives to the brutal consumerist “default settings” of the mainstream world.

There’s a lot of harshness and meanness in the world. We at least don’t have to bring it into this group.

Thank you to the OP and everyone else who has shared what they did to navigate the world in a way that eased their financial burden and allowed them to be more themselves.

Every drop of water makes up the ocean. Every person taking and sharing a different path helps de-normalize the extreme consumerism of our society, and reduce our dependence on centralized distant entities that don’t care about our wellbeing.

A recent ad in my Facebook feed rhapsodized about a village or region in the south of France where Americans can retire for cheap and the culture is still unspoiled blah blah blah.

I commented, “Hey, fellow Americans! come retire to France and spoil the unspoiled culture!”

In a thread on Degrowth someone commented that the decision to retire to an older, European, village-based culture was very rational given the reduce dependence on fossil fuels and the village structure making it easier to build community.

Well I totally agree with the good sense of that, I don’t think that’s why most Americans are doing it.

Most USA Americans I know who are retiring to other countries are doing it for purely economic reasons that have nothing to do with petroleum, car dependence, etc. It’s all about saving money; making the retirement check go further.

The fact that it sucks to get old in the USA, the rich white Boomers are finally figuring it out now that they are reaching retirement age. Wish they had figured it out earlier and voted (with their wallets and their loud voices) for less car dependence, more community cohesion, actual health care — but instead we have always reinforced, entrenched, and normalized car culture and brutal individualism.

I actually think my country, the USA, has possibly the least civilized culture on the planet. And ultimately not viable. Unfortunately we’re going to do a lot of damage in the meantime. Spreading our ways to places that used to be sustainable.

I am afraid us Americans are going to ruin Europe. Like, will get tired of the village thing and start messing with the roads etc and making them more wide, America-like. And pressure-washing all those old buildings so they look “clean”. Yikes, hope not, but it would be totally in character.

I am so mad that we wrecked our own country (which we stole from the natives), and now we’re retiring to other countries.

We’re doing it not just to Europe but also to Mexico, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other places. Our “economic moves” are gentrifying the planet, jacking up costs and creating hardships. We throw our money around and wreck the planet.

I hope we don’t end up doing the same in Europe. Or that if we try to get too loud and brash and widen the roads and straighten out the impractical curves and cut down the trees and expand the train station and stuff, Europe will kick us out.

What those of us in the USA who “get it” need to do is roll up our sleeves and start retrofitting the stroad-cankered messes we’ve made here, so that our existing places become more village-like and more livable to the elderly and everyone else. It’ll solve a lot, not just for us but for the rest of the world.

I do believe we can do it. We may fail, but at least I have to try. I guess it’s as good a way to occupy my hours taking up space on the planet as any.

Someone in the Degrowth group made a post basically asking how would the EU and USA be able to defend themselves against an attack by China or Russia “in a Degrowth world.”

Someone pointed out that this was a really bizarre post, because why would we assume we need to defend ourselves from Russia or China?

And I chimed in.

Right? It’s starting to sound like the old “Yellow Peril” and “Red Menace” type propaganda that the USA started in the 1950s or whenever. Xenophobia is actually one of the hallmarks of creeping Fascism, and we know that creeping fascism is happening worldwide.

The USA is in the grip of creeping Fascism. Possibly worse here than any other country right now. Fear breeds authoritarianism breeds stupidity breeds more fear; lather-rinse-repeat.

As for China, they have an ancient, resilient, beautiful culture that survived “Cultural Revolution” and many other catastrophes. And will prevail and survive long after they stop feeling like they have to manufacture and recycle cheap junk for American consumers.

Some people might think I’m anti-USA. Not at all. I just want us to straighten up and do the right thing and stop demonizing other countries and people when we should be looking in the mirror first.

Other cultures have everything in the world to teach us. I actually believe that USA culture is the most primitive, uncivilized culture in the world. And we had best start humbling ourselves and learning from the wisdom and mistakes of ancient cultures.

(Someone asked the above question on this Facebook post by Just Wright Citrus, where in response to concerns about parking shortages I had posted links to Strong Towns pieces about the value of abolishing parking minimums.)

Usually what happens when a downtown gets busy enough for a parking crunch is a combination of things.

Some people stop driving downtown; other people pay to park; other people combine trips and / or go at off-peak hours; some people who are able to do so, and live close by enough, start walking when it’s too much hassle to park.

Sometimes, merchants who were never willing to cooperate before suddenly start to be willing to share their parking lots because it is in everyone’s interest. This happens with public buildings too. Parking lots shouldn’t sit empty so much of the day when there are different rush times and people could allow each other’s customers to park there.

And, parking garages get built that were not financially viable before.

And sometimes public transportation routes that were not financially viable before are opened.

There’s no one solution but a combination of things happens all over the place. I have lived in many places where there was so-called “not enough parking downtown” and it always worked out if local leaders were flexible & creative.

I have more trust in letting the market work it out as opposed to government-regulated parking minimums.

Further reading:

• “Parking is one of the biggest paradoxes of American life. There are between one and two billion parking spaces in the United States, several for each car, and in cities the ratio is even higher. At the same time, to harried drivers seeking a spot near an appointment or to residents of densely populated neighborhoods, it can feel like there are never enough places to park. We’ll talk to Slate’s Henry Grabar about whether the parking shortage is real or imagined and how parking determines the design of our buildings, the character of our communities and the health of our environment. Grabar’s new book is ‘Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.'” https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101893079/wheres-my-spot-henry-grabar-on-how-parking-explains-the-world

• There is a strong case for abolishing parking requirements and letting the market take care of it. “End Parking Mandates & Subsidies. Strong communities are ending the mandates and subsidies that waste productive land on automobile storage.”  https://www.strongtowns.org/parking

• “Does your city still have mandatory parking minimums? More North American communities than ever are doing away with this destructive dinosaur of a policy, which enshrines the most wasteful use of urban land into public policy, imposing huge costs on cities in lost prosperity, affordability, accessibility, and quality of life.” https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/11/22/announcing-a-new-and-improved-map-of-cities-that-have-removed-parking-minimums?format=amp

• Here is a blog post by Just Wright Citrus that corresponds to the Facebook post I linked above. He does a really good job of insisting on civil discourse on his page.

search tags #StrongTowns #endparkingminimums . Other suggested reads: anything by Jane Jacobs. Also, The High Cost of Free Parking book by Donald Shoup.

Not only has the “homesteading/pioneer” virus infected the permaculture-design movement; it’s infecting the #Degrowth movement as well.

The thing we need to (re)learn in order to do #Degrowth is not “homesteading” (a thing that is rooted in the infinite-growth paradigm), but rather, village living. 

So-called “modern” people in capitalist society, the skill we need most is getting along with others, living in close connection and cooperating, learning together and refining skills together. As indigenous societies have done for millennia and are still doing. (Including the old-fashioned European towns/villages.) 

We rich westerners/Global Northers keep trying to sidestep that, but the planet does not contain enough land and stuff for all the privileged people to “escape” to; buy, hoard, and live isolated on. 

I think the whole “Homestead”/”pioneer” mentality is creating the worst hardships of all. It’s colonialism all over again. People with the privilege to buy isolated acreage are gentrifying entire countries. Living isolated on plots of land and reinventing the wheel. This is not the way to save humanity.

The real skills of the future, the core of Degrowth, is people skills, including self- regulation.

To find out more about #Degrowth, and engage in conversations with others who are exploring, check out the Facebook groups Degrowth – join the revolution and Degrowth – it’s urgent. 

Added later:

I should clarify that when I say village, I’m not talking about a bunch of “likeminded” people moving out onto acreage and trying to make a new village together. 

The “romantic utopia Ecovillage” trope is about as toxic as the “rugged pioneer homestead” trope. So much perfectionism with the concept of “like-minded” people etc. And still doing the thing where we go buy a bunch of land and plop ourselves down in a place where we know no one, chop down a bunch of trees to clear land, etc. 

As opposed to being present with the people who are around us right now.

I’m talking about adapting into the existing towns, villages, neighborhoods where we already live. We chose the places we live for a reason. 

Even if that “reason” was just a “job” that will not be sustainable over time. Still, we are here. Now it’s time for us each to be cells of the Degrowth movement for our neighborhoods and towns.

I’m not saying no one ever has any legitimate reason to move and start over, but time is of the essence, and for most of us the village is right here right now, and possibly our first task is simply meeting our neighbors. This is particularly true in the USA where car culture and material affluence has created so much social isolation that many people have not ever needed to know who their neighbors are.

Also, If you are in a suburb and don’t know where to start physically, one book that might be helpful is Retrofitting Suburbia. It’s by David Holmgren (who founded permaculture, together with Bill Mollison).

But really the main thing we all need most is the skills of living in community. We can start to develop those from wherever we are right now. Even if we know nothing about that, still we can start and learn and it is the essential task that most of us have been avoiding with all of this moving “away, ” planning on moving away, fantasizing about moving away etc. There is no away. We need to develop the skills of coexisting with each other, building beneficial relationships, doing mutual aid. All the old-fashioned stuff our grandparents used to know.

If you already know your neighbors and have a neighborhood culture of helping and checking on each other, sharing skills and tools and rides etc., congratulations — you have a head start on the core task.

Here, from the good people at degrowth.info, is a good one-paragraph description of #Degrowth: https://degrowth.info/en/degrowth?fbclid=IwAR32SkTDKHfg87BHmYjdu-kfJ7ewXccOUroTMeC_1nKNPy9lpBToAS0xuDM

Yesterday my friend & fellow permie Dennis H shared a great quote:

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.” — Gustavo Petro

That’s definitely how I felt, living in Japan. And also in my travels around Europe etc. Transportation is anything but an abstract subject for me, especially as I get older. Will share some personal details at the end of this post.

In my opinion, the blame for the lack of reasonable transportation options in all but a few towns/cities of this country rests on the subset of Boomers who identify as “environmental”.

If we eco Boomers — a subset of the most-resourced and loudest generation in history — had pushed for public transportation instead of so many of us retreating to leafy half-acre lots in the car-dependent suburbs and becoming NIMBYs, I strongly suspect we would have public transport as a well-funded, unquestioned norm. After all, we Boomers have tended to get whatever we screamed and whined loudest for.

Instead we now have car-dependence as the well-funded, unquestioned norm. And all the ills of social isolation and frayed community multiplied; and roads more dangerous than ever with speeding impatient cars.

Well, as you know, this blog and my book are not about crying over spilt milk. Also we have not yet invented a time machine to go back and do over. Accordingly we have to work with what we have now.

I’m not saying that any of the following is likely to happen. But it might be very helpful and a good start. These ideas are based on the fact that Boomers are still a major political and economic force who carry the weight to make a difference.

• The oldest boomers are now age 77. People in this age group could proactively choose to move out of car-dependent suburbs and into smaller-lot houses in closer-knit neighborhoods, where they could take advantage of public transportation and/or ride-share with neighbors. Those who don’t want to move could rent out a room or two in their houses to younger people who are needing a place to live. (Actually not just younger people; lots of us older people nowadays are seeking “room in a house” situations too.) The housemates could help with driving and share the expenses of a car.

• The children of the oldest Boomers are in their late 40s and 50s, and are or will be facing the task of caring for their Boomer parents, often at great geographic distance, which causes a lot of expense and worry. These children of Boomers have a stake in pushing local governments to prioritize multimodal transportation options and desirable neighborhood density (nearby basic shops & services, etc.) for their parents.

• Some developers, such as developers of 55+ communities, are offering shuttle buses for their residents. This is a good idea.

• Many churches have large numbers of Boomer-generation and older people in their congregations. These churches have a stake in securing housing near the church for those of their elderly members who’d be open to it. Some congregations might want to pool their funds to rent/purchase a nearby house with many bedrooms, or purchase a small apartment or condo building.

This is just some ideas off the top of my head. Please feel free to share your ideas on some practical ways we could retrofit the fabric of the USA physical and social landscape to improve safety, and better serve people’s basic transportation needs.

PS. As promised above, I am sharing some personal details about my transportation situation.

I have always been relatively healthy and physically fit, at least for a USA citizen. I have generally gotten around by foot or bicycle for most of my adult life, and have always insisted on living in places where that is an option.

However, in recent months I am having what feels like a serious knee problem, whereby I can no longer walk farther than a couple of miles without serious pain. Riding my bicycle seems to be helping somewhat to strengthen my knee and possibly strengthen the adjacent muscles or at least let the injured tissue or whatever rest. But if it’s an ACL or ligament or whatever, that will end up needing surgery, I just have to try to make it till I’m 65 and can have it covered by insurance. I’m 60 now. 

Also regarding bicycle transportation. Although I’m a very experienced cyclist, accustomed to riding on roads alongside cars European style, including some solo multi-day inter-city rides in my younger days, the roads have gotten markedly more scary in the past year or so. More motorists seem to be exceeding speed limits even on what used to be the gentler, less-speedy urban core roads (what I used to consider the “eye of the hurricane”), and the traffic is getting worse.

At the same time, there has also been a decline in basic services in my neighborhood. For example, we have lost three laundromats and one convenience store, and a thrift store. The drugstore on this side of the bridge has closed down its pharmacy.

And we have lost our bicycle repair shop. Now the nearest bicycle repair shops are about 7 miles away, or two or three buses.

And yesterday I found out that our downtown farmers’ market is going to be closing permanently. I used to be able to walk there in 20-25 minutes when my knee was good, and I can still get there on the bicycle in about 10 minutes. Many of us have depended on this weekly market; at times I have gotten over 90% of my groceries there).

The people who casually say, “Well, the farmers’ market customers can just drive to Ormond or Port Orange farmers market” are completely out of touch with the realities of the non-auto-owning public. Those markets are MILES away. Furthermore, we need to be planning for LESS auto-dependence, not more. Each downtown area needs its own grocery shopping, etc. Particularly with traffic becoming increasingly severe.

There is one excellent little food store downtown that sells local organic produce and prepared health foods that are otherwise not available anywhere near here. And nutritional supplements which serve as most of my medicine, along with the wild plants I forage in the urban margins. Jo Anne’s shop on West ISB just east of Palmetto is an oasis in more ways than one. Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to know about it, so I worry about its survival.

If that food store goes, I will seriously be in question about my ability to stay in this neighborhood and city, where I had planned to grow old and make as much of a contribution as possible. It would be a sad decision, as picking up and starting over in a new place is not an appealing thought.

For me there are only two options: push for the public good; or leave my beloved adopted home city Daytona Beach and try to find a place that is more transportation-hospitable. Actually, the latter is not really an option because

1) I AM IN LOVE with my adopted home place: its culture; the people i’ve formed ties of friendship and co-activism with; its natural beauty. And

2) if *I’m* feeling unsafe and having trouble getting basic needs met, then the many many more people who are more vulnerable than me, with fewer options, are even LESS safe and having far more trouble than I am. Therefore, I will continue to activate for transportation options and dense neighborhoods equipped with basic essential stores and other essential services, for the greater good of us all.

By the way before I moved to this neighborhood, we actually had a public library right in this neighborhood. It closed down before I moved in, and lay vacant for some years before now being occupied by a veterans’ museum. Nothing against veterans’ museums but I think we needed the library more. I ran a Little Free Library for my neighborhood for 10 years, but it became exhausting because too many people weren’t aligned with the fundamental LFL concept of small-scale, grassroots sharing of books, and I finally shut it down last month.

We do have a pretty good bus system for a small city. I have generally not ridden the bus because bicycle had been so much faster. But now out of necessity I am taking some bus trips. If this continues, I will probably have to cut something out of my budget in order to be able to afford bus fare on an ongoing basis. Not only my financial budget but my carbon budget as well.

Finally, to those of my fellow environmentalists who persist in believing, or pretending to believe, that electric cars or hybrid cars are going to save the world: The cult of the lithium battery is a dead end, just one more way to trash the planet and outsource pollution to other people’s lands and children. Accordingly, I will continue to speak up against assorted greenwashing and techno-evangelism.

We just plain need to DRIVE MUCH LESS, and ride-share, and really start questioning the default of private automobile ownership, and insist on better ways. For our OWN good at least, if we’re not willing to do it for other people and the planet.

Photos (for these pix, see my DEEP GREEN Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/deepgreenbookjennynazak/):

1) my new buddy, the latest edition of the Votran schedule;

2) today’s lunch, which I am getting ready to sit down and eat on my favorite outdoor bench with a great book; all of the ingredients for this delicious hearty salad came from Jo Anne’s shop Natural Concepts Revisited LLC – and several of the items were grown locally.

MARKET UPDATE 5/12; I posted this in my county forum on Facebook:

Daytona Beach Downtown Farmers’ Market on Magnolia will run through the last Saturday of June. Please visit the vendors and enjoy.

The City Commission will decide at its next meeting whether or not to keep the downtown market open.

Regardless, a new market is happening at the riverfront Esplanade. It’s only once a month for now, the last Sunday of the month, but there are hopes of expanding.

Regardless of how you feel about the market location, new or old, I hope that all of us who like and depend on being able to get groceries from a downtown market will give this market a chance and support it. A couple of the existing vendors are working on getting spots at the new market, and we hope others will follow.

Anyone interested in getting a vending spot, contact the Esplanade. BTW huge bonus, canopies are included!!

Anyone with questions for the city, contact the CODB redevelopment office.

The DDA meeting yesterday was informative. Vendors, customers, & other citizens had opportunity to voice their opinions and ask questions.

Thanks to City Manager Deric Feacher, Zone 3 Commissioner Quanita May, Redevelopment Director Ken Thomas, Esplanade manager Joe Yarborough, and others for clarifying the various circumstances that have created challenges for our downtown markets, and the thinking that went into the new location.

Facebook event invitation: https://fb.me/e/2v3DXAI62 (Riverfront Esplanade market Sunday May 28)

For photos see the companion post on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page. Ooops, looks like Facebook won’t let me copy-paste links anymore. Sorry for the extra work, but if you want to see the pix you’ll have to manually scroll down to May 9 on my book’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/deepgreenbookjennynazak/

Photo 1: Rainwater scooped from one of my rainwater collection tubs just now. It has not even been run through a cheesecloth or other filter.

Photo 2: Fresh tapwater from a nearby town where residents report experiencing issues w the water.

Mother Nature’s filters are very sophisticated & powerful.

PS. Some people have asked if I am off-grid. No, and I do not aspire to be. Of course as a city resident, I am hooked up to City water and other utilities. Our tapwater in Daytona Beach is clear and delicious! I mainly use rainwater for showers and irrigation. And the communal goal of my rainwater collection system is to do my part to keep stormwater from running offsite. I do drink rainwater too though!! Once I did a 2-month experiment of living entirely on rainwater.

(It’s part of my self-selected job as a permaculture research station / low-footprint-living laboratory to test things like this out, and serve as a “database” for the neighborhood & community.)

#rainwater

#stormwatersponge