Homes and Communities: An Oasis of Sustainable Love

I think building and designing sustainable cities and homes needs to go hand in hand with building clusters of strong, close communities. We can retrofit suburbia with an updated sustainable design.

A library, food co-op, tool bank, churches, book store, community garden, police, post office, parks, day cares, cafes, thrift store, recycle center, local grocery, work places, community center and schools can all be built close together for individual communities inside the larger city.

Housing can be built up around these services- building up instead of out.

The goal is to get the maximum amount of people in the smallest amount of space without sacrificing comfort- all in walking distance to needs and services. Using space better will enable more people to access renewable sources of energy. For those times when people must leave their community- a system of fast trains, buses and subway trains should be available everywhere- all interconnected. The city needs to be designed with people in mind. Strong, close, interactive communities is the goal.

The streets should be walkable and narrow. There should be bike lanes and streets just for bikes. The city should be designed around walking and biking and using mass transit- not around cars. So parking lots could be converted into building space. Also, the buildings need to be designed with sustainability in mind- using recycled or other sustainable materials. Building or retrofitting buildings to become LEED certified would need to be mandatory.

Other important initiatives would be reducing urban water use and creating areas for farming and gardening inside the city. There would also need to be an extensive recycling program.

More and more cities are becoming sustainable. Check them out here.

Also- check out the video above to see a newly retrofitted sustainable community.