Green Cities

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/09/08/can-shrinking-cities-regrow-as-farms-video/

Article about Detroit and its shrinking population, economy, and the potential for a new type of city.

Th Porch House

http://www.lakeflatoporchhouse.com

Modular sustainable housing. What do you think about the implications of designing and building this way may be?

More about how sustainability equates to socialism

http://doylepruitt.com/blogs/blog1.php/2011/03/19/tea-party-report-on-u-n-agenda-21

I can't believe I'm actually reading page after page from educated people that believe trying to limit our impact on environmental systems is an affront to liberty. Your freedom of choice is limiting mine. I would like my children to be able to swim in rivers without fear of swimming in released industrial waste, I would like to walk through mountains that aren't denuded, cut, carted away, and burned for fuel for a fabricated American, European, or third world country dream. I digress, how do you feel about these issues? If we are to continue to populate the world at the rate we currently are, why is planning a bad thing?

Agenda 21 plot Mother Jones reply

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/tea-party-agenda-21-un-sustainable-development
Here's an article from Mother Jones concerning the Tea Party's problems with Agenda 21. How would you talk about smart growth and planning issues with people that feel their freedoms are being taken away? I do like the concept of habitation zones. Shouldn't there be places that we save for prosperity? Allow niches for other species to thrive and live the way nature intended them to live? There will be 9 billion humans in 35 years, if biomass is neither created or destroyed but converted, what will be converted into 3 billion more human beings and what amount of resources will it take to support their survival?

Tea Party Thoughts on Agenda 21

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/BlogPostView.aspx?id=111d6f32-edb6-4d58-b344-f9ebdf054287

Take a look at the concerns of the Tea Party for smart growth and wildlands issues. Are their concerns legitimate? If not through smart growth initiatives and planning how would the party have development grow for the benefit of all?

Social Commentary Through Photography

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/graffiti-artist-wins-ted-prize.php
Incredible photographs placed within stunning settings.

Chicken Coop Design Competition

http://www.poultryproject.com
The Poultry Project is launching Chicken Coop Design Competition to challenge creative thinkers & makers to design a chicken coop for backyard use in urban/suburban America. Their US-based nonprofit organization, works with an indigenous Ugandan org, TASO, to help AIDS orphans start small poultry businesses so they can earn extra $ selling eggs and supplement their diets with eggs.

Their goal with the competition is to raise awareness about their work with AIDS orphans in Uganda while promoting the local food/urban chicken keeping movements in the US. Winning designs will be awarded cash prizes ($500, $250) and will be modified for use in Uganda.

We could do this as a replacement for the garden shed portion of the design project or give added time on the project to include this. What do you all think? I'll let you know my decision.