Create!

Along with direct action and other forms of resistance, a transformational movement must also have a constructive program that builds new institutions based on the values that the movement aspires to achieve. These may eventually replace the old systems. From small, worker-owned cooperatives to national advocacy groups, hundreds of thousands of people around the country are working to create democratic and sustainable systems that meet the basic needs of all people.

The Government Spends Millions To Open Grocery Stores In Food Deserts

August 14, 2024 Molly Parker, ProPublica. Create! Food Deserts, Government Subsidies, Grocery Stores, Illinois

Cairo, Ill. — More than 100 people congregated in the parking lot of Rise Community Market on its opening day a little over a year ago. As they listened to celebratory speeches, the audience erupted into joyful exclamations: “Mercy!” “Wonderful!” “Wow!” “All right!” Colorful homemade signs raised by local leaders beckoned the crowd to join in: “We!” “Are!” “No!” “Longer!” “A!” “Food!” “Desert!” For most American cities, the opening of a new grocery store barely warrants a mention. But in Cairo, the government seat of Illinois’ poorest county and the fastest-shrinking one in America, business openings are rare. And for residents who for years had to travel long distances to buy food, it was a magical moment.

On A Rural Hawaiian Island, Solar Provides A Path To Energy Sovereignty

August 13, 2024 Naoki Nitta, Resilience. Create! Energy, Energy Sovereignty, Hawaiʻi, Solar Energy

Like many homesteaders on the island of Molokaʻi, Kailana Place grew up off-grid, on 40 acres of family land designated for Native Hawaiians. Living in repurposed school buses surrounded by fields of red volcanic clay and kiawe trees “was a glamping lifestyle,” joked the social worker and mother of three. Three years ago, the fuels that power buses like Place’s — kerosene and propane — sparked a devastating fire. Neighbors helped Place and her husband, Ikaika, build a new house with rooftop solar and a battery. Even now, the buzz of constant, reliable power has yet to wear off. Beyond ensuring continuous internet access and a freezer for fish and venison — most residents depend upon subsistence fishing, hunting, and farming — their asthmatic son no longer relies on a generator to power his inhaler.

Introduction To DES: Solidarity Economy Districts

August 12, 2024 Tamat, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Finance and the Economy, New Economy, Solidarity Economy, Transformation

In today's video, we bring you an in-depth interview with representatives from the Verona Solidarity Economy District (DES). We will discover how the movement started, its roots in the Lilliput network in Varese, and how it has grown over the years to become an established reality in the field of solidarity economy. Topics covered in the video: - The origins of the DES: The history of the movement, from its early steps taken over 20 years ago thanks to the Lilliput network, to the founding of the DES in Varese and Verona. - The Lilliput network and the G8: How awareness of global dynamics, such as those of the G8, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, influenced the birth of the DES.

Rural ‘Buffer Ring’ Can Reduce Urban Heat Island Effect

August 11, 2024 Ada Carpenter, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Global heating, heat islands, Urban Design

Rural land cover surrounding a city has the potential to reduce the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect and cool the city centre by more than 0.5C, new research shows. While heatwaves around the world are becoming more frequent and intense because of human-caused warming, they are made even more severe in cities by the UHI effect, which traps heat in urban areas and keeps them warmer than their rural surroundings. The study, published in Nature Cities, analyses 20 years of data from 30 cities in China and finds that a ring of rural land around a city can bring the urban temperature down. A buffer ring that is at least half the city’s width can have the biggest cooling effect.

Insights Into GAS: Solidarity Purchasing Groups

August 7, 2024 Tamat, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! New Economy, Organic Farming, Solidarity Economy, Solidarity Purchase Group

Discover what it means to be part of a Solidarity Purchase Group (GAS) through the interview with Vincenzo Vizioli, president of AIAB Umbria. With a journey that began in the late 1980s, Vincenzo explains how his choice for organic and biodynamic farming has evolved into a model of sustainability, cooperation, and mutualism. In the video, Vizioli tells the story of the Italian Organic Movement and the birth of GAS and IAP, highlighting the importance of sustainable agriculture and the need to promote social participation and community resilience. He then delves into the concept of GAS, explaining how these groups not only facilitate access to quality organic products but also promote a fair and solidarity-based economy.

How Unelected Regulators Unleashed The Derivatives Monster

August 4, 2024 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Create! Banking, Debt, Finance and the Economy, Regulation

While the world is absorbed in the U.S. election drama, the derivatives time bomb continues to tick menacingly backstage. No one knows the actual size of the derivatives market, since a major portion of it is traded over-the-counter, hidden in off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles. However, when Warren Buffet famously labeled derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, its “notional value” was estimated at $56 trillion. Twenty years later, the Bank for International Settlements estimated that value at $610 trillion. And financial commentators have put it as high as $2.3 quadrillion or even $3.7 quadrillion, far exceeding global GDP, which was about $100 trillion in 2022.

Why So Many Congestion Pricing Critics Change Their Tune

August 4, 2024 Akielly Hu, Next City. Create! Air Quality, climate crisis, Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuels, New York City (NYC), Transportation, Urban Design

New York City’s plan to charge most vehicles $15 to enter downtown Manhattan would have eased traffic, cut pollution, and raised billions for mass transit. But Governor Kathy Hochul — in an 11th-hour reversal — placed congestion pricing on hold indefinitely, leaving a $15 billion gap in the city’s transit upgrade plans. Hochul, a Democrat, cited a slow economic recovery from the pandemic and the burden the tolls would place on low-income residents, but sources say she also feared upsetting swing district voters who could decide key elections this fall. Most people balk at the idea of paying more for anything, and congestion pricing plans are no exception.

Social Housing Isn’t Just A Vienna Thing

August 2, 2024 Leo Miranda, Next City. Create! Austria, Housing, New York (NY), Social Housing, Vienna

When it comes to housing people for highly affordable and highly livable homes for the long term, Vienna, Austria has no equal. The average Viennese pays a quarter or less of their post-tax income on rent and utilities and half of the city lives in public or subsidized housing. These buildings aren’t shabby or poorly-maintained either. “It looks like the housing we can’t afford in New York,” says Samuel Stein, housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. Vienna prioritizes housing supply, subsidizing the construction of 7,000 subsidized units a year while maintaining over 220,000 city-owned units. As Vienna grows its social housing stock, it suppresses housing costs overall.

Bridging The Human / Nature Divide Through Convivial Conservation

August 1, 2024 David Bollier. Create! Capitalism, Conservation, Environment, The Commons

The conservation movement has always lived within the contractions of the capitalist political economy. Much of it celebrates the global system of market growth, private property, and profit-making while trying, in irregular, PR-driven ways, to compensate for the appalling ecological destruction of this system by creating nature preserves. More recently, the conservation establishment has explicitly come to embrace market-based forms of conservation, such as eco-tourism, hunting, and the patenting of exotic plant genes. Land is recast as "natural capital" and made to pay tribute to markets to assure its own protection. The problem with both of these approaches to conservation is that they regard humans as entirely separate from nature, a premise that is biologically absurd.

WhatsApp Mutual Aid

July 30, 2024 Malikia Johnson, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! India, Motherhood, Mutual Aid, Technology, WhatsApp

Motherhood has quite the build up. A combination of intense care and doting during the pregnancy, leading to a baby and a wealth of responsibilities tangled with body dysmorphia and relationship issues all culminating to the realization that “the village” does not exist. You know “the village” we all hear so much about, the one that's supposed to help raise the child. In my experience there was an odd voyeuristic effect where I felt the eyes of people watching my struggle to raise my child but unwilling or unable to actually lend a hand. It’s understandable with inflation on the rise, housing becoming increasingly unaffordable, and groceries even more so - we are all doing our best to keep our heads above water.

Report: People Want To Ride Shared Bikes And Scooters

July 30, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! EBikes, Scooters, Transportation, Urban Design

People want to ride bikes and scooters, per a new report on shared micromobility from the National Association of City Transportation Officials. It’s hardly a revelation — but many cities have yet to match rider enthusiasm with the financial investment, political will and physical infrastructure that it takes to keep bike and scooter share going. “It’s a really popular form of public transportation and people are using it that way,” says Camille Boggan, program manager of policy and practice for NACTO. In the U.S. and Canada, people took 157 million rides in 2023. That’s a 20% increase from the previous year, beating the previous pre-pandemic record of 147 million rides in 2019.

China’s Lightning-Fast Renewable Triumphs

July 27, 2024 Robert Hunziker, Counter Punch. Create! Carbon emissions, China, climate crisis, Renewable Energy

A few years ago, China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry shook hands on a pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030. China took the challenge seriously, very seriously, it will meet its end-of-2030 emissions target this year (2014), six years early. In the blink of an eye, China is constructing wind and solar farms that are equivalent to building five large nuclear power stations per week! Yes, per week. They understand the multitude of risks of climate change, especially since it is happening in real time right in everybody’s face, and they’re doing something about it faster than the rest of the world combined.

Repair Café And Darning The Planet

July 26, 2024 Anahi Martinez Encinas and Dora Napolitano, Resilience. Create! Clothing, New Economy, Repair Cafe, Sustainability

Getting dressed is a universal human trait, but the textile industry is collapsing environmental systems everywhere. Relearning basic skills and taking back the agency in what we wear and how we wear it is an act of resistance and an invitation to reimagine ways to inhabit the planet. Repair Café & Darning the Planet practice will help you learn specific skills for visibly mending your own clothes and textiles in community. It will also encourage you to reflect about what making an item of clothing means. Zurciendo el planeta (Darning the Planet) creates spaces to learn and practice various mending and recreation techniques, responding to the specific needs of the garments that participants want to mend.

Addressing The Historic Gap In Internet Access On US Tribal Lands

July 26, 2024 Kavish Harjai, Associated Press. Create! Indigenous Nations, Internet, Municipal Broadband, Technology

Tribal nations have struggled to connect to the web for a variety of reasons ranging from living in remote locations to lack of investment by internet service providers. The lack of service has hampered every aspect of 21st century life, from health care and education access to the ability to start a business and stay in touch with friends and family. “A lot of tribal communities, they’re probably decades behind a lot of urban areas in terms of internet connectivity,” said E.J. John, a Navajo Nation member and policy analyst at the American Indian Policy Institute. “Connectivity rates are very low.”

What We Can Learn From Cities With Transit-Oriented Development

July 25, 2024 Shonda Wang, Next City. Create! Canada, Japan, Public transportation, tokyo, Toronto, Transportation, Urban Design

In my early twenties, I lived in Chofu, a city of over 240,000 people on the west side of Tokyo Metropolis. My apartment building was less than a 10-minute walk from Chofu Station, which is at the center of a bustling, fully “amenitized” mini-city, with easy pedestrian access to an urban-scale grocery store, ever-busy retail shops and restaurants, multiple schools, and small-but-mighty parks. Walking and taking transit every day was easy, and without question, my mode of choice. That was more than 20 years ago, but the memories of Tokyo’s transit system and the feelings I had experiencing it stayed with me. And they’ve informed my efforts to build vibrant, livable communities around — and integrated with — public transit stations in Vancouver, Toronto and Mexico.

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