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Take that lawn by the grass and grow something!
Jennifer Luxton and Erin Sagen
Fear and uncertainty seem to have settled into our societies, not only among citizens, but also political leaders and transnational corporations who see their capitals and centres of power stagger in the face of the combined effects of slowing global economic growth, imminent...
Jenny Gellatly and Marcos Rivero
Atlas of Utopias is part of the Transformative Cities initiative, sharing 32 stories of radical transformation that demonstrate that another world is possible, and already exists.
Sol Trumbo and Nick Buxton
Despite almost universal scientific consensus that climate change poses a growing threat, President Donald Trump’s recent infrastructure plan makes no mention of the need to build resilience to rising global temperatures. Instead, it actually seeks to weaken environmental...
Katherine Levine Einstein and David Glick and Maxwell Palmer
If more of us could embrace “live and let live,” if we were willing to give every geographic area an opportunity to create its own utopia, Americans might be thrilled to reengage with politics. And as a country, a million local experiments would greatly improve our decision...
Michael Shuman
49 min
Is it time to give more power to the cities? VPRO backlight explores the growing and innovative power of the city in Eindhoven, Seattle and Hamburg. Where governments are stuck in their own ambition and party politics, the cities are bubbling with energy, optimism and vigor...
13 min
When it comes to the internet, our connections are generally controlled by telecom companies. But a group of people in Detroit is trying to change that. Motherboard met with the members of the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII), a group that is building their own wireless...
Films For Action is a learning library for people who want to change the world.
Films For Action
27 min
In this second installment of special coverage Hurricane Harvey's aftermath, Abby Martin explores how the petrochemical industry dominates the city and why its low-income, Black and Latino areas are in the highest-risk areas for flooding and pollution, earning them the name...
On Oct. 15, 2017, the United Nations will withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Haiti, ending its 13-year mission there.
Siobhán Wills, Cahal McLaughlin, and Ilionor Louis
Disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes result from a combination of natural hazards and social and human vulnerability. Calling them 'natural disasters' artificially naturalises the harms they cause.
Ksenia Chmutina, Jason Von Meding, JC Gaillard & Lee Bosher
Had we designed cities with nature in mind, we'd see fewer issues around flooding, pollution and excessive heat.
David Suzuki
60 min
A solution-oriented film about creating sustainable and democratic cities.
For the past few months we have published a series of posts on New Compass introducing social ecology, discussing possible future environmental scenarios, studying the crisis of capitalis
Jonathan Korsár and Svante Malmström
New York City’s Fresh Air Fund has sent city kids, most of them low-income, to suburban and rural neighborhoods for two-week summer vacations for the past 140 years. Originally intended to restore malnourished, sickly and white immigrant children to health, the fund expanded...
Tobin Miller Shearer
Returning power — and profit — to the people.
Natalie Holmes
53 min
Catalonia is at the forefront of new economic thinking. They are a region rich in social currencies and in projects and people creating functioning post-capitalist societies. In June 2015, while in the midst of arranging the launch of the Exeter Pound, a local currency for...
A new generation of designers are applying ecologically inspired design to agriculture, architecture, community planning, cities, enterprises, economics and ecosystem regeneration. Join them to co-create diverse regenerative cultures in the transition towards a regenerative...
Daniel Christian Wahl
91 min
We the People 2.0 describes the growing people’s revolt against destructive corporate activities in the US to stop toxic dumps, mines, drilling, etc. Communities are seizing back the right to say no through local lawmaking, outlawing oligarchy.
120 min
What if telling a story that gives hope by pointing out solutions was the best way to solve the ecological, economical and social crises that shake our world?
Have you noticed all the cuts being made to your city budget? To schools and libraries, fire fighters and social services, and other public spending? Think you could do a better job managing the budget? Soon, you may have that chance.
Maria Hadden and Josh Lerner
In just one week, with several strokes of a pen, Trump unleashed upon the working class in the U.S. an attack not seen in decades. From his attack on the flawed Affordable Care Act to the banning of immigrants from Muslim countries to the explicit targeting of “sanctuary...
Frank Lara
18 min
Oscar Boyson travelled to cities all over the world to learn about some of ways cities are changing, building and adapting for sustainability and livability. In places he couldn't visit he crowdsourced footage from residents. This film is made in collaboration with The...
Cities can offer shelter and protection to their vulnerable citizens and become a place progressives can exert real power.
Arun Gupta
Ripping out your lawn and planting kale and peppers won’t just lead to great stir-fry — a new study finds it could make major contributions to fighting climate change, too.
Nathanael Johnson
In the vast emptiness of space there are an unimaginable number of galaxies, each galaxy containing billions upon billions of stars. Looking at one galaxy we find an average star that hosts eight unassuming planets – four gas orbs, and four rock orbs. But one of these planets...
Rua Lupa
Once again we find ourselves confronting the murder of another black man at the hands of police. The video showing Michael Slager fire eight times at a fleeing Walter Scott is irrefutable evidence of the police brutality that people of color fear. As with Trayvon Martin...
Ijeoma Oluo
I keep thinking since the horrific police assassinations in Dallas that we’ve been here before. It’s not that so many police officers have been summarily executed. It’s that a palpable tension still exists between police and black people in our country, despite the efforts of...
David C. Couper
17 min
If you have money, committing a municipal violation may pose you a minor inconvenience. If you don’t, it can ruin your life.
3 min
Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle is a forthcoming documentary exploring the failures and deception behind the social housing crisis. It will be directed by Paul Sng, maker of the acclaimed cinema release Sleaford Mods - Invisible Britain (2015).
More than 1,500 community gardens have been started on vacant land in Detroit alone in recent years.
Sher Watts Spooner
Last year, I was invited to give a talk on peace in Carbondale, Illinois. I was surprised to discover that in recent years, activists from across Carbondale had come together with a broad vision of what their community could one day become—a nonviolent city. They wanted a new...
Rev. John Dear
Homelessness, unaffordable urban real estate, devastating gentrification, and the housing bubble are all rooted in privatized housing.
Jesse A. Myerson
The Flint water crisis exposes like nothing else the toxic cynicism of America's ruling class, writes Jesse Jackson. In their privileged view, the victims of the lead poisoning are disposable 'unpersons' that matter less than General Motors' auto parts. But now they, and...
Jesse Jackson
23 min
A short documentary about a graffiti festival organized by a group of young artists who live in the periphery of the megacity Bogotá. With an annual graffiti festival they try to change the negative image of their barrio, stigmatized as a dangerous and violent place.
18 min
Over the last century, cities have been designed to accommodate the automobile. So, how do we redesign them to benefit people?
Oslo is the latest major metro to put pedestrians first in some central districts.
Eric Jaffe
After years of protesting, the Native American community can officially celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day in place of Columbus Day in Lawrence.
Jessica Larson
Rather than waiting for society to all agree how we need to live in a different way, by focusing here in the suburban household, people can actually get on with making changes… a lot can happen right where people are. – David Holmgren, co-founder of Permacul
Chip Richards
17 min
Washington DC experiences taxation without representation. It's also missing from rhyming state songs. John Oliver and a group of singing children fix one of these problems.
Previous generations of architects thought of how architecture could interpret the world, but I think now is the time to think of how architecture can change the world. We architects can assume that role and make a real difference in how people live and behave. – Giancarlo...
Kim Samuel
2 min
With the threat of strikes always on the radar, Olivia Cappuccini explores what it takes for trade unions to put a strike into action in the modern world, and how it is not as hot headed as it seems. Scenes of Reason is a news website that explores and decodes top stories in...
4 min
Cities are the biggest thing we create. But when we talk about sustainability, there is still surprisingly little discussion about how our cities are designed as a whole.
2 min
Water. It's the earth's most valuable resource. Our cities are powered by it, countless industries depend on it, and all living things need it to survive. But it's very possible that in the near future, there won't be enough to sustain life on our planet. From Academy...
5 min
This fun animation shows how reconnecting trees to our city's watersheds is one of the fastest ways to create lasting jobs while rebuilding local economies and preparing our communities to thrive and survive increasing threats of severe weather.
In 10 years, Los Angeles plans to reduce per capita water use by 22.5 percent. It will no longer get any of its electricity from coal-fired power plants. It will turn public library lawns into urban gardens and lay out rain barrels like a city full of survivalist...
Heather Smith
The intersection of Central and Lowry Avenues in northeast Minneapolis is bustling. On the northwest corner is a trifecta of local businesses: A bike shop, a cooperative brewery, and a bakery, in buildings with eye-catching exteriors of rough-hewn wood and silvery porcelain...
Olivia LaVecchia
21 min
America's crumbling infrastructure: It's not a sexy problem, but it is a scary one.
China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s top economy. But in taking a few examples from China, as well as investing in jobs that stay in America and taking steps to insure economic stability for the majority of American workers, the U.S. can come out on top again. And we...
Carl Gibson
23 min
From luxury skyscrapers -- taller, more expensive and exclusive than ever before -- the dark shadows of plutocracy are spreading across the commons of democracy.
17 min
This week we bring you an exclusive report on the pandemic that’s infecting the globe. Insurrecto-Riotosis. The first wave of the pandemic was reported in the city of Nantes in France following the police murder of 21 year old eco-defender Rémi Fraisse.
12 min
Public spaces in city centres are increasingly being turned into private estates, with their own security forces who get to decide who can be there and what they can do. Since their aim is primarily to create footfall for the retail outlets that provide a huge chunk of their...
20 min
An in depth look at the events that unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri following the police murder of Michael Brown, a black teenager. Also features an exclusive interview with former Black Panther, Ashanti Alston, about the state of black "America", abolishing penile power and...
4 min
This is a clip from "Occupied Cascadia" (2012). Watch the full film here. Featuring Derrick Jensen, Charles Eisenstein and Dillon Thompson.
Richard Register invites permaculturists to scale up their ideas on a bigger level to cater for our increasingly large world population.
Richard Register & Sven Eberlein
By encouraging the adoption of energy-saving technologies and innovative architectural design, Singapore has emerged as a model of green building in Asia — an important development in a region that is urbanizing more rapidly than any other in the world.
At street level...
Mike Ives
7 min
If current trends continue, by 2050 70% of the world's population will live in cities. Knowing that cities will grow both in number and surface, it is time to recognize the city as a natural ecosystem. In order to meet human needs now and in the future, nature-based and...
Like a few other cities, the city is letting some citizens vote directly on how the city spends its money. But, of course, it's adding an online twist.
The heart of Silicon Valley is experimenting with a novel form of direct democracy that gives citizens direct control...
Gregory Fernenstein
At its annual meeting last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) adopted a pair of resolutions endorsing postal banking, co-signed by eight mayors from six states. Their goal is to bring $1 trillion of job-creating economic stimulus primarily to low-income neighborhoods...
Matt Stannard
44 min
A whirlwind week in Singapore exploring the amazing story of how Singapore came to be one of the most 'biophilic' cities of the world, on the cutting edge of ecocity design and innovation. Did you have any idea?There has been unprecedented priority given in recent years to...
With Summer Solstice right around the corner for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the peak time to be outside, among friends, enjoying all that the season has to offer. And what better way to celebrate than by doing a whole lot of sharing?
Cat Johnson
16 min
This week on "It's the end of the World as We know it and I feel fine" we bring you a round up of news from the muthafrackin resistance. Starting with the shooting of three cops from the Canadian Mounted po-po and a look at its colonial history. Followed up by the FIFA world...
40 min
THE NATURE OF CITIES follows the journey of Professor Timothy Beatley as he explores urban projects around the world, representing the new green movement that hopes to move our urban environments beyond sustainability to a regenerative way of living.
45 min
A Piece of Ecocity is an inspiring 2-part film about one of the only inner-city eco-housing projects in the world. It is a great example of what could be possible everywhere.
Community is not just for extroverts. For thousands of years, our ancestors lived in barrios, hamlets, neighborhoods, and villages. Yet in the time since our parents and grandparents were young, privacy has become so valued that many neighborhoods are not much more than...
Ross Chapin
Hamburg City Council has disclosed ambitious plans to divert most cars away from its main thoroughfares in twenty years. In order to do so, local authorities are to connect pedestrian and cycle lanes in what is expected to become a large green network. In all, the Grünes Netz...
Ignasi Jorro
Is it enough for our lives, our economy, our cities to become “sustainable”? If being sustainable means no more than being able to maintain the status quo of strife and never having enough, of contests over who gets the most of the scarce resources available, then aiming for...
Wolfgang Hoeschele
11 min
Nigeria will be celebrating its 100th birthday in 2014 and as part of the celebration a new city will be built based on biomimicry.
Did you know that Seoul, South Korea is one of the world’s key sites for post-growth economic re-development? No? Neither did I, until I saw for myself.
I was pleased to be invited to give the keynote address at a conference titled “Reshaping the Way We Live,” put on by...
Richard Heinberg
9 min
Zumbara is a time-banking community that facilitates thousands of exchanges between people in Istanbul and in other cities in Turkey. Zumbara recognizes the opportunity to use the tool of time-banking to create a better connected community and an accessible way to start to...
3 min
This is exactly the kind of civic revenge video that we condone, hilariously injuring yourself in the name of proving a point. - http://unlooker.com
7 min
Designing Healthy Communities is a 4 part series and companion book that takes a comprehensive look at the impact America’s built environment has on public health, and at the people and communities working to turn things around through innovative solutions. Many of today’s...
Dubai is an interesting city. A thriving futuristic metropolis in the heart of the desert considered to be the crown jewel of modernity with indoor ski resorts, gulf courses, fully computerized metros, giant air-conditioned shopping malls, and the tallest skyscrapers in the...
Adon Apamea
The city of Detroit isn’t looking too pretty to date. On July 18th as many know, Detroit filed for bankruptcy after falling an estimated $20 billion in debt to over 100,000 creditors. Due to the inability for the city government to provide for goods and services it once...
Ezra Van Auken
Due to Sweden’s innovative waste-to-energy program and highly efficient recycling habits, the Scandinavian nation faces an interesting dilemma.
Alan Pierce
7 min
A glimpse into the life of one of the first inner city designated nature reserves in the UK and what this space has come to mean to the community who cherish it.
81 min
Nominated for an Academy Award, this film chronicles the hard-fought campaign for mayor of Newark, New Jersey, by Corey Booker, a young community activist and City Council member, against a 16-year incumbent with a powerful political machine.
2 min
In South Minneapolis, eight family have declared their community an Eviction Free Zone. Support them by signing their petition at: http://start2.occupyourhomes.org/
As a filmmaker, it’s a rare privilege to stumble upon a completely unique story—in the case of my new documentary, Grasp the Nettle, a motley collection of land r
Dean Puckett
15 min
In a solidarity economy, our needs are met by exchanging goods, services, resources, and knowledge in ways that advance core values of justice, democracy, cooperation, and ecological sustainability. Portraits of the Solidarity Economy is a film series exploring the stories...
'Call it the creative instead of “resilient” frame of mind. “Resilient” is OK, but it is still reactive, if in a good way. Better to create something actively good in the first place rather than build dikes around what’s left over.'
Richard Register
60 min
Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought.
5 min
Host David Brancaccio tackles one of the toughest challenges facing Americans today: How does our country create jobs that pay well and build prosperity? Brancaccio travels across America uncovering innovative community and small business projects pioneered by inspirational...
Patrick Crouch practices the kind of gardening that Detroit has recently become famous for. The typical plot at Earthworks Urban Farm, where he serves as program manager, is cultivated on borrowed land and in close proximity to houses and apartment buildings. These plots...
James Trimarco
This might seem a stretch but when John Muir said everything in the universe is connected to everything else he was serious. He was speaking of the ecology of natural systems in the broadest sense – and human ecologies too, no doubt. Ecology in both senses has to do with...
Richard Register
7 min
This video introduces the Token Exchange System, a local monetary/financial system being developed by the Principled Societies Project, based on the book "Creating Sustainable Societies" by John Boik. The token system is an advanced form of local currency. It is designed to...
We know that television's numbing effect is an unhealthy side-effect of our modern world, however Jenny Nazak argues that we individually have the power to incite people to goodness using the bounty of multimedia platforms available to each and every one of us.
Jerry...
Jenny Nazak
In Brief: There will be at least 100 million more Americans by 2050, and likely 150 million more. Yet the cities that will house them are so spatially and economically unstable that it is impossible to do much beyond superficial sustainability planning. One solution is to...
Gar Alperovitz, Thad Williamson, Steve Dubb
70 min
An unprecedented look into the underworld of Vancouver’s downtown east-side ghetto. This 65 minute documentary follows one man’s 30 day experiment of joining the thousands of homeless, ill, and addicted, who survive the streets of Vancouver’s cold, wet December.
56 min
Why Does America Have the Worst Public Transit in the Industrialized World, and the Most Freeways? Taken for a Ride reveals the tragic and little known story of an auto and oil industry campaign, led by General Motors, to buy and dismantle streetcar lines.
27 min
Lawns are undeniably an American symbol. But what do they really symbolize? Pride and prosperity? Or waste and conformity?
3 min
Watch an animation that shows how to turn a conventional community into an edible city. Learn how to transform unproductive spaces into agricultural landscapes that help fight obesity and reduce food deserts.
10 min
Edible City tells the stories of the pioneers who are digging their hands into the dirt, working to transform their communities and do something truly revolutionary: grow local food systems that are socially just, environmentally sound, economically viable and resilient to...
If you're a regular reader of The Salt, you've probably noticed our interest in foraging. From San Francisco to Maryland, we've met wild food experts, nature guides and chefs passionate about picking foo
KRISTOFOR HUSTED
It’s time we put economics into some sort of physical scientific context that makes sense.
Richard Register
2 min
By 2006, thousands of new electric cars were purposely destroyed by the same car companies that built them. Today, less than 5 years later, the electric car is back... with a vengeance.
Hundreds of Citizens Pack Council Chambers, Council Votes Unanimously to Support the “Move to Amend”
LOS ANGELES, CA – After forty-five minutes of public testimony urging a yes vote, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a resolution calling on Congress to...
Move to Amend
It's been five years since the Films For Action project began in Lawrence, Kansas. It started with one simple idea: we can't depend on the mainstream media to inform us, so let's become the media ourselves by hosting documentaries on issues that the corporate media ignores. O
2 min
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature-length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials...
4 min
Get ready for YERT: The Film. We've finished our feature film based on our eco-adventures to every state of the USA! Please spread the word to all of your friends and family - we want this film to travel around the world. Find or arrange a screening near you by clicking on...