Tag Archives: planning

Protecting the Coastal Douglas Fir Forest: Seven Practical Solutions

September 5, 2018Economy, NatureDevelopment, forestry, Nature, planningGuy Dauncey

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It cools us in the summer, it warms our hearts all year,

It provides a home for owls and flowers, for herons, cedars, fir.

It shapes the landscape, painting peace, away from the urban rush,

It protects our water all year round, surrendering it clear and fresh.

In Japanese, the word shinrin means forest and yoku means bath, so shinrin-yoku means ‘forest bath’: being immersed in the forest with all our senses. Listening to its quietness, seeing the variety of trees, mosses, lichens and rocks, tasting the air as you breathe in deeply, touching the rough Douglas fir and the smooth red arbutus, going barefoot across the earth, dipping your feet in a forest stream, lying down to gaze up at its beauty. Such bathing brings healing to the body, heart, mind and soul. Continue reading Protecting the Coastal Douglas Fir Forest: Seven Practical Solutions →

Tiny Homes Villages

June 4, 2018Economyaffordable, housing crisis, planning, tiny homes, villageGuy Dauncey

Artwork by Richard Sheppard, www.theartistontheroad.com

All I want is a village somewhere,

far away from the housing scare,

With friends and family,

Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?

Little homes where we all can live,

A lovely garden so we all can eat,

Shared hearts, shared love, shared hopes,

Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly.

In May 2018 the average price of a home in BC was $750,000. In Victoria, the average price of a condo was $500,000.

Continue reading →

Canada’s Housing Crisis: A Permanent, 100-Year Solution

June 14, 2017Economyaffordable housing, AirBnB, banking, canada, community, community land trust, cooperatives, couch-surfing, credit, ecovillage, energy, homelessness, housing, housing crisis, Housing First, inheritances, money, Passive Home, planning, politics, quantitative easing, tax evasion, tiny homes, zoningGuy Dauncey

100-Years

Guy Dauncey is the author of Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible and nine other books. He is an Honorary Member of the Planning Institute of BC and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

June 2017. This is an updated and expanded version of Canada’s Housing Crisis: 22 Solutions, originally published on The Practical Utopian in December 2016.

A PDF Version of this essay can be downloaded here: Canada’s Housing Crisis – Guy Dauncey.

Executive Summary

Canada’s housing crisis is far more severe than most people realize. The fundamental problem is an excess of money pouring into the housing market from various sources, combined with an abdication of responsibility by all levels of government for the past 30 years.

There are many on-the-ground solutions, demonstrating positive ways to build affordable housing. And there are seven new housing-related taxes that could raise the funds needed for a massive expansion of affordable housing.

The fundamental cause of the problem is the excess of funds flowing into the market, and until this is solved house prices will continue to rise, and most other solutions will seem like never-ending sandbagging.

The money supply problem can be solved. The money can be obtained to restore safe, sustainable, socially designed affordable housing as a fundamental human right.

And by establishing an Affordable Housing Social Justice Connector, a permanent, hundred-year solution can be put in place that will guarantee that Canada need never confront a housing crisis again. Continue reading Canada’s Housing Crisis: A Permanent, 100-Year Solution →

A New Cooperative Economy

May 3, 2017Economybanking, business, community, cooperatives, energy, finance, food, housing, jobs, new economy, planning, politics, poverty, renewable energy, solidarity, sustainability, taxGuy Dauncey

Guy Dauncey, April 2017

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This essay was submitted to The Next Systems Project Essay Contest, in which it won second place. “We received hundreds of submissions from 30 different states and 26 countries, proving that many around the world not only believe system change is necessary, but have thought long and hard about what a new system should look like and how we might get there.” http://thenextsystem.org/announcing-the-winners-in-our-essay-competition/

http://thenextsystem.org/…/2017/04/Dauncey_AtLargeSecond.pdf

You can download the essay as a PDF here. A New Cooperative Economy

Our task is to fashion a political vision and a political narrative that is a compelling answer to neo-liberalism and the ideology of competition, free markets, and the primacy of capital. We need a political economy of cooperation, solidarity, of mutual benefit. – John Restakis, Civil Power and the Partner State, 2016

Our modern economy is in crisis. Can we build an alternative economy as our ancestors did in the transition from feudalism to capitalism? It’s a question that takes us deep into our values, culture, history, politics—and visions of the future.

Continue reading A New Cooperative Economy →