Turquoise Politics

Summary: we need each other. Can we move beyond othering?

There’s a kind of a simple beauty to our political economy in the UK,

Three sectors, each with a different role, mutually interdependent.

Business makes stuff. Our tech. Shoes. Glasses, clothes, music lessons. And, ideally, surpluses. 

Surpluses are fun. I’m struck by all the times I’ve been the recipient of a surplus someone else generated, and the kinds of new stuff and richness of life that that has produced. Now I’m beginning to be the creator of surpluses, with which I create jobs for others. They seem to like that.

So, surpluses are fun. In Machynlleth where I’m living now, there aren’t many surpluses, it seems, and there’s a feeling like a scarce sharing of a small cake, economically.

Being at the helm of a business is intense. You need startup capital, so you deal with investors and loan providers who you become obliged to; it’s pressure, risk. There’s always uncertainty and insecurity. As we see in the current C-Virus crisis, it’s businesses and self employed people who seem to be hit hardest economically. My friends working in public and third sector jobs seem to be able to keep going, whereas those of us delivering direct in-person services to the public / our customers see our incomes suddenly crashing and it having a series of devastating effects on our spreadsheets and the realities they represent, like, people getting paid.

Given the pressures of business leadership, it’s not surprising that business leaders are often focused on a single bottom line. It’s scary in here. Create surpluses as much as possible, for security.

So, businesses make and do stuff, and create surpluses that go to, generally, investors and employees, but that doesn’t take care of everybody so we have government.

Government taxes the surpluses of business, and redistributes them and provides public services available to all, to take care of the whole population and not leave anybody out. (Ideally.)

Cool. 

Businesses and government can get quite large and stuck in their ways, become a bit blind sighted so we have:

The third sector. NGOs, media, arts, think tanks, charities, social enterprises. They’re often funded by surpluses from businesses, and sometimes by government / public taxes.

The political philosopher Foucault said, if you want to see what’s coming next, look to the edges. Not to the big players in the middle carrying the heavy weight of current economic everything, but the lighter smaller players at the edge, looking, seeing, imagining.

Look! They say. This thing over here could be better! How about this? Huh this seems broken. These people are missing out! They need extra attention. Over here!

It’s kind of beautiful; this three sector system. It’s like a fountain with businesses generating spouts of water and then government and the third sector being part of the water sculpture that moves the water here and there, and thus we have, our economy / our country / our world. (Plus a few underlying ingredients, like, worldview, nature, consciousness…)

I see two things.

One. Each part needs the other. 

Currently, we seem to be in a lot of othering and mistrust. 

Some people in business don’t trust government. They avoid taxes; re-invest, go offshore.

Oops. Government can’t do its job so well. It tries.

The third sector kind of hates on businesses. When Corporations Rule The World. Bankers are evil. Bag the assholes.

Business turns their backs on the third sector. Feels unsafe. (Understandably..)

The median level of charitable giving among the ultra-rich is just £240 a year.  “It’s like putting landed gentry in front of a bunch of Guardian readers,” said Ms Dovey. “It’s not a comfortable place for them to be.” (Financial Times)

So, enter talk of Spiral Dynamics. Different colours for different “stages in the evolution of consciousness.” Perhaps, the third sector is “Green,” the progressive left. Perhaps, business is “blue” and “orange:” boundaried interests (prioritising the small ‘we’ over the big ‘we’), old-school science (Newtonian separation), onward-and-upward linear growth trajectories.

Greens are coming under fire for celebrating all kinds of diversity, but not worldview diversity. “Bankers are evil” etc. 

Let’s not blame it all on greens. In their single bottom line focus and cost externalisation, businesses have done a fair bit of damage and one can see why the greens are pissed off.

As for government? Well, it feels siloed and no one has done a good job at really celebrating the contribution of each of the three sectors and helping us come together.

This is the thing. If sector relating is characterised by othering, mistrust, enemizing, and a turning away from, we’re basically all in a horrible world together, facing collective challenges like the C Virus but more significantly, climate change and extreme inequality, without being able to work together respectfully, with each giving and receiving what is theirs to give and take. 

How do we get to a place where we can see each other. Listen to each other. Communicate well. Speak so that others can listen. Listen so that others can speak?

Can we move politics beyond a gladiatorial battle of one side vs the other - I lob you harder, you fall off the plinth - victory is mine! -

…towards a round circle where we need each other, and we are patiently and curiously listening to every voice in the circle. “Here’s how it is over here.” “Over here it’s like this.”

I’d go beyond. Adding voices for the natural world, for future generations.

We all matter. We need each other.

Can we put down the fight and co-operate? We feel so siloed at the moment it’s like we need a peace and reconciliation commission. 

A personal story.

I grew up pretty green. Political Science degree and work in campaigning and social enterprise in my 20s compounded that. Corporations rule the world. Corporations are evil. Bankers caused the financial crash. Bankers are evil. Oil companies are laying waste our world. Oil companies are evil.

A year or two ago, I was walking around my boyfriend’s house on the phone when my eyes casually landed upon his investment portfolio lying open on a shelf. I had a general sense of his wealth. But seeing the amount of zeros, as I was on the phone to my eco-village founding, song-leader Elder friend in Port Townsend, my body started to boil. Getting off the phone I flipped open my laptop and quickly did a search of all of the companies on the $2m portfolio. 3 oil companies. Car hire companies. Fossil fuel based consumer capitalism. I freaked out hard. I wasn’t only sleeping with the enemy, I was in love with him, living with him, bonded to him.

A relational explosion followed. After weeks of not speaking, therapy, 6 hour conversations in cars in parking lots smoking cigarettes, we resumed our partnership. He divested his portfolio, shifted it to impact investing and bought a Tesla. I owned and investigated the violence in my political belonging.

We’ve separated now and he’s dating a wealthy former model while I’m founding an eco village. Back in California where they live, the earth is drying out, power outages are getting more frequent and fires grow in size each year. Here in Wales the rain is falling harder than ever and so, so many trees have fallen in the worsening storms.

We’re in too much trouble to keep hating on each other like this.  Each position is trying to do their best, I believe.

What will it take to lay down our enemization, respect one another, learn from each other, be able to hear each other?

Ultimately, we are in it together. We could say, we are all berries on the same vine. A human family sharing a fragile earth. 

This, I would argue, is the realm of Turquoise Politics.

Turquoise is a stage in the Spiral Dynamics model where you can see the value of each position and integrate them.

This goes beyond sectors and into relationships between and within political parties, and the demos.

I don't know if this stacks up but it might be that generally, the private sector votes blue, public sector workers votes red, and third sector folks vote green / yellow / red. 

So turquoise politics means people at different places in the circle of political experience to listen to one another with curiosity and respect. It also involves people within political parties doing the same. 

And in the demos, us out here, it involves us somehow getting back to town hall meetings where we meet difference and listen with curiosity and respect; rather than siloing in our Facebook and Twitter echo-chambers, hating on the Other. 

Here’s the second thing I see. That whole model of the private sector, surpluses, the stock market, tax and redistribution, philanthropy and the third sector, gets foundational disrupted by progressive business ownership models, discussed for example by Marjorie Kelly in Owning Our Future.

If the private sector doesn’t drench quite so much from the human, social and ecological spheres to create its surpluses; if surpluses are not so large or not so confined to the already wealthy in direct relationship to the wealth through the stock market; if consciousness and the legal forms it is expressed through live inter-being from the start…. All that is going to change that afore-mentioned water sculpture structure in ways I can’t forsee before my 10am meeting.

But I’m interested.

Thanks for reading this far.

In it with you.

Briony.

Learning to hold a heart

I'm starting to learn to hold a heart.

I know, I'm a late developer.

Here's something that happened.

I'm sitting with G. He's explaining how he feels.

As I'm listening, I feel attacked, and blamed. I feel fear rising and moving like hot energy snakes around my body; I sense in my arms the desire to rise up and fight, my desire to shout, about how ridiculous he's being, the unconscious misogyny, the desire to control me from his fear, the powerful desire to defend my freedom and the goodness of my life.

I am trying to learn to not be reactive; to manage deep listening; to express empathy; to take time, when my partner is on fire, to calm the fire, before I bring forward my feelings and needs and fight against him, for them.

I listen for as long as I can take it. Then I say, give me a minute.

Ok, he says.

I walk away. It feels good. He starts to speak to me. I hold up my hand - really, please, a minute.

Ok.

I move several feet away. That feels good. Oh i need to shake. I shake. That feels good. I've just absorbed a lot. I calm a little. I see the piano. I really want to play it. "Are you ok if I play the piano for a moment?" "Sure."

I sit. One chord. Yes. I'm flooded with yes. This is my place. This is a safe space for my feelings. G minor. Yes! F9. Oh yes! D minor. Fuck yes! C major. Of course!!! I move through them, getting louder and louder, making the chords more and more crunchy, my fingers fly fiercely across the keys, and here is the sound of my rage, and my fear, the motherfucker.

I move through and through it until something softens and I'm just left with, wow! He's in so much pain! The poor fucker! It leads me to the final chord.

I turn to him. "G you poor thing! You've been in so much pain!"

At the empathy, he cries.

And we have connection.

Now the rage and fear have been moved, I can hear him more. I can get to the heart of the feelings, behind all those very unreasonable seeming irrational deluded fears and odd assumptions, I can get to the heart of the needs, and the reality of his feeling insecure. However unreal his fears, his feeling of insecurity is true. I can literally put my hand on his heart, and hold it, and be with him, and want to help him, somehow, I don't know how yet, to feel more secure.

And then, he's ready to hear me. By now he really wants to hear me. And then I can say my fears, and he can hear them. It's Sunday afternoon.

On Friday night we were screaming at each other until 3am, breaking up, and I drove an hour home at 3am; by Monday morning, we are closer than ever before in each others arms.

I am beginning to learn.

A rattle snake and a walker: Love, Gender, and Power.

I walked, a 5’10 strong, long legged, walking-booted woman, alone on a Californian coast path, 4 miles from a road, no phone. At one step, I heard a loud, horrifying rattle, and saw about a meter in front of me a large rattle snake coiled on the path, its head raised a couple of feet hissing a fierce, terrified rattle. I shrieked! Screamed! Already on a strong forward momentum, I ran semi-circle past the snake and onwards, heart racing, away.

“You were both in mortal danger at that point," said Nunutsi Tenipe, a part Native-American, part Scottish guide.

“Four miles from a road with no phone, a rattle-snake bite would have killed you. Your footfall would have killed the snake. The snake’s rattle saved you both.”

* * *

When I fall in love, and begin to partner, I notice a Little Wife archetype rising up like a ghost ship, like the Mary Rose from the deep, and starting to gain access to my thoughts, feelings and actions. 

* * *

I pay attention to my first thoughts of the day. They are usually clear distillations of the night’s processing and dreams.

I wake one morning in my lover’s arms. My first thought: “I am pair bonding with this man. It would break my heart now for this to end.”

I go pee and come back to bed. He wakes and starts dreaming into life with me. The previous day, I had expressed to him that one of my consistent longings if to have more time to practice the piano. This morning, he starts asking me what I earn, what I charge. We talk a while. Then, he offers me $500 a week if I cancel half of my students and devote time to practicing music alone and with him. 

I say, what about power. I would have to please you; I would be at risk of poverty if I raise conflict; disagree with you.

He pulls out his phone; checks with me for consent, opens up PayPal, and deposits $14,000 into my Paypal account.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me.

In the next two days, I become small, scared and sad. Giving my heart voice, it says, “joy is gone. Life is gone. I am grey, I am dry, I am empty, I am dying now.”

After two days, I crack, and cry.

* * *

I am eating a snack with an older Scottish woman. She once received financial assistance, she said, from an organisation originally called The Distressed Gentlewoman's Aid Association; now called Turn 2 Us. It was initially established in the 1800s to help middle class women whose husbands took a mistress into the home; if the wife complained, she was expelled from the home, instantly destitute. For women in that position, their main option was usually prostitution. In order to prevent this, the fund provided financial assistance to these women as they handled their transition.

She tells me this and a kind of trauma, a pain, a rush of energy pulses through my body; I weep a little into my snack.

It’s like, the minute the man has economic power in the relationship, and the woman becomes economically dependent upon him, instantly it is like she cannot disagree, cannot displease, must follow the man. She becomes, it feels/seems, voiceless. 

Her truth; her path; her gifts; her flourishing; is quietened. She achieves a fulfilled life by assisting, following, and supporting him.

It gets a bit more horrific, I notice one night as we’re going to bed. She must always cook his food, must provide sex on demand - does she have access to “no”? Can she say what she likes? Can she co-lead their erotic life? Can she co-lead any aspect of their life? She must tidy up after him; mend his shirts, sew his buttons. She is in a kind of bondage, I realise. A kind of slavery.

Fuck!! I exhale hard lying down in bed, taking on the full oppression of the almost entirety of many, many women’s lives, in history. And… Some presently? I’m sorry if my question mark is ignorant. I honestly do not know.

* * *

The 100% message that school and family surrounded me with as a young English girl in the 1980s and 1990s was, ‘girls are as good as boys. You are equal. You can do anything you want with your life. You will and must have a career. He will and must share the cooking, cleaning and childcare.”

Meanwhile I saw my father gain the upper hand in any decisions that involved money, because ultimately it was his, he earned it. I saw my mother, with no pension of her own, rail in powerless frustration at her economic dependence. Young, I watched it, and took note.

Always have your own income. Always have your own pension. Always have your own economic power.

* * *

I like my lover’s kitchen. It’s really really nice. It’s open, and pretty, and spacious, with lots of clear surfaces and useful stuff. There are big windows that look out over lovely hills; birds fly in the wide open sky. We are up a hill, with a bird's view. The open floor room opens out to a grand piano, and space, calm, and more views. It’s a really lovely kitchen.

I tell him this one day.  He says, “well hey, you know, if this works out between us, well, if you wanted, you could make this your kitchen. I kind of…. feel lonely in  this kitchen, I feel dysfunctional here. If you wanted, you could really make it yours, and I would provide whatever equipment, keep it stocked with the finest local organic delicious food, and you could do your thing.”

A British person might expect me to slap him.

But, it went to a deep place within me. I slowly put my arms around him, sighed, and talked quietly into his ear in Clingon. It’s my nonsense language I learned from my 1 year old niece; with which I can express things from deep in my heart, a place the English language doesn’t seem to go to in me. He’s learnt to get to used to this :)

Then i translate it into English.

“Your words touch a place deep in my feminine soul. I love food. I love to cook. I love to share food. I love to nourish people. I hate giving rides, I love giving food. I naturally track a cupboard’s stock, notice what is vibrant in the market, imagine and create with flavour and nourishment. It’s one of the ways I love to care and nurture. I never think about money. I always think about food.

“If feels amazing to be offered support, provision. I start to feel the capacity for a deep collaboration with you. It’s like, my gifts and my dreams need your resources. And, your resources need my dreams.”

* * *

My friend R has fallen in love with J. Both meditators, they both notice some of their more subtle thoughts. She thinks, “I am the wee wife now, and I must help this amazing man bring his amazing work into the world.” He thinks, “our love is a poker game and we must bring everything to the table. She has to bring her business to the table. I have to own her business, otherwise I won’t be able to control her. She has to bring her home; I have to own her home, otherwise I won’t be able to own her. I have to own her, otherwise I will be threatened.”

Threatened with what? Abandonment; humiliation, infidelity...  power sharing? 

* * *

Can men and women, in love, underneath it all, quietly be a rattle snake and a walker, both screaming in mortal danger? How do we cultivate the genuine, mutual sense of safety necessary for power sharing, trust and non oppression? Also known, I imagine, as love!?!?

Would you believe (meet me in London) chart

Would you believe  (Meet me in London)

A Forcione, S. Sciubba

Chorus

      D            A/C#             Bm7   A

Could you believe in a dream  and I tell you that it’s true

            D                   A/C#       E4,7

Would you believe, precious friend of mine?

                        D                A/C#                Bm7                       A

Could you believe when it seems, you’re glad with what you do

                                   Am (7,6)

Gives you courage to carry on

    D     A/C#  Bm             F#m      B7        

Gives you courage to carry your spirit up on high

     D      A/C#         Bm7     A.

to carry your spirit up on high.

A(m) (6,7)

I saw people in trouble;     heard the angels cry.

Don’t you temper with my children;    make the devil cry.

        F#m, B7 F#m, B7

Spent the night with David,          taught me what to say

F#m                                                        B7 (walking bass - B, C#, D, D#, E)

I was looking for a smooth storm when I heard him pray

Chorus

(Bridge)

        D7

Now I could sing you times and reasons

                   D      A/C#    Bm7       F#m

Reasons to lay your burden softly down.

C#                                                        F#m

Kings and prophets bid everything for freedom

B (walking bass: B, C#      D               D#)      E

Keeping precious dreams imprisoned on the ground

A

I’ve got the song that I sing

A

I’ll make the mountain ring

B7 (walking bass B, C#, D, D#)   E

Tell my mama, I’ll be home but now

Chorus

Am jam

D  A/C#    Bm              F#m, B7

Courage to Carry your freedom up on high

      D      A/C#           B           A.

To carry your freedom up on high.

The names and addresses of folks I wrote to about changing the Bay Area's Transport system.

State Level

Governor Jerry Brown

c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173

Sacramento, Ca, 95814

Malcolm  Dougherty

Director, Caltrans

P.O. Box 942873

Sacramento, Ca,94273-0001

Brian P. Kelly

Director, CalSTA

915 Capital Mall, Suite 350B

Sacramento, Ca, 95814

Susan Bransen

Executive Director, California Transportation Commission

1120 N Street, MS - 52

Sacramento, Ca, 95814

Bob Alvarado

Chair, California Transportation Commission

NorCal Carpenters Regional Council

265 Helgenberger Road, Suite 200

Oakland, Ca 94621-1480

Steve Heminger

Executive Director, MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

Alix Bockelman

Deputy Executive Director, Policy: MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

Mayor Tom Bates

MTC Commissioner.

2180 Milvia Street

Berkeley, CA 94704

Libby Schaaf

MTC Commissioner, Oakland Mayor

1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor

Oakland CA, 94612

Dave Cortese

Chair of the Commissioners: MTC

County Government Centre

10th Floor, East Wing

70 West Hedding Street

San Jose, CA 95110

Randy Rentschler

Director of Public Affairs, MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

National Level

President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington DC 20500

Anthony Foxx - U.S. Secretary of Transportation

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Victor Mendez - Deputy Secretary of Transportation

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Blair Anderson - Undersecretary for Policy

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Greg Winfree - Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Suzi Emmerling - Director of Public Affairs

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Shoshana M. Lew - Chief Financial Officer

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Molly J. Moran - Legal Head

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Dana Gresham - Government Affairs

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Civil Society

Susan Shaheen

Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center

University of California Richmond Field Station

1301 S. 46th Street, Building 190

Richmond, CA 94804-3580 (University mail code 3580).

Timothy Lipton

Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center

University of California Richmond Field Station

1301 S. 46th Street, Building 190

Richmond, CA 94804-3580 (University mail code 3580).

Arpad Horvath 

Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center

University of California Richmond Field Station

1301 S. 46th Street, Building 190

Richmond, CA 94804-3580 (University mail code 3580).

Stuart Cohen

Director, Transform Ca

436 14th St #600

Oakland, CA 94612

Joshua Stark

State Policy Director

Transform CA

436 14th St #600

Oakland, CA 94612

A letter I sent to the 25 leaders of our transport system

After I came back from hiking among the dying forests of Lassen Park, California, and returned to Bay Area Traffic (6 lane highways backed up in each direction, not in rush hour), I tracked down the 25 people who seem to have the most control over the Bay Area's transport system, and I wrote them each a version of this letter.

Steve Heminger

Executive Director, MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

Dear Steve

I am writing to ask for your powerful leadership at this time.

I write this freshly back from the Sierras, where I have been hiking among dying forests, dry rivers, a desiccated ecosystem; realising myself to be a witness to, and participant in, ecocide.

I return to the Bay Area, to this. (It wasn’t rush hour.) 

I know you know the graphs; transportation in California is almost 40% of our CO2 emissions, (in blue on the pie chart); 90% of that is from our cars. It’s California’s biggest single contributor to climate change. 

I’m one of those drivers!

Climate change is devastating California, not to mention other parts of the nation and world. It’s like we’re in an Epic war.

We seem to have at least three scenarios to pursue, which I will outline below, but my point is this.

We need to change the transport system sooner or later, and sooner is much better than later. 

The time is now. We’re on your watch, Steve, and we need your leadership.

I want to feel your leadership, as a driver, as a citizen.

I’d love to see billboards on the freeways. Please talk to us. Could you say something like:

>  Our highways are a major cause of California’s drought and fires.

>  Things need to change.

>  We are working to address it.

>  Work with us.

>  This is our California.

>  This is our world.

>  www.the_transport_project_or_whatever.gov.us

The top 3 scenarios are perhaps:

1. Business as usual. Congestion, CO2 emissions, climate change, big profits for car, gas, tyre and concrete companies, but what of the commuters, residents and ecosystems?

1. Electric Driverless Cars. Will that really tackle the congestion, and the % of our towns allocated to roads and parking? Concrete, concrete, concrete.

1. Fast trains between cities, clean quiet trams on the major N-S, E-W arteries within cities, swipe-in, swipe-out city cars and bikes for the first and last mile. A smaller, lighter road system for folks who really need to drive, in their electric driverless cars.

There may be more scenarios and I am a musician not a transport planner. But Steve, something has to change, doesn’t it? 

The solution has to be not what the car, gas, concrete and tyre industries are lobbying for, but what is really right for California in the long term. The organisations, products and services can change, and can be supported to change. The need to have mobility within a healthy ecosystem is bigger, and paramount.

If you crack this, cities and countries the world over will say, hey, they did it in California, we can do it here. For decades. You’d be a hero.

Hiking among the dead and dying trees in Lassen park yesterday, I was really struck by, wow, we’re in something of an Epic war, the scale of which, all things considered, vastly exceeds the destruction of the holocaust, and this is what we are living in, right now. It’s like being German citizens in 1942. 

And going with business as usual is like saying, well, the gas chambers are already built and the systems are already in place, so let’s let them run their course.

And someone - me, we, you, has to stand up and say, No. 

There’s something really important to protect here.

And it’s our waters, our children’s future, our forests, all the creatures that live in them, and ultimately our ability to survive and thrive in California.

Steve, I look to you for your leadership.

Please stand up to this crisis and opportunity with all of the courage, integrity, ingenuity, power and intelligence that you have.

We could move from ‘me’ to ‘we’ as we think about mobility. We could take the best technology from other nations: Japanese bullet trains, clean quiet Swiss city trams; swipe in, swipe out cars and bikes for the odd little ends of the journey. It’s really possible for us; we’re a brilliant State.

We need you, and I for one am counting on you.

Do you need anything from me? Let me know.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Briony Greenhill

(Graph: California EPA Air Resources Board, May 2014: California Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory: 2000 - 2012, p16.)

Brilliant Stuff Other Cities Have Done with Transport and Public Space, Public Beauty

Street Trams in Vienna - light, quiet, fast - where it costs 1 Euro to go anywhere in the city, all day.

This is a consequence of the Vienna / Austrian government's "relentless approach towards modal shift."

 In Stockholm, Sweden, 93% of people walk, bike or take public transport to work. (Source)

So, the city is not all concrete and highways.

Madrid, in Spain, has created a car-free square mile in the city. Shalom. (Source)

In Bordeaux, the 7th largest city in France, they closed parking lots, narrowed the roads, installed a great tram network, and planted a bunch of trees. My Dad, a British retired urban planner, told me all about it.

Public space can be So Much More Beautiful. Cities can be so much quieter, safer, and peaceful. 

We can be happy and healthier.

Good for the drought, fires, carbon and climate change, too.

Peace.

Amsterdam has more bicycles than people. (Source)

In Curitiba, Brazil, 85% of people use the Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT). They're proud; it transports 2 million people a day (London's moves 3 million people a day). Then, they could pedestrianise many parts of the city.

Bogota, Colombia. "You have a human right to water. You do not have a human right to parking," said former mayor Enrique Penalosa. So he removed parking lots, installed extensive walk-bike ways, and a BRT (Bus Rapid Transport System.) "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars," he said. "It’s where the rich use public transport." (Source). 

San Francisco Bay Area, center of innovation and ingenuity; listed as one of the "Greenest Cities in the World" has... highways! And this famous "Bay Area Traffic."

And a rising population. And massive drought and fires.

What's possible for our motion? Let's Do This :)

Just sayin': today I'm having my car serviced. It's costing $400. Last month I changed the battery. It cost $325. I paid $7200 for the car. I pay $100 a month for insurance, maybe $60 a month for gas.

There are about 8 million of us living here, with many / most of us paying something like this for our cars.

What if all that money were pooled.

We could do something f*****g amazing