DREAM CITY 2020: Look to past as model for sustainable future

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a series of columns about the future of the Pikes Peak region written by community leaders and visionaries. It's part of the ongoing community initiative Dream City: Vision 2020. Add your vision at dreamcity2020.com.

All I really want, all I believe anyone really wants, is the ability to care for myself and my family, to live in a world where I don't have to worry too much about where my next meal comes from, whether my neighbors are serial rapists, whether I'll have enough money to get the furnace fixed if something goes wrong. I've had hundreds of conversations, since I moved here 4 1/2 years ago, with people of differing ethnicity, religion, politics. Some of them have become my best friends. Once we stop worrying about changing each others' differences, we all want the same basic things: food, water, shelter, love and respect from our peers, and a meaningful life.

In my mind, a lot of this can be accomplished by going backward. We are so used to improving and trying to create solutions that are better than what Mother Nature intended. Are we really better off? In my opinion, as a society, we work harder and longer hours; we are less physically healthy; we have more mental disorders; we are overwhelmed by the choices we have, whether it's at the grocery store, or deciding what to do on a Saturday night.

That said, I believe that we could learn a lot by what went right in the past. When we were much less technologically shackled, people got off their duffs and physically worked to earn their keep. I would like to see a world where doing physical labor is something that is celebrated, not denigrated.

I'd like to see a lot fewer toxic and nonbiodegradable items in people's houses, in restaurants and other facilities. One hundred years ago, we used things fully, reused what we could and returned biodegradables to the earth. I would love to see a community where every school, restaurant, government institution has recycling and composting facilities - not just bins, but a place for it to go, whether in-house or taken by an entity that would use it. I was in a coffee shop a few days ago that offers compostable cups, but they cannot separate them out and compost them because of the health department's regulations. Needless to say, I took my cups home and chopped them into little pieces for my compost pile.

I would like to see people getting outside and taking care of their own yards and gardens, vegetable gardening and growing fruit in particular. That's a natural part of our landscape. If we learn how to grow it and preserve it, that extends our food supply through the winter. The other thing this does is allow us to be available to meet our neighbors and spend time with the other critters that inhabit the planet: birds, foxes, squirrels, and whatever other destructive little animal you have in your neighborhood.

I see a community where people use transportation, personal or public, powered by clean technology, and they choose to get out on their bicycles and feet to get places. Town centers are just coming back into vogue. Look to Bill McDonough, a world-renowned architect who is creating whole cities based on the premise that no one will have to walk more than a mile for basic services, including work, school, groceries, movies, etc.

When you need food, you should be able to go to someone down the road to get it, and have it be produced in a clean and healthful manner. Right now, we have local producers, but a lot of them are too small to provide for our whole community, or are not producing the food in a manner that makes the Earth and its inhabitants whole.

Most everything I'm talking about holds our Earth, food resources, community and our land in the highest regard. We cannot be part of this world without truly remembering that we are part of this world. Everything we do, every choice we make truly matters. I'd like to see more people remember that.