Let’s imagine a future together. Cities have been remodeled throughout the years in order to handle the weather better. Rain gardens, permeable pavement (which in areas with ice and snow are usable), buildings given extra support to handle rooftop gardens and added vegetation on the sides, rain water harvesting, and more green infrastructure such as trees lining the streets to keep the heat island effect down. Some rooftops have solar panels, some areas have omnidirectional wind turbines that can handle the chaotic winds of a city, and areas that have high traffic changes the kinetic energy into power. Like a puzzle, they figured what buildings would be more viable for passive heating and how to make it better for those that can’t be truly rebuilt due to historical circumstances.
Cities have also been remodeled to make buildings as accessible as possible. Hallways and doorways wide enough for wheelchairs to comfortably move through, doors having a wider range of sensors so wheelchair users can go through by themselves, buildings being as soundproof as possible for those who can’t handle much noise, having a good ventilation system, the lights can change color and can get dimmer and brighter depending on who needs it. Within the city itself there’s designated areas that are quiet zones, and there’s designated areas where people can yell, scream, and destroy things to their hearts desire safely. (Some people need to bang a body part against something to get that sensory input they need. And some people need to get their frustrations out.) There’s tactile pavement for white canes to follow, there’s stop signs, traffic lights, and road signs that have braille and a button that says what street someone’s on, and a beeping to signify you can cross the street. Menus at restaurants have a large print option and a Braille option. Through a long process, previous media that didn’t have it, and all new media is now required to, have audio description and closed captioning. Schools teach sign language from kindergarten to graduation.
Trains can go throughout the city, and trains can continue to a new line over to other cities, and across the country. Across the continent even. All while respecting any sacred sites. (This means going around.) Solar powered ferries are nice go to for those needing to go to another city connected to the river, or on the other side of a lake, or an inland sea, or a small island not far off the coast in the ocean. Buses are given more routes and can also go from city to city, and since there’s less cars on the road, are more on time than previously before. There are still cars, just not as much. People can have the choice between owning a car, or sharing one with their community. An apartment building can have a set of cars or a village can have a set of cars, and a person can sign up to use the car for X amount of time in order to do whatever they need to do. Like go to a doctor’s appointment if they’re sick, and they don’t want to infect anyone else on the public transit. Cities have been rezoned so people are more able to walk, bike, or wheel themselves from their place of residence to a doctors appointment then to the grocery store, back home, go out to a repair cafe, and then go to an outdoor hang out spot. There’s playgrounds for kids and adults alike.
Renewable energy is made tailored for the area it is in. In areas that get the most sunlight use solar panels, areas with more wind use wind turbines, areas with a viable placement that won’t negatively impact wildlife (such as a breeding/egg laying site) they can place down tidal power and marine current power. (Think wind turbines but for the ocean currents.) Instead of lithium ion batteries, we switched to a more sustainable alternative with salt batteries. And in smaller areas, such as towns and villages, give them the power that makes sense there. If a small village is next to a river, bring back water mills.
Villages and towns are also given a remodeling. Ramps for wheelchairs and baby strollers, a flat stable walkway/road, a commonplace space for people to get together for activities and meals.
While the cities have their rooftop gardens, community gardens, and indoor farms, (especially in cities on an island where there’s no farmland), they can have access to food that wouldn’t be normally grown in their climate. But we can still have farmers out in the rural areas, with different practices of farming for whatever works in that climate. Rotational grazing, food forests, Zuni waffle gardening, growing muscles and oysters on a string in the ocean, you name it. We would have more variety in our diets, so we wouldn’t need as much meat, so there would be less livestock. Which means the livestock would have better lives out in fields instead of factory farms.
We would have more wildlife corridors (over passes and under passes) to help get species from one area to another over the roads and train tracks we have, and in some places, like in jungles, it would be ropes tying one area to another for tree only dwelling animals to pass on through.
As for materials, we’ve gone through old landfills to find material that we could reuse. Either being melted back down to add to something, or finding ways to repurpose it as is. Things that have been made obsolete due to companies having made it so, can last so much longer with some tweaks. Or they have also been taken apart to repair other things. Fridges, washing machines, and so on are not run on wifi. There are physical buttons with braille, and devices that can read text is easily available. We had found an alternative for plastic, one that can actually biodegrade and won’t negatively affect us and the planet. This has been used in a variety of things such as medical equipment and food packaging.
We went through a bunch of rewilding projects to find what best fits an area. Old quarries are now lakes and marshes, degraded farmland that was no longer in use have been turned into grassland or forest. Invasive species are hunted and gathered and given purpose. Food to eat, fuel to use, art and clothes to make. The more we have restored the environment, the less carbon we had used, the more carbon is stored in the growing plant life. Temperatures slowly go down, weather stabilizes. We might not get back glaciers. But they’re no longer melting at an alarming rate. Polar bears, narwhals, seals, and other Arctic species won’t have to compete as much for ice to live on and raise their young. The Amazon no longer burns in order to create more farmland and cut down for precious wood. We had started to deconstruct buildings to reuse the material rather than demolish completely. Furniture is given a second life. And a third, and a fourth.
We talk to each other. We hang out and make friends. We’re not friends with everyone and we have our differences. And that’s okay. Our differences don’t hurt each other. People have different religions, different genders, different ways to love, and we’re born differently and it’s celebrated. Intersex babies are born and aren’t immediately put into surgery for cosmetic reasons. Children grow into the identity that fits most for them. People still make realizations later in life, and appreciate who they used to be, and love who they are now. We support each other and let ourselves be supported. Children can go around and see their neighbors be grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. People who carry babies can have the choice to actually have a baby. If they don’t want one, they don’t want one. If they want one, they can get help from the community to help raise their child. Mental health is taken seriously, physical health is taken seriously, and people don’t have to go through multiple doctors just to get seen. If a doctor cannot help a person they’re referred to someone else right away, and that person gets the help they need. If someone is going through an addiction, they aren’t met with shame, and are given the tools they need to help wean themselves off and live a healthier happier life. People have less hours but they now have enough to live without having to pick between rent or food or medicine. Third spaces are everywhere and there’s workshops to help teach skills that someone might not have wanted to learn while in school, or never got the chance to, but now really wants to know.
Let’s imagine this future. Now, let’s go make it into a reality. Talk to your neighbors, make connections with people who like what you like (art, cooking, karaoke, so on), set up rotations on car pools, offer to help out with cleaning someone’s house, baby or pet sitting, go out to volunteer, pick up trash, go to your town hall meetings, set up a community garden, send letters, phone calls, emails to all sorts of elected officials, reduce reuse recycle upcycle, set up a repair cafe, go out and pull out invasive plant species, encourage people to create not just art but technology, band together to join a co-op, help each other out when sick or injured or having a bad day, band together to buy a solar panel system for a building you go to (your apartment building, your community center, so on). We can start all of this today. We have been doing this all over. Despite it all, despite others who won’t want to see us thrive, we can and have done it.
