An Array of Utopian Flowers
-
What Every SoCal Beach Town Suffers: Parking
Posted on May 23, 2013 | No Comments -
Wildlife Crossings: Animals Survive with Bridges and Tunnels
Posted on May 19, 2013 | 1 Comment -
Henry Miller’s Free Association into the Surreal
Posted on May 19, 2013 | No Comments -
La Loba: Wild Woman, Luminous Wolf
Posted on May 15, 2013 | No Comments -
Vandana Shiva: Maintaining Biodiversity and the Seeds of Freedom
Posted on May 11, 2013 | No Comments
-
WilderUtopia in 64 Languages
Powered by GTranslate - multilingual website solutions.
Chasing Ice: The New “Inconvenient Truth”
Arctic Melting Before Our Eyes - In his new film on the disappearance of Arctic glaciers, “Chasing Ice,” author, award-winning photographer and reformed climate-change denier James Balog used time-lapse photography to capture global warming in progress.
Read MoreEcological Urbanism
A City Green Re-Imagination - We must demand an ecological retrofitting of our urban environments to live together more efficiently, giving credence to community, allowing space for the open wild.
Read More
Utopia Archive
-
African Garden Cities: Urbanization Without Planning for People
Posted on May 7, 2013 | No CommentsMaster planned, self contained New Cities have appeared all over Africa. Emulating models from the global north, private-sector boosters advance them without considering factors such as environment, economy, context and even poverty. Nairobi-based urban practitioner Jane Lumumba argues they might only make social and economic problems worse. -
Honduras: Neoliberal Utopias Advance on Indigenous Land
Posted on February 23, 2013 | 1 CommentThe government of Honduras plans the creation of neoliberal free-market enclaves, unaccountable to national laws and governed by foreign corporate interests. Stipulated for territory inhabited by Garifuna people and campesino farming communities, with propaganda about democracy, economic innovation and humanitarian justice, "President" Pepe Lobo should first refrain from presiding over the coup-backed "illegitimate regime." -
Arcosanti: Paolo Soleri’s Visionary Eco-City Protoype in Arizona
Posted on January 18, 2013 | 3 CommentsA visionary eco-city in the Arizona desert, Arcosanti is an urban laboratory created by Paolo Soleri. Based on the concept of Arcology, or ecological architecture, it presents a compact, sustainable, energy-efficient urban form that confronts environmental destruction, economic collapse, and social dislocation. -
China’s Urbanizing Utopia: Ghost Cities and Propaganda Theme Parks
Posted on December 19, 2012 | 2 CommentsChina has been building ghost towns for years, and like a never-ending vaudeville show, the bizarre overbuilding never stops. Here are four of 2012's most eyebrow-raising developments. -
Honduras: Neo-Colonial “Free Market” Charter Cities, Democracy Not Included – By Annie Bird
Posted on September 25, 2012 | No CommentsFree marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world's first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land "purchased" from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras. -
Chinese Mega-Cities Contrasted with Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities”
Posted on August 13, 2012 | No CommentsRapid industrialization in China has caused a massive migration to crowded, faceless and polluted urban mega-cities of 10 million residents or more. They should consider Italo Calvino's utopian "Invisible Cities" to rethink the role of imagination in urban planning. -
H. G. Wells on the Futurist Dystopia of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”
Posted on July 15, 2012 | No Comments"Metropolis" hallucinates a futuristic city, a paradise of glass and steel, where underground workers toil endlessly at the giant machines that run the world above. Controlled by the autocratic industrialist, his spoilt son falls for the working class prophet who envisions some mediation between workers and managers. Noted science fiction author H. G. Wells reviews the controversial 1927 masterpiece. -
Model Cities: Neo-Colonialists Seek Submissive Wild For Capitalist Utopia – By Jack Eidt
Posted on May 15, 2012 | 2 CommentsNeo-colonialism in Honduras: Paul Romer's Charter Cities movement advocated suspension of sovereignty and democracy in the service of unfettered capitalism. Unfortunately, the enabling legislation was deemed by the Honduran Supreme Court as unconstitutional. While the coup-backed government of Honduras presses the issue forward, resistance members and indigenous and labor organizations continue to fight this libertarian dream on the Coast of Trujillo. -
Mother-Nature Is Not A Wicked Witch: Oren Lyons on Oz
Posted on February 20, 2012 | 2 CommentsBaum's "Wizard of Oz" as a Utopian American Dream soft-peddles an anti-nature-prejudice amid dazzling urban-industrial landscapes. This bias at the expense of the earth's resources has led us to today's environmental and economic collapse. -
China’s Utopian-Growth Overdose: Cities for Nobody
Posted on April 5, 2011 | 2 CommentsChina's planned mega-city for 42 million people has created vacant rows of overpriced high rise apartments and office buildings, sprawling malls without tenants or shoppers, freeways and transit lines constructed for no one. -
Planned Petrodollar Utopia for Kazakhstan?
Posted on August 16, 2010 | 4 CommentsCalled Astana, it is the world's latest example of a rare but persistent type, the capital built from zero. It is in a line that includes St Petersburg, Washington DC, Canberra, Ankara and Brasilia and like them it provokes a question: can a city, in all its teeming complexity, really be planned? Or does the attempt lead only to a synthetic simulacrum, a kind-of city that is not quite the real thing?
