Excerpted from Chris Carlsson:
“With my tongue only partly in cheek, I propose that San Francisco take the lead in visionary urban transformation. “Jobs” as we know them are an obsolete way of organizing life. I propose a complete rethinking of what municipal government does, no longer “governing” so much as facilitating, allowing us to grow together, to begin building a life outside and against the Economy. If we are nearing a collapse in housing and other asset bubbles fueled by the insane expansion of credit, as it seems we are, then visionary citizens need to start redesigning the role of local government now, while we still have time and resources and before the coming depression and collapse begins. Not entirely seriously, but not altogether frivolously either, I propose the following New Department of Public Commons for a New Municipality, all of which can and should be integrated into our public education system for children and the continuing education of adults. A casual examination will reveal that there is a lot of work to do! But not the kind that generates private profits and sales.
Department of Public Commons
Overall, the city must focus its efforts on an economic strategy that grows the commonwealth and steadily shrinks the private sector. This is a program of decommodification, reframing work as a shared adventure in shaping and extending the quality of our lives.
A. Division of Public Space In charge of plazas, parks, and common lands, and their expansion, maintenance, and programming, this division would administer public libraries, tool and technology libraries, and public workshops, amply stocked with materials recycled from existing stocks. It would also begin the process of converting many streets into gardens and parklands (see “H” below).
B. Division of Agriculture With the goal of San Francisco feeding itself as much as possible, it will expand community gardens, urban farming, and aquaculture projects, working with the Division of Public Space to reappropriate the vast acreage dedicated to moving and parking cars. Relationships will be cultivated between existing slow-food restaurants, local farmers, and local markets to create an unprecedented abundance of outstanding, healthy, tasty food, eliminating hunger and radically reducing dependence on fast-food outlets.
C. Division of Aquifer and Liquefaction Management (and Deconstruction) Irresponsible building patterns on historic mudflats and landfill should be removed before the next big quake; plans will be made for how to manage collapsing streets and buildings and how to reuse areas prone to liquefaction. Expanded use of existing aquifer will promote local self-reliance and reduce current dependence on quake-vulnerable aqueducts.
D. Division of Creeks and Wetlands Working with the three previous divisions to open streets to make creeks visible, restore wetlands, and establish areas for aquaculture, farming, fishing, and recreation.
E. Division of Highest-Ever Tides and Seawall Construction Preparation is needed for rising sea levels and catastrophic high tides from global warming. Technologies to protect the city from inevitable flooding should be explored now. Also, San Francisco’s strong technology-savvy population can take the lead in developing techniques for adapting existing transportation and structures to widespread flooding.
F. Division of Work Reduction Most work done in this culture is a waste of time, if it’s not actually dangerous and counterproductive. This division will facilitate the creative reappropriation of our time and talents, redirecting our work (which is inherently social after all) toward socially determined needs and desires (see “I” below).
G. Division of Co-ops and Collectives Businesses will be encouraged to convert themselves from private ownership to worker-owned and -run co-ops and collectives. As much as possible, such enterprises should be encouraged to contribute to the commonwealth without measurement or pay . . . from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs and desires.
H. Division of Recycling and Reuse This important division will be responsible for innovation in more than just recycling garbage, but also in spawning whole industries to rehabilitate and reuse the discarded junk of the twentieth century. Long-term goal: Stop importing new junk!
I. Division of Crackpot Realism Thousands of techies, artists, and tinkerers live in San Francisco. Already this city has served as world HQ for rapacious exploitation of huge swaths of the planet. It’s time to make it up. Technology transfer of global-warming-reducing technologies: energy efficient transit, shelter, appliances, and communications. Reengineering technologies to last at least twenty-five years with minimum maintenance and energy use (see “J” following). (Bechtel engineers, for example, should be encouraged to direct their own time and creativity towards projects of social importance—something useful for a change!)
J. Division of No Home Is a Castle Housing is one of the most intractable problems facing any social transformation toward equality. A focused effort will be made to raise everyone’s dwellings to a shared standard of space, safety, comfort, and beauty. Land trusts will be established to remove all land from the market, and housing will be owned and controlled by those who live in it. Reengineering every dwelling to be as self-sufficient as possible in water, power, and waste management (fertilizer manufacturing for “B” above).
K. Division of Free Mobility
• First on the agenda will be the creation of a Bicycle Library with a fleet of 5,000 yellow bicycles. A municipal contest will be held annually for bike design and local manufacture with local materials.
• To support the Bike Library—a network of 100 bike huts and repair shacks will maintain the publicly owned fleet of bikes.
• The Panhandle will be expanded and extended on converted streets in dozens of directions to crisscross the city with greenways. The DFM, with the Division of Creeks and Wetlands and the Division of Public Space, will build green corridors along the natural terrain of creeks and shorelines, with meandering bike and multiuse paths.
• Public transit will be free, with radical expansion of routes for full city coverage. Rapid development and adoption of new transit technologies based on wind, solar, biofuels, and magnetic, “frictionless” tracks will revolutionize energy use.
L. Division of Public Memory
• Publicly owned and produced media will be expanded, and multiple daily newssheets and Web sites advanced, with independent editorial boards elected by districts.
• There will be oral history collection booths, and the Living Archive of San Francisco history will be available online and at a new city museum. Satellite museums in every neighborhood, where techniques of oral history collection and digitizing of archival materials is shared and learned, will reduce social amnesia.
• Public history forums will be held regularly throughout the city, debating various points of view on how life has changed over the years in San Francisco.
M. The James Brown Memorial Division of Feeling (Good)
• Everyone will have free comprehensive health care—state-of-the-art preventive care covering medical, dental and mental for all. San Francisco is a town overrun with care practitioners of widely differing quality and philosophy. A clearinghouse and licensing system will help residents get what they need.
• We will encourage the public declaration of desires, whatever they may be.
• Fear abatement will get top priority with programs to help people overcome fear of others, fear of disapproval, fear of speaking out, fear of not owning enough, fear of losing possessions.
• There will be a vigorous program of shame and guilt reduction.
N. Division of Public Art This division will involve itself in all urban projects, ensuring a high level of artistic participation in urban design, food preparation, historical presentation, and transportation design. Sculptures, paintings, multimedia installations, soundscapes, and new art experiments will fill the city, eliminating the visual blight of advertising in favor of art.”