Recently I have been feeling, as so many of us must be, rather overwhelmed with the quantity of terrible news that just keeps pouring out of the media – senseless violence from governments and those opposing them seems to be the order of the day, paranoia on a scale even Philip K. Dick would have baulked at describing… you get the picture, you’re living it, right?

Anyway sometimes something pops up in one of your streams that breaks through all the nonsense and shines a powerful beam of hope, and I think you will forgive my verging on hyperbole here when you watch this video (from the excellent Films For Action website) because I am sure you will be forced to agree with me that this is a possible future scenario that can be adapted and scaled to many exhausted urban environments. Sometimes we need things to completely collapse before we can begin to consider alternatives and this is proof that alternatives are out there.

One last thought: had this been a project from a government, local council or even an NGO, we can be sure that a great deal of the budget would have been wasted on admin, PR, and general bureaucracy, whereas in this type of bottom-up project, as they say, they can ‘turn dimes into dollars’.

Enjoy the video, and let’s hope we’ve seen the future right here!

PS Support the UFG crowdfuding campaign for their new makerspace here.