Piscataquis Village Project

by Daniel Kitts Friday June 21, 2013

Piscataquis Village Investor, J.H. Crawford, has written two books on how to achieve the idea of cities without cars: “Carfree Cities” and “Carfree Design Manual.” He talks to Agenda intern Krystyna Henke about how cities without cars could work.

9 minute video.

Nathan Lewis – www.newworldeconomics.com

“It was never a matter of “we have cars now, so we need to make our streets wider.” Rather, it was a matter of: “We have these enormously wide streets, which are full of mud because they are too wide to pave, so walking sucks, and everything is really spread out. It would be great to have an automobile.” Suburbia actually dates from far before automobiles. ” Continue Reading….

By Charles Marohn over at Strong Towns

“In a world where so many people now have access to education and cheap tools of innovation, innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart. Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb.”

–Curtis Carlson, Silicon Valley Executive

We seem to be a society obsessed with efficiency. Or, at least, we claim to be obsessed with efficiency. If you listen to politicians they are always talking about streamlining government to make it more efficient. In our cities, engineers and planners talk about building places that are efficient. One of the objections last week to my suggestion that cities would be better off without traffic lights was that the current system is efficient and a world without signalized intersections would not be. We’ve got this entirely backwards. Continue Reading….

From Vincze Miklos

Let’s take a Sunday tour of some Narrow Houses….continue

Kai Laursen – The Atlantic Cities

From a land use perspective, satellite cities and urban infill de­­vel­­opment are the best ways to accommodate population growth while preserving open space and farmland. The alternative is urban sprawl. Continue Reading…..

by Jess Knox, Disruptive Growth – Bangor Daily News Blogs

“Living in the woods and in rural Maine, the advantages come from living in serenity. My peaceful surroundings allow for me to stay true to my vision and myself for Darn Good Yarn without too much exterior noise.” – Nicole Snow – Darn Good Yarn

Nicole Snow founded Darn Good Yarn in 2008.  DGY imports yarn fiber that has been recycled from waste silk in India and Nepal then distributes product in both the wholesale and retail markets.  Located in Sebec, near Dover-Foxcroft, Snow successfully uses the Internet to build and manage relationships with her customers and her suppliers across the world.  The BDN checked in with her in March of 2012, but she’s had a very busy 2013. In January, FedEx announced that Darn Good Yarn was the grand prize winner of the inaugural FedEx Small Business Grant Competition and the recipient of a $25,000 grant.  Snow utilized her social media and internet experience to build a campaign to beat thousands of other competitors from across the country.  More recently, Snow has been working with others, including Gov. Paul LePage, to promote “micro-businesses” in Maine. Continue Reading…

People in rural Minnesota are battling small-town decline with determination, resourceful thinking, and unwavering belief.

“Conclusion:In the end, it seems clear that some rural cities and regions will thrive, perhaps because of an ability to keep and train young people, because of a wholesale reinvention…..collaboration, or because of the efforts of a dedicated group with a big idea. And other rural cities and regions will not.”  Continue Reading….

From de Zeen Magazine

 Work is about to start on a high-density, car-free “satellite city” for 80,000 people that will be built from scratch in a rural location close to Chengdu and later replicated in other parts of China. Continue Reading…

By Andrew Alexander Price

Public markets, when done right, are a vital part of a healthy urban economy. They encourage innovation, they create activity, and most of all, they lower the cost of entry to the market, which in turn, encourages jobs to locally grow. By now, I hope that you understand that economy gardening – ‘growing’ jobs rather than ‘importing’ jobs – is a vital part of a healthy economy, to avoid becoming a Copy-and-Paste town. Public markets are just one way you can encourage economic gardening, and as an added benefit, they contribute to the environment to create interesting urban destinations; Continue Reading…

Forget Stephen King and lobster rolls. The really impressive thing about Maine? Farms are being started at a rate nearly four times faster than the national average, the average age of its farmers is below the national — and rapidly greying — average (and keep in mind Maine is the most geriatric state in the Union), and it boasts one of the highest organic-to-conventional-farm ratios in the United States. Continue Reading….