SOME IDEAS FOR THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY BLUEPRINT

Issue 0 :-PEOPLE

Other than reducing human species somehow, the leadership involved with an SJV Blueprint should realize that steps to forecast population estimates should then set out a way to derive total energy use to produce a built urban future and the subsequent reduction of green house gas emissions. This second forecast should then have substantive measures with which to create better and high-quality communities and jobs for people living in this Great Valley.

But the human dimension of how to organize us Great Valley Folk to save the Valley is the most daunting challenge of all. The SJVB Leadership together with the residents must provide compassion, and inspiration to reverse this problem. It will require a change of heart, not simply a change of mind.

Issue 1: - URBAN DESIGN

This service comes first. One needs to increase creativity to show evidence of the opportunities available at all levels of city design to promote structured communities, using energy wisely to offset “greenhouse gases” thus balancing a fit with this Great Valley’s variety of natural environments.

Issue 2: - CLEAN AIR

Unfortunately, the CO2 emitted today will remain in the atmosphere for more than 100 years. So it will take a long time, more than a century, after we begin to cut emissions to stabilize the problem. We have already set into motion 0.6 °C more warming even if we could level off CO2 tomorrow at today's level of 385 ppm. But we can't. Just to stabilize the atmosphere at 450 ppm CO2 and to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system will require an 80% cutback in emissions by 2050, and it must begin soon.

Issue 3: - FOOD AND FIBER

We cannot continue to only “eat fossil fuels” therefore our respect for small-scale agriculture must change. For each person on this firma terra we need an estimated two acres average of agricultural land to adequately service daily nutritional needs.

Issue 4: -WATER

We must be aware of per person water needs for staying alive, but understand the latent need of water for producing food and fiber as well as for manufacturing. About one in six people do not have adequate access to water in this world of ours.

Issue 5: - ENERGY/COMMUNICATION

We must not fear using our intelligence to build structures that use solar and air movement to create energy. Sunlight is a free energy source, but the ability to capture it has been broken and tested for functionality. There are many new advanced technologies that convert sunlight and air movement to produce electricity.

Internet Technology has allowed all of us to send messages far more rapidly to one another than ever before. However this is data until we find ways to sift data volumes into information that is meaningful in its application.

Issue 6: - MOBILITY

We have to wean ourselves of the habit of using 3–4 gallons of petroleum for each person in the country every single day. Finding new ways to move around means seriously evaluating new transportation technologies, as well as, just using our feet and balance, to walk or pedal a light vehicle.

Issue 7: -STRUCTURES

We have to build our infrastructure and buildings in a manner that compacts our community. Engineers need to find ways of keeping cities and services running and beautiful while preserving the environment. Using less raw resources in assembly enables us to do so by defining energy consumption with sustainable materials for building infrastructure services.

Issue 8: -WASTE

We have to convert our waste products to keep the earth and oceans clean. We have tested and placed new technologies to seriously reduce the volume of waste matter in all its solid and liquid forms. There have evolved many alternatives for waste reuse.

The problem is we have yet to seriously tackle the sources and causes to minimize packaged products to consumers in order to relieve and reduce the flow of waste matter.

Issue 9: -SECURITY, SAFETY & JUSTICE

We must learn to display individual ethics and morality to reduce human behaviors to acceptable standards. Justice must be swift to save present day unwarranted costs, and promulgation of

Issue 10: -NATURAL INDIGENOUS SETTINGS

We have to do something far better when it comes to balance the use of our environmental raw material resources and conserve our indigenous settings. The energies required versus gases emitted need to be far more clearly understood.

Issue 11: - ECONOMIC

We have to either take insurance against the possibility of fire and flood damage or build cities in settings that prevent our cities from being thrashed by Mother Nature. But even our economic markets aren't free—we fail to “pay” equitably for the use of our land, water, and air. When populations were small and territory was immense, natural capital didn't matter so much. But now it matters, as measures of value must be reassessed. The environment itself is a commodity and must be valued as a scarce resource.

Issue 12:- EVALUATING OUR DECISIONS

The makings of regional, general or specific urban plans should be for a purpose and that is to develop living habitats as a guideline for the future. However urban design as it is presently done isolates and freezes action thus detaching plans formulated from context and sequence.

Issue 13:-PRESENTATION OF IDEAS

Internet Technology has provided fast access to an immense and overwhelming recordation of written words, spreadsheet numbers, still and streaming video images.

The San Joaquin Valley Blueprint must reduce key facts from fiction so that presentations can be viewed and archived as relevant information, to better the building of places for humans to coexist with nature.

Graham Kaye-Eddie

Master Urban Designer