The below section includes some info slides for the agenda. The slides can be clicked on for an expanded/ zoomed in view… Also I haven’t figured out how to insert video blocks or links in the expanded lightboxes. Please click on the zoomed out video slides to open a tab to the YouTube video.
In addition to all this, I believe a marginal cost, built and natural environmental studies program, would serve our cities ongoing future well. My intent is for the marginal cost of this, among other things, to be offset by intermunicipal syndicate/co-op market revenues. The program would consist of university students instructing and advising AISD and Austin area private school students, specifically through associative studies of built and natural environments. One key, early stage priority would be in forming a reputable, reliable, well reviewed and effective education program, without tax increases, for primary to secondary school youth to gain a comfortable grasp of our geographic and environmental resource cycles and supply levels, the spatial and cohesive integration of natural to built resource systems, and the nature/ condition of our constructed/ developmental land uses. This would be conducted with detailed analyses of micro to macro scales, and short to long term timeframes, across chemical, physical, mathematic, biological, biomedical, economic, hydrological, structural and public health considerations (perhaps more). Much of this study and analysis would relate to our city area and regional context.
As a super basic, not to be taken completely seriously example, I’m going to insert a low effort slides presentation I made for a class during university. It’s not that comprehensive and detailed, more like one of those assignments thrown together in an hour, to not show up to class with nothing. The point is, I was once a primary to secondary aged kid, keeping up with school work, curious about the outside world, contextualizing and understanding it (in part) with my studies, and voluntarily participating in scientific competitions like Future Cities or Science Olympiad. A college or university student’s half effort homework could be gold for a middle schooler. A high effort delivery of presentation, instruction and advising, especially if it’s for payment or course credit, could significantly expand and accelerate a child’s understanding of the expressed subjects. Subjects which we currently don’t have the funding, capacity and programs developed to fully or widely cover.
I would like to add that densified vertical farming is not a cheat code or cure all for urbanized/regionalized farming efficiency, or sustainability. Although it saves on land use, soils, fertilizers and water, it is a highly energy intensive (energy demanding, using a large amount) and material intensive process. It also clearly takes investment of time and money to set up and maintain. The idea can be applied to certain spatial and social contexts of the city, one among them being adaptive use of flat rooftops and large scale abandoned industrial sites. But by no means am I promoting this for rampant development, that would be unrealistic. Vertical farming is merely one consideration for certain contexts of adaptive land use, which again, is one of the primary functions for the education program I’m proposing.