Section 4
Livability

4.1 Vision of a livable city

Imagine lying in bed on a spring night. It's warm and your windows are open. You listen for sounds from the outside. Your hearing is keen, senses are alert, but all you hear is a light wind, the rustle of leaves, and perhaps a distant owl. Otherwise there is silence. No traffic, no trucks, no jet roar, no sirens, not even the hum of air conditioners. You throw on your bathrobe and go out to the back door. Switching off the light you gaze into total blackness. As your eyes adjust, you look up at a night sky filled with points of light – more stars than you can count. The next morning you get up early to take a walk. It's still quiet, but now you notice more signs of activity – doors banging, cars starting, voices talking. You make your way down to a wooded path to take your 20 minute morning exercise. Tall trees form an open canopy over your head. There are wildflowers in the brushy undergrowth. It's the same path where you've seen turtles, lizards, foxes and nesting songbirds. Later in the morning, as the sun warms the air, a hawk is spotted soaring overhead.

Now imagine this: your home is in the heart of New York City – or Houston, or Tokyo – name any metropolis, big or small.

Impossible?

Only if we don't want it to be possible.

What we're referring to is living green space; a city landscape that is integrated with nature. Most urban municipalities have incorporated little such space into their development schemes – plans that were conceived centuries ago in some cases, if indeed there was a plan at all. Nowadays, with their anti-sprawl philosophy, planners believe that they have progressed. Anti-sprawl preserves rural areas, while concentrating development into denser, urbanized enclaves. But what most planners, and most people, don't seem to realize is that such dense residential development is not livable. At least, not for those who intend to make a permanent home in them. At best they are temporary lodging for an ever mobile population that never puts down roots. At worst these lifeless, concrete clusters are harmful to the health and spirit of the people who reside in them.

There is a great need these days for people to reconnect with the earth. Not that we're all going to become farmers or move to the wilderness, but a short walk along a wooded stream, or around the perimeter of an overgrown field is vital for enlivening the earth-soul that's within. A glimpse of a bluebird, a hawk or even a deer is infinitely more uplifting than a starling or a rat, or, for that matter, a skyscraper or a glass-enclosed mall, no matter how ornate it is. The feel of a dirt path under your feet and tall trees over your head is nourishing to the spirit. The clap of your heels on a concrete sidewalk is not. Unfortunately, most of us have not been brought up to understand such subtleties. We don't appreciate the natural world as we should.

4.2 Connected green space – a network of paths

Conventional city parks are not sufficient. In the first place, there aren't enough of them, but more importantly, most urban parks are like sports stadiums: concrete planters on an asphalt plain. Golf courses are not sufficient either. They're green, but they're artificial and chemical dependent, and offer little habitat for wildlife. What we need is an urban greenery that supports life, and moreover, that connects to the outside world; a park space that reaches beyond the paved part of the planet. We must integrate nature with human habitat, and do it in a way that is life supporting and harmonious with the planetary ecology. Planners need to think about balancing dense, high-rise development with an infiltration of natural, native, green space. Rather than erecting more

office parks, condo buildings and strip mall lots, we should consider how to tear up a parking lot or two, and put back some of the trees that used to grow on those urban plots in generations past. The park system should be a green archipelago bridged by trails. There should be paths that tie them together, and paths that lead to the city outskirts. Cities should have a network of such trails; a web of wooded corridors. Paths should be dirt, not paved. The corridors could be as narrow as 100 feet or so. What's important is that they make a continuous, green connection to the surrounding hills and plains. Even if those hills are 30 miles distant, the connection should be there. Such connectedness is palpable. It's the integration of urban and rural, developed and undeveloped, planet and person. The paths would thus offer some possibility for the spirit to escape the concrete enclosure, even if it's only for the few moments that you take your daily walk. Paths and green corridors should cut right through the urban landscape, and penetrate to the heart of even the biggest cities.

Ideally trails would be designed to never have to cross pavement. A raccoon or a bear should be able to pass from one end of the city to the other without danger from cars. If there must be a street crossing, it should be located in a spot where there is less traffic; a smaller side street. If an avenue is too wide or too busy to be crossed, there should be a tunnel or a bridge that keeps cars and pedestrians separate. The path should be animal friendly, especially in places where a highway must be traversed. When a trail parallels a paved road, there should be a green buffer between them to make walking comfortable: say 30 yards or so. Trails could also parallel railroad and public transit lines, again, with a green buffer that separates the pedestrians from the trains. Perhaps the most natural avenue for trails is along rivers and waterways. Development along rivers should be discouraged, or at the very least, construction should be set back some distance from the shoreline. The buffer could vary from as little as 50 feet for small streams to 100 yards or more for a large river. If a shoreline has already been built up, the municipality should look for ways to cut some green space through the developed areas.

City development should place a high priority on maintaining and extending trails. Bicycle trails are fine, but they are not the same as paths. Walking paths are special and should be treated differently than bike paths. Vehicles like ATVs should not be allowed on them. There should be regular maintenance – keeping trails clear of brush, fallen logs, poison ivy, trash, etc. In places where the ground is very wet or swampy, a walkway should be installed. It's low-tech construction, and should not be expensive. It's the sort of work that community volunteers would undertake.

Though our discussion is focusing on urban areas, it should be noted that rural regions are also in need of evolved thinking with regard to land management and green planning. One might suppose that farmland and small towns would automatically meet the CCA requirements by virtue of their geography, but it's clear that nowadays rural does not necessarily mean natural. On the contrary, a landscape that consists of mile after mile of monoculture cropland is as far from a natural ecosystem as a city park full of pigeons. A walk through a pasture is arguably more refreshing than a walk in a shopping mall, but that doesn't mean the pasture qualifies as connected green space, especially if it has been badly managed by a cattle rancher. Even rural woodlands are not very natural anymore – not when mature trees are continually harvested for timber. It's estimated that of the original forest cover in the contiguous U.S., only 3 to 4% remain. The vast majority of the woodland has been lost in rural areas, not cities.

Land management is a complex topic, but what we would like to suggest here is that we should be thinking about walking trails and wildlife corridors not only in cities but in the countryside, where native flora can be protected from encroachment not only from construction and development but also from crop and pasture land. The trail network should traverse farmland, just as the connected green space cuts through the cities.

4.3 Access for every resident

Obviously trails by themselves are not going to solve the problems of land conservation and shrinking natural resources in the world. But the purpose of this network is not so much material as it is spiritual. We need to find some way to reverse humanity's relentless march towards an urbanized universe. It's not that cities are inherently bad, but the people who are brought up in them seem unable to appreciate on any level the special connection that we humans have to the planet. We look at insects as bugs that need to be exterminated; birds are pests that ruin the finish on our cars with their droppings; our idea of a beautiful view is an aerial shot of Manhattan from the Goodyear blimp. We've been conditioned into thinking that the world is a maze of streets, alleys and concrete canyons. But it's difficult to fight against the economic forces that are dragging people away from their rural lifestyles. We can't send folks who have lost their farms back out to the countryside any more than we can send a secretary or a stockbroker to work in the rice paddies. So instead we'll bring the countryside to the stockbroker. We need to integrate our daily routines with the routines of the plants, the animals and the seasons. In a very basic way walking a trail brings about an appreciation for the rhythm of the planet. Watching a nature special on PBS is nice, but it can't take the place of experiencing the beauty of nature firsthand in your everyday life. Taking students on a field trip with the biology class should not require getting on a bus. They should only need to walk to the edge of the schoolyard. Indeed, every day of their lives should be a field trip. Similarly, when vacationers want to go ecotouring, they shouldn't have to fly to Kenya or Costa Rica. Let's instead think about inviting Kenyans and Costa Ricans to come on an ecotour of the U.S.; a tour that includes the natural ecosystem of Michigan as seen from downtown Detroit, or that of Georgia as seen from downtown Atlanta.

The key point about the trail networks is that they be accessible. All residential development, in city and country alike, should be designed around and along the trails. Offices, markets and industrial areas should be located further away. This is not to say that you wouldn't want to work or shop near a walking path. At some point the whole issue of working in a truly livable environment will have to be addressed, but the residential areas, our homes, should have priority of access for the present. What you would eventually want is that every home be within a short walk of the trail network. A short walk means that the trail is not more than five minutes away. Roughly a quarter to a half-mile. A community that is suitable for the CCA program – which is to say, a community that is livable as a permanent, lifetime home for spiritually developed residents – must meet this access criterion. The trail network should be close enough that every resident can spend 30 minutes or so on a wooded path every day if they like. Driving to a trail is not desirable. Parking lots at trail access points are also not desirable, with the possible exception of areas where there are ball fields, picnic grounds, etc.

The walk to the trail should itself be refreshing. It shouldn't be necessary to traverse a steel yard or a bus depot to reach the green space, or to walk along the shoulder of a busy highway. The way to the trail should pass through residential areas. And those areas themselves should be landscaped with native plantings wherever possible. If the regional ecology supports tall trees, there should be an abundance of them. Other than to protect a roof from falling limbs or to allow sunlight into a flower or vegetable bed, every available spot should have trees: along the roads, between homes and in the common areas.

For a large metropolitan area this scheme will clearly require an extensive network of parks and trails. But there can't be any compromise on this point. Not if you want to create a truly livable, permanent community. The key word is permanent. At some point everyone will come to realize that anything less than this is inadequate. Every person alive, whatever his profession or position in life, be it surgeon or stone cutter, should have this minimum degree of contact with the living planet. For his own comfort, and for ours as well. Because if your neighbor isn't healthy, it affects your health. If the individuals in a community aren't healthy, then the community is not healthy. A daily communing with our supporting earth is a key aspect of maintaining good health – physical and spiritual.

4.4 Noise pollution

Environmental pollution takes many forms: industrial runoff, landfills, automobile emissions. Pollution impacts all of us in one way or another, and we all have our opinions about environmental issues, and how best to go about addressing them. However, there is a sort of pollution that doesn't draw nearly as much attention as the other varieties, but which is equally harmful from a spiritual standpoint, and perhaps more difficult to address than the others: noise pollution. To even begin to think about dealing with noise pollution you must contend with three major obstacles.

The first obstacle is that any long-term solution requires that we contemplate significant changes in our transportation and industrial infrastructure: construction equipment, jet aircraft, highways roaring with tractor trailers and dump trucks, rumbling buses and blaring horns on city streets. Even the ocean shipping channels must sound horrifically loud to marine mammals, especially when you consider how penetrating low frequency sound is, and how far it travels. And let's not forget the domestic sources of noise: heat pumps, lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners, booming sound systems ... can anyone visualize a world where these activities take place in silence? Is there any hope for a silent factory, a silent freight train or a silent bus?

The second obstacle is that addressing noise means addressing human behavior – customs and habits that are deeply ingrained in modern culture. Why, for example, are nightclubs still rocking at 2:00 in the morning? Why must millions of people get in their cars every day and crawl for an hour to get to work? How can developers get away with building homes next to highways that roar with 24-hour traffic, and why do people keep on buying them? What about sirens and alarms? Is modern life inextricably dependent on such devices?

The third obstacle is that our fellow citizens need to be somehow sensitized to the issue of quietness. As with green space advocacy, there are formidable social forces to contend with in this regard. Can people ever be expected to forgo their predilection for casinos and race tracks in favor of woodland walks; to give up loud, external distractions for quiet reflection and inner peace? This obstacle, of personal preference, is the most difficult to overcome, but it's really the key to the other two. If people could be taught to appreciate the value of silence, if they could be infused with a desire to experience silence in their daily lives, then the other two obstacles would fall by the wayside. When the desire is there, the behavior will change, and people will find ways to accomplish what they want. This is where spiritual development comes in. Meditation in particular should give people this experience of deep, inner silence – pure, profound and cosmic.

Given the state of our modern infrastructure there will obviously have to be some compromise on the quietness requirement. The way to proceed is to start with a community that is already fairly quiet by virtue of its geography, and then use it a model for others. Plant the seed, and then cultivate it. In terms of the CCA program, we are suggesting that as a rule of thumb every residence should be a minimum of 1.5 to 2 miles from busy interstates and 3/4 to 1 mile from busy state or local roads. One possibility is to have a home that is available for short-term rental – say, a bed-and-breakfast arrangement – and invite visitors to stay and experience the community's quietness first hand. Not just outsiders, but local lawmakers should also be invited. Something else to consider is a daily quiet hour in the community, where people are expected to stop what they are doing and rest. No lawn mowing, no computers, no TV, not even any talking on cell phones. People would meditate, do their exercises, pray, etc. – disconnecting from external distractions to turn their attention inward. This might even be an idea that an entire municipality could adopt – a citywide or countywide quiet hour. (See Section 3.6-3.)

Going even further, what about setting up a quiet day? A true day of rest, where stores, malls and restaurants are closed, cars and trucks are off the road, no nightclubs, no stadium events, no radio or TV – people simply shut down and disengage. Clearly it would have to be a very special city for there to be any chance of this happening. Everywhere you go now, not just in large municipalities, but even in rural towns, stores and shops are open 24 hours a day. Radio and television broadcasting never shuts off. People are going out to eat, drink and shop at midnight and later. The pace of life in this country has become way too intense, way too fast, and totally out of sync with nature. It's not a healthy trend; it's quite disturbing in fact, and something really does need to be done about it. But, again, how to you change peoples' desires? And how do you contend with enormous, global economic forces? The best approach may be to address the problem on a small scale using the noise reduction angle, with the idea of experiencing regular periods of quietness, at least within a few CCA communities here and there. A model for others to emulate will then be in place.

4.5 Behavioral criteria

Geography and environment are not the only factors that determine the livability of a community. The more critical factors pertain to people. Specifically, to the individuals who make their homes in the community under consideration. What sort of upbringing did they have? What are their customs and habits? How do they interact with others? What potential do they have for spiritual development? Inevitably, when you ask questions like this, you find yourself coming up against a delicate issue – the notion of political correctness. It's clear to all of us that there are people with whom you don't want to associate. You might work with such folks, you might see them in church, they might stand in line with you at the supermarket, but you wouldn't invite them to dinner and you probably wouldn't want them living next door. All of us can name certain individuals who are ill-mannered, vulgar, not trustworthy or just plain annoying, but there's an unwritten law that forbids you to talk about it. Privately you might refer to someone as a lowlife, but you would not express it publicly. Yet it's not wrong to recognize such differences. The mistake is to generalize from it – to lump people together only because some among their group – race, nationality, family background, economic status – have such characteristics.

Nevertheless, one cannot help but be conscious of behavioral distinctions in people. Such distinctions can be broadly described by the term "civility". Civility (or courtesy) emerges from developed consciousness, which leads in turn to refinement of action – refined behavior. Another term we could use is "enlightenment". With respect to Community Conscience Advocacy, you would want to implement the program in a community where the residents were to some extent more enlightened, more spiritually developed than the average person.

Locating such a community is easier said than done. It's especially difficult given the ever changing populations of the American suburbs. But there are clues you can spot, even in a brief visit to a neighborhood. Two indicators of community enlightenment to look for are the presence of locked and barred windows, and the distribution of lottery vendors.

4.5.1 Open window test: Can a resident with a bedroom on the first floor be comfortable sleeping with the windows open? Assume this is not a gated community, or one with a fence around the perimeter, and that the house doesn't have window bars or security doors. The only barrier between the interior living space and the street is a window screen or a screen door. Say the household consists of a single mother with her kids. Would that lady feel okay at night with only a screen to protect her?

Drive through a neighborhood and see how many homes have alarm company signs on the front lawns. Also look for security doors at the entrances, window bars, or high fences around the properties or around the community. If these things are clearly in evidence, then you should keep on driving. If you see vending machines enclosed in wire cages and police cars parked at local high schools, if the gas station attendant sits behind bulletproof glass and the liquor store is protected by a metal grate at night, then the community is not suitable for the CCA program.

4.5.2 Lottery outlet density test: Looking at the nearby shopping plazas, count how many 7-Eleven or similar convenience stores you find – shops that sell mainly junk food, cigarettes and beer, including liquor stores. Also count how many shops that are selling scratch-off cards, state lottery tickets, or that are set up for playing Keno-type video gambling. If you find several such establishments in the same general area, it probably means the local population is not very enlightened. Why? Because state lotteries cater to the lower classes. Inquire at the state lottery board about which communities generate the most gambling income. Invariably you will find that the poorest and least educated are the greatest contributors.

Of course there are more direct ways to assess community behavior. Crime statistics are useful in this regard, if, that is, you can put your hands on a report that is detailed enough. You want an idea of the sort of crime that has been taking place in specific neighborhoods –

even on specific streets and blocks. Theft statistics in particular are revealing: thefts from autos, thefts of tools, as well as robberies, break-ins and stolen cars.

Certainly communities with high crime rates could benefit from having a CCA, but the philosophy of the program precludes us from starting out in such places. As with quietness, you want to find something good, something positive, and then expand on it. Rather than chasing forever after problems, you want to point towards solutions. Moreover a CCA is going to make the community his permanent home. Ideally, he or she would eventually begin to think of his neighbors as if they were family members; people worthy of association not only with him, but with his children and grandchildren. Unless there are compelling reasons to live in a high crime area, a CCA should seek out something better. Not that we're forgetting about the tougher neighborhoods, but they're going to have to wait until there's enough spiritual growth within them or around them before a CCA can think about taking up residence there.

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