Urban permaculture strategies, for the permaculture design course.

1. For humanity’s continued health and prosperity, we all—individuals, businesses,
political leaders, religious leaders, scientists, and people in every walk of life—
must work hard to solve these five global problems, starting today:
1. Climate Disruption
2. Extinctions
3. Loss of Ecosystem Diversity
4. Pollution
5. Human Population Growth and Resource Consumption.

3. “Cities have the capability of providing something for
everybody, only because, and only when, they are
created by everybody.” — Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)

4. 1. Stay healthy
2. Meet your neighbors
3. Get a project
4. Practice Collaborative Consumption (the sharing economy)
“…instead of waiting for politicians & corporations to fix the system,
it’s possible to create a better one of our own, right under their
noses. A new way of living, in which access is valued over
ownership, experience is valued over material possessions, & "mine"
becomes “ours” so everyone's needs are met without waste.“
Tolerance + Cooperation = Peace

5. Rob Hopkins is also a
cofounder of Transition
Town Totnes and
Transition Network, and
the author of The Power
of Just Doing
Stuff, The Transition
Handbook, and The
Transition Companion.

6. Energy
Use less
Insulate / Weather Strip
Add greenhouse
Solar power
Water
Use less
Collect it
Filter
Greywater
Food
Buy / support LOCAL!
Cooperate: CSA / Buying clubs
Grow: containers, roofs, mushrooms,
fish, guinea pigs, pigeons, etc.
Community gardens
Plant food trees / guerrilla grafting
Waste
Refuse!
Reuse.
Recycle: compost, worm bins
Humanure

11. Break into villages / pods with
community bonding: block parties,
sharing / cooperation,
neighborhood facilities.
Care for soil, water, species,
increase green biomass
Create people-friendly economics:
recycling, barter, new currencies,
home business
Decentralize energy production
Transport: mostly rail & bus, bikes,
live near work, close more
streets for walking / bike zones.
Measure success by resilience
not growth.
Replace quantity, expansion,
competition, & domination w/
quality, conservation, cooperation,
& partnership.

12. L.A. gives 70% of its space to cars
Hong Kong raises 45 % of its food.

17. VULNERABILITIES: Threats to food security:
1. Increased food prices due to higher fuel costs for production,
processing, & transport.
2. Increased food prices &/or shortages & falling food production
from shortages of ag inputs (fuel, fertilizer, irrigation, water).
3. Increased prices, or shortages of grain, cereals, & meat & dairy
due to diversion of grain for ethanol.
4. Shortages of grain due to increased purchasing by foreign
governments (China, India, others) to cover shortfalls in domestic
production as a result of energy, climate or land problems.

18. 5. Shortages of food plus spoilage in transit or storage due to power
outages and electric grid disruptions .
6. Abrupt disruption in fuel supplies due to sudden loss of confidence
in U.S. $ &/or political embargo of oil shipments with dislocation of the
trucking industry.
7. Trucking strike related to fuel price rises & a squeeze on driver
incomes.
8. Disruptions to the food supply system due to a lack of credit,
bankruptcies, or other financial failures.
9. A major earthquake on the New Madrid fault or West Coast.

20. Toward Greater Local
Food Production
1) Enlist private sector
cooperation;
2) Advocate for local
food production &
increase access to
information to support
food production &
processing;
3) Remove or reduce
legal, institutional, &
cultural barriers to
farming within & around
the city, & open
institutional markets to
local food;

22. Reserve open land for food production & make more
land available;
5) Create & expand local food processing & distribution;
6) Organize direct support with the city & other public
agencies to address infrastructure needs for water supply,
fertility collection & distribution, food processing, storage,
& marketing;
7) Support for new farmers, including training, land
access, low-cost start-up loans, & property tax
abatements or land rent offsets.

23. Create a community food security plan.
Plant edible landscapes on public property.
Train & deploy hundreds of new urban garden farmers.
Increase number & scale of community gardens.

24. Organize City-led horticultural services to include organic waste collection, processing, and
distribution.
• Create a City nursery of edible perennials for City Depts & residents;
• Establish perennial food forests on public land by grafting &
planting fruit & nut trees;
• Institute urban forestry & composting programs to harvest the
carbon & compost it for growers. (e.g., cardboard, hair from salons,
pre- & post-consumer food waste, brush trimmings);
• Promote home-scale composting of kitchen & yard wastes;
• Create a City arboretum of economic / useful species; &
• Establish additional local seed banking facilities.

25. Support local aquaculture production of fish,
shrimp, clams, crayfish, & wetland species.

26. Through education & funding, work to increase food
storage in household & community pantries to three
months supply for all residents.
STOP BUYING processed, over-packaged food.

27. Expand water
storage within
the city to
support
agriculture.

28. Increase the
area available
for year-round
growing
(covered
or greenhouse
space).

30. Establish food business incubators w/ access to
community kitchens.
Dedicate public land to intensive garden farming in city
limits & identify additional acreage for future use.
Identify food processing & distribution hubs.
Inventory commercial-rated kitchens in the city &
identify unused capacity.
Acquire & make available to local animal farmers mobile
abattoirs for safe & economic local processing of meat.
Work toward a year-round regional farmers’ market.

39. Curitiba is the
capital and
largest city in the
Brazilian state of
Paraná.The city's
population was
1,879,355 as of
2015, making it the
eighth most
populous city in
Brazil and the
largest in Brazil's
South
Region.The Curiti
ba Metropolitan
area comprises 26
municipalities with
a total population
of over 3.2 million

40. Global Sustainable City Award,
given to cities and municipalities
that excel in sustainable urban
development.

43. The intellectual and practical foundation of Agricultural
Urbanism includes:
Urban agriculture
Farmers markets and direct marketing for farmers
Agricultural land preservation and farmland
security
Organic agriculture / Permaculture / SPIN Farming /
others
Food security
Artisan food / slow food movement
100 mile diet
Education on all aspects of food
Farmers succession planning
Co-operative farming
Local food economies
Community Supported Agriculture
Wildlife and agriculture integration
Sustainable communities
Smart growth
New Urbanism
Green infrastructure
Composting
Many others