A Reminder

We must remember that the playing field is not level. It is, in fact, heavily tilted in favor of the Dark Scenario. This is because entropy is the default mode of the universe – as nature’s wrecking ball and recycler, serves as absolute judge and natural selector. Entropy is universal, perpetual, inescapable and unforgiving. Systems and life exist only when the self-organizing process together with its essential energy supply and external sources of support are powerful enough to overcome the process of entropy. All else will go by the way of nature’s great recycler.

A bright scenario may come about only as an extraordinary, well-reasoned and systemic human effort to overcome the all-consuming process of entropy.  

As we engage in planning and building sustainable human habitats and viable communities we need to keep in mind that the line we must walk is narrow, exacting and unforgiving of failure.

LA is Prepared

A bright scenario could be developed anywhere. We choose Los Angeles as a proposed demonstration site because the city has done significant preparations for the revitalization of the Los Angeles River, which opens the possibility for developing the essential elements of a bright scenario. Gridlocked Los Angeles is also ready to slow its sprawl and begin a new chapter in its development that embraces mixed-use vertical expansion, improved mass transit systems, and much-needed affordable housing.

Size Matters

The scale of the proposed Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project has to be large in order to cover a sufficient cross section of the city’s population. The project must span a wide socioeconomic range reaching from the middle income of the northern section of the LA River, through the industrial downtown, and to some of the low-income southern section of the LA River neighborhoods. Only such a large-scale project and experiment will provide the database from which to develop a universally replicable model.

DEVELOPMENT

The Nonprofit Framework

An essential aspect of the Bright Scenario is that the Transitional/Holigent Urban Villages are built, owned and managed by a nonprofit corporation. The nonprofit organization is to be eligible to receive tax exempt public and private grants and donations. In the nonprofit arrangement the wealth generated by the organization is reinvested in the stated purpose to benefit the community to provide affordable housing, improve the quality of life and reduce the burden on government.

Fund Raising

The purpose of the Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project is to help form self-financed communities that will be able to provide social and economic security, affordable housing and improved quality of life for their residents. Our purpose is in the public interest and we hope to attract donations and grants from individuals, foundations, and governments.

Building Transitional Urban Villages

The first Transitional Urban Village would serve as a pioneering demonstration model and would be followed by the construction of a string of such villages along the LA River. Each Village is to be of a different style and architecture to reflect the ethnic and cultural mix of Los Angeles. The Villages are to be served by a rapid electric rail transport system that connects to the heart of downtown Los Angeles and to the existing transportation center.

Introducing the Holigent Solution

In the event of a severe downturn of the general/global economy, people living in Transitional Villages would be susceptible to jobs and housing loss, just as in any other community of wage-dependent people. The Holigent Solution is aimed at creating a three-way arrangement between employers, employees, and the community organization that would help preserve businesses, jobs, and housing even during economic recessions.

PROJECTED IMPACTS

The Race Against Time

We can get this experiment conceptually right and still lose the race. Winning this race to peace and sustainability depends on the number of dollars invested in priming the transition race. If we as a nation are willing to spend a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war, what is it worth and how much should we spend on the race to save our country and the planet?

 

The Bright Scenario assumes that the broad appeal of the systemic solution proposed by the Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project will motivate individuals, corporations, foundations and governments to join, donate and fund the project. The projected impacts are based on $30 billion in funding spread over ten years ($3 billion per year is about 0.5% of the U.S. military budget for 2008). 

The bulk of the funds will be applied to build the residential and commercial units of the transitional urban villages. The income produced by those units will be added to the donations and grants and applied to build additional units. By the end of the tenth year the LA Peace and Sustainability Project will own and manage over 100,000 apartment units in urban villages mostly along the LA River, producing more than $120 million in gross income. In addition, about 12 million hours of direct human resource input, provided by the community service agreements, will be available in the 11th year alone. The direct human resource input will be applied in construction, maintenance, social services, community outreach, environmental protection and crime prevention.  

Impact on Transportation

Reduced Car-based Commute

As the project expands and participation grows each year, a greater number of people will transition from car-dependent to car-free living, thereby reducing the collective car-based miles traveled. In the 11th year alone of the LA Project, the number of cars on the roads will be reduced by an estimated 150,000 and the distance traveled reduced by 1.8 billion miles. 

Reduced Traffic Congestion

Fewer cars on the roads will help reduce traffic congestion. Faster-flowing traffic will result in fewer wasted hours, reduced gas consumption and improved productivity.

Improved Mass Transportation

The LA Project, with the cellular arrangement of its urban villages along the LA River, will lend itself to the development of an efficient high-speed electric rail mass transit line that will connect to downtown LA and to the existing transit system.

Environmental Impact

Reduced CO2 Emissions

In Los Angeles practically every working adult drives a car. The fully developed Transitional/Holigent Villages in the LA Peace and Sustainability Project will be at least 75% car-free. Accordingly in the 11th year of the project out of 200,000 adult residents, 150,000 will give up car ownership. That will result in 150,000 fewer cars on the road and 750,000 tons less CO2 emitted into the atmosphere in the 11th year alone. There will be additional reduction in CO2 and other pollutant that are normally associated with the manufacture and shipping of cars.

Environmental Restoration and Protection

A portion of the (12 million hours in the 11th year alone) direct human resource derived from community service will be allocated to habitat restoration and environmental protection along the LA River and its adjacent watersheds.

Social Impact

Saved Commute Time

On average, a working individual will save 240 hours per year based on the typical LA freeway commute. The “Waste to Value” concept, through community service, helps to convert part of that saved time to economic value for the individual and for the community. Bonding with team members during community service provides a social benefit. The rest of the time reclaimed from the car commute will increase residents’ free time for social activities and recreation, further improving the quality of life.

Health Benefits

The Transitional/Holigent Urban Villages, with their car-free pedestrian core, provide a built-in opportunity for a daily dose of walk for their residents. In addition, participation in community construction and maintenance provide additional opportunity for physical exercise. Parks with recreational facilities within the community complex will contribute to healthful and stress-free living. Research associates such lifestyle with improved fitness and lower incidences of illness.  

Social and Economic Security

The Holigent Solution through its Variable Commitment Allocation Plan (Delta Plan) provides agreements among employers, employee-residents, and the nonprofit community organization by which individuals will be able to preserve their jobs and their housing even during economic recessions. The arrangements will help preserve social and economic security.

Economic Impact

Economic Impact on the Individual

An individual, living car-free in a Transitional/Holigent Village will be able to eliminate the cost of car purchase, insurance, maintenance, fuel and other car-related expenses. Rent reduction through credit earned in community service will further reduce the cost of living by $160 to $500 per month. 

Helping to Balance Trade

The LA Project, in its 11th year alone would take 150,000 cars off the roads. At 514 gallons consumed per year per average passenger car, we would reduce gasoline consumption by 77.1 million gallons. At 42 gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil, the 11th year alone would reduce oil consumption by more than 1.8 million barrels. At $80/barrel that would represent a savings of $144 million in oil import expenditure in that year.    

Reducing Reliance on Foreign Oil

Reducing oil-dependence is an issue of national security as well as economics. The U.S. imports over 60% of the oil needed to run our economy. At that rate the U.S. economy is potentially held hostage to foreign oil.

Some of our oil money finds its way to terrorist organizations and helps to finance their operations against us. Consequently the U.S. has to spend additional hundreds of billions of dollars to fight terrorism. The Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project would significantly lower oil demand and demonstrate a replicable socioeconomic model of high productivity at reduced oil reliance.

Reducing the Burden on Government

The Department of Health and Human Services, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Treasury Department (servicing the national debt), are the four departments of the Federal Government with budgets towering over all the other federal agencies. Their spending is mainly responsible for the 9 trillion U.S. debt that continues to rise and threatens to bankrupt the U.S. Government. (See the chart below). The systemic nature of the Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project would help to reduce the fiscal burden on the Federal Government as outlined below.

    See the 2008 Budget of the United States http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/browse.html

Reducing the Burden on the

Social Security Administration

The Social Security Administration’s budget for 2008 is over $600 billion and growing. It is threatening to bankrupt the U.S. Government. The Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project would help reduce the burden on the Social Security Administration.

Over the proposed ten-year development of the full-scale LA Project a string of Transitional Urban Villages would be built mostly along the LA River. At the end of the 10th year the project will have over 127 million square feet in over 100,000 residential income units. The gross income of the managing nonprofit organization is projected to be over $120 million in the 11th year and growing.

In addition the Community is projected to have about 12 million man-hours, in the 11th year alone, of direct human resource at its disposal derived from the members’ community service agreements. The Holigent Solution, when introduced to some or all of the Villages, will provide additional physical, social and economic continuity and security even during severe down turns of the general/global economy.

With these self-generated resources and built-in arrangements of social and economic securities the Transitional/Holigent Villages will have ample capacity to take care of all its people including the very young, the old, the ill, and the infirm, through their growing, working and retirement years, requiring little or no assistance from the Social Security Administration.   

Reducing the Burden on the

Department of Health and Human Services

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, at nearly $700 billion, has the largest budget of all the federal departments.  This department is a major contributor to the $10 trillion U.S. debt and unsustainable federal spending. The solution to health and well-being provided through the LA Peace and Sustainability Project is focused on prevention as well as a community-supported health care system.

An emphasis on walking in the pedestrian Transitional/Holigent Villages in addition to participation in community service, will provide a built-in routine of physical exercise. Car-free living, reduced rent, and the absence of a freeway commute will reduce the stress of life. Social and economic security in human-scale Urban Villages improves the quality of life. It is well documented by research that an active, secure and stress-free life style is an effective way to maintain physical and emotional health and fitness.  

In addition to the built-in preventions, the Transitional/Holigent Villages will have the self-generated funds and human resources to provide excellent health and human services with little or no assistance from the government, thus significantly reducing the burden on the Department of Health and Human Services.

Reducing the Burden on the

Defense Department

The ’08 U.S. military budget is nearly $600 billion and the Iraq war, including the long-term care of the wounded, is projected to total over $1 trillion. Without a deeper analysis, one might say that it is a far stretch to think that The Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project will make a dent on these figures and reduce the burden on the Defense Department. However since conventional wisdom and methods are failing to solve the most urgent problems the U.S. and the world are facing, the LA Project is indeed proposing unconventional solutions.

The LA Project would cellularize the physical, economic and social arrangements of life and work. After sufficient priming, the process would develop self-financed and to a degree self-reliant communities. Such communities would have a lighter footprint on the economic, cultural, environmental and political fabric of the world.

A universal model, developed through the LA Project, would be shared with communities across the U.S. and around the world. Such a universal model would help build international teams and partnerships expanding the Peace and Sustainability movement around the globe. The new communities developed by these nonprofit NGO projects will be largely independent of governments and at lowered vulnerability to energy crises and recessions of the global economy.

A none-threatening and more intimate outreach and cooperation between Americans and communities around the world has the potential to reduce tensions and build international trust. In view of the new reality in which the most pressing problems of our planet do not lend themselves to a military solution, the day will come, through the implementation of the Transitional/Holigent concept, when most Americans will feel comfortable with a somewhat smaller US Defense Budget. Thus the Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability model seeded and nurtured around the world can, in time, help reduce the burden on the Defense Department.

Reducing the Burden on the

Treasury Department

Nearly four-fifths of the Treasury Department’s $500 billion projected ‘08 budget is spent as interest payment on the national debt. The LA Peace and Sustainability Project can reduce the interest payment on the national debt indirectly.

The activities of the Transitional/Holigent Villages will reduce monetary demand on the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Defense – the three money-guzzlers of the U.S. Government that ring up most of the deficit spending (outlined above). When the U.S. Government is assisted in reducing and eliminating deficit spending it can began to reduce the U.S. debt. When the debt is reduced the cost of servicing the debt will decline. Through such indirect yet positive means the Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability Project will help reduce the burden on the Treasury Department.   

Promoting Global Peace and Sustainability

Seeding the Program Around the World

Almost from the beginning the Los Angeles Project would invite individuals from other nations to train here and then take the program with them to communities around the world in order to start their own Transition Race to Peace and Sustainability.

Building Partnerships

As the programs grow in the U.S. and in communities around the world, the LA Project proposes to form international teams and partnerships to expand and spread the Transition Race to Peace and Sustainability to include ever-larger participation globally.

Partnering with Governments and the United Nations

The LA Project will work with national governments and the United Nations to demonstrate the advantages of investing in a systemic solution rather than fighting problems. The Los Angeles Peace and Sustainability model has the potential to provide a relatively inexpensive and self-perpetuating systemic solution to many of the world’s economic, social, and environmental problems.