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Meeting the real needs of future citizens, at a reasonable
cost, paying skilled trades-people fairly for their work, and preserving the
ability of the land to produce food and natural resources locally are the hallmarks
of developing a sustainable community. Maximizing affordability, and maximize
opportunities for mass transit, while minimizing resource use, energy use,
carbon footprint are equally essential. Providing external impacts that benefit
neighbors such as scenic beauty, opportunities to participate in community
supported agriculture, and recreational opportunities rather than externalizing
costs such as increased traffic, loss of local agriculture, reduced water
quality, loss of wildlife habitat, depletion of resources, and the loss of
natural places.

Most for-profit enterprises exist primarily to generate
financial returns for their investors. To achieve this end, they invest in
areas where they see opportunities for profit. Opportunities to profit are
enhanced by cutting costs, increasing market share and/or increasing apparent
value. Costs are cut by mass production and marketing, using unskilled labor,
mass buying, cutting corners in construction, and minimizing improvements.
Market share is increased by increasing advertising budgets, selling the sizzle
rather than the bacon (selling image and vanity rather than substance). Granite
counter tops rather than energy efficiency. Profit is increased by apparent
value increases by selling high mark-up items like in-home theaters, granite
counter tops, and master bathroom suites rather than energy efficiency,
structural upgrades, and efficient space use. For-profit enterprises succeed
when they develop a piece of land as rapidly as possible. The result is a
monoculture of sprawl.
Non-profits are freer to develop a broader mission statement
and follow their core values and develop sustainable communities. Because they
do not require a high rate of return on investment, they can create and share
more value with their workers, customers and citizens, neighbors, and the
community at large. Furthermore, they can afford to continue providing services
to the communities they create after the development phase.

As we enter an age of resource limitations, specialization of production on a worldwide
basis will become more limited because of higher transportation costs. The
ability to meet the needs of communities and their citizens will become
increasingly based on what can be produced locally rather than what can be
transported from elsewhere. Communities and people who make plans, lifestyle
changes, and develop skills to provide goods and services locally to fare better
than those who do not. As in indigenous cultures, the unit of organization to
meet needs is likely to be communities rather in today’s society where the
individual and corporations are intended to meet needs.

Several models of communities have been proposed including “eco-villages”, “transitions
towns”, and others. Following John Michael Greer’s concept of disensus—that we
cannot fully predict the future of limits—we should we should create multiple
approaches to development of communities.

American cities and their surroundings include downtown areas, urban areas, suburban
areas, agricultural areas, managed lands, and wilderness. Each of these areas
provides critical goods and services necessary for the survival and well being
of people living in and around the region. These goods and services can be
provided mindfully, carefully, and sustainably—or they can be they can be
exploited recklessly, carelessly, and unsustainably. Creating communities and
institutions that tie these landscapes together provides great potential for
creating sustainable futures.

Cities tied to their hinterlands and meeting their needs through a fair exchange could
greatly increase sustainability. While such a future may be ideal, it is
probably impossible to complete even in a small city or town. However,
implementing Land Connections on a smaller scale would allow its citizens to
adaptively manage for sustainable results making changes where appropriate.
With such an approach, people could participate to the level of their comfort
and motivation. Parts of this idea are in place today and are operating highly
successfully. Community supported agriculture, community gardening, and
individual organic gardening; cluster development, green infrastructure, and greenways;
conservation easements; and permaculture all fit this concept. Indeed, Land
Connections borrows extensively from all these concepts.

Land Connections for Sustainable Enterprise is the consolidation through easements,
agreements, covenants, associations, and other non-coercive tools of contiguous
or non-contiguous lands regardless of jurisdiction for the purpose of creating
sustainable communities within downtown areas, urban areas, suburban areas,
agricultural areas, agricultural areas, and—where appropriate—managed and
wilderness or natural areas. Land Connection is created by the full integration
of producers and consumers as citizen/shareholders in vertically integrated
sustainable enterprises.  Such Land Connections for Sustainable Enterprises could be organized around
combinations of land development, redevelopment, agriculture or forest
conservation easements. Additionally, individuals could buy into membership,
buy shares in a CSA, or participate as employees. Since this idea is community
wide, it can be made to accommodate all income levels based only on the
willingness to join.

Land Connections for Sustainable Enterprises achieve their purposes by producing
food and fiber locally; reducing energy waste and need; using renewable energy
wherever possible; using non-renewable resources in ways designed to enhance
the ability for recycling; tending the soil to enhance long term fertility,
sequester carbon, and enhance productivity; and reduce all waste through short
cycle recycling. Small business enterprises can be permitted where
appropriate—especially those that are geared toward local consumption, those
that preserve or develop skills likely to be needed in a resource limited
future, and those that enhance sustainability.

In downtown areas, land uses should generally be diverse within small areas rather
than separated into large scale land use monocultures. This enhances
opportunities for walking and cycling as viable transportation modes while density
in urban areas should be high to facilitate mass transit within walking
distance of most activities. Food gardening in pots on “green roofs, and “green
walls” should be encouraged. Civic spaces should be provided for public
gatherings and farmers’ markets. Greenways should be provided along stream
corridors with water quality ponds and adequate buffers to protect water
quality.

Urban areas typically have lower densities and more green space than downtown areas urban
areas should also be based on diverse land uses on a walkable scale.
Limitations on sustainability include the isolation of land uses with large
areas of residential, commercial, industrial, and office monocultures connected
primarily by major streets or freeways. Much of the land is used for automobile
movement and storage. What is needed is a land use mix at a finer scale and
with broader potential for onsite and local food production, small businesses,
and energy production. Opportunities for food production increase with the
additional green space in urban areas. Landscaping that is both ornamental and
food producing should be permitted and encouraged. Borrowing on the seven
layered concept form permaculture of below ground, ground cover, herbaceous,
low growing shrub, tall shrub, small tree, large tree, and vines, urban
landscapes can be created that are both attractive and food producing can be
created. Green infrastructure including rain gardens, water quality ponds, and
greenways should be the dominant storm water management method. Where regional
detention ponds provide sufficient space, community gardens can be created in
fringe areas likely to be flooded less frequently than once every five years.
Grazing and wildlife habitat can occur in more frequently flooded areas. In-home
businesses, repair, and craft shops will also improve sustainability as energy
prices rise, taking away “economies of scale”.

James Howard Kuntsler has described suburbs as the worst misallocation of resources
ever made by America. Limitations on sustainability come from vast areas of
land use monocultures requiring automobile transportation for connection. Within
the residential areas, vast areas of lawn offer potentially large areas for
food production. These areas are now heavily fertilized, intensively groomed
using power equipment with much of the biomass production which contains
significant nutrients removed to landfills. Low density, single story
commercial and industrial land uses surrounded by parking lots reduce the viability
of transportation modes other than automobiles and trucks. During the Great
Recession, many shopping malls either closed or lost many of their occupants.
Much of this space remains vacant.  Sustainable
suburban areas would include all the concepts outlined for downtown and urban
areas. In suburban areas, new homes should be clustered on smaller lots similar
to urban lots. Land not included lots would be set aside as permanent open
space. This open space (50% to 80 % of the land) could be managed as productive
agricultural space for community gardens or as community supported agriculture.
Alternatively, it could be set aside as managed forests and/or wildlife
habitat. Greenways, green infrastructure, and water quality ponds should be the
primary stormwater management facilities. Homesites should provide for food
gardening and home based businesses. Commercial, service, and employment,
centers should be small in scale and within walking distance on most homesites.
They should also have the potential for connection to mass transit even where
it is not now available. Pedestrian access to commercial centers from
surrounding areas and along major thoroughfares should have higher priority
than vehicular access and parking. Extensive green areas should be provided
within parking lots.

Agricultural lands are primarily devoted to food production by intensive tillage. Connection
to more urban areas is via farmers’ markets, CSAs, and other appropriate
mechanisms. Mechanisms such as purchased conservation easements, can both
compensate owners for foregoing the potential for income from amenity
development and, at the same time, guarantee a food producing hinterland for
nearby urban areas.  Agricultural areas are those areas
lying outside urban areas with adequate climate, rich and tillable soils and
topography, as well as sufficient water for irrigation where necessary.  The sustainable management of such lands to
retain their fertility over long time periods is one of the most essential
factors in being able to maintain civilization over long periods. The use of
such lands for food and fiber production is the foundation for all
civilizations for the last 10,000 years. Prior to the oil age, approximately
30% of the area of farms was used for the production of energy (carbohydrates)
for the animals used as the primary power to work the farm. The remaining 70%
of the land could be used to produce food for people. Prior to the advent of
modern fertilizers, crop rotation, manure, pasturing of animals, growing green
manures, and cycling through forests were the primary mechanisms for
maintaining soil fertility. A clear understanding of nutrient cycling will be
essential to maintaining long term fertility.

Diversity in crop species and varieties to resist disease, skilled crop rotation to
maintain nutrients, and using green manures to build soil organic carbon to
hold nutrients will be essential. Farming organically to increase carbon
capture will make soils richer.

Managed lands are those primarily devoted to forestry and grazing. As fossil fuels
become more costly and less reliable, there is likely to be a resurgence of
wood as a fuel. With the continued adverse affects of climate change, we are
likely to see continued disturbance of forest ecosystems from fire, insects and
disease, and storm impacts. We are also to see continued loss of species and
genera similar the American chestnut or American elm. Episodes like the Rocky
Mountain Pine Beetle can cause long term changes in forest composition while
creating vast stands of dead and dying trees. Processing these trees through
small portable sawmills, pellet mills, and firewood cutting operations can
serve both as a means of creating sustainable local forest industries as well
as reducing the combined carbon footprints from the decay of dead trees or
wildfire and fossil fuels which might otherwise be used to heat homes and other
spaces.
Grazing is a way of obtaining food from lands unsuitable for continuous tillage because
of step slopes, rocky or shallow soils, high elevation, or poor drainage.

Why should land connection communities be created by non profits? In recent
decades, American cities have been primarily designed and built by for-profit
corporations for the purpose of making a profit. The development of land for
the purpose of making a profit involves selecting sites and a mix of uses and
planning, permitting, and constructing improvements as rapidly as the market can
absorb it. The corporations responsible for the development and occupancy of
this space make their decisions based on what their own criteria for profit
maximization. Commercial entities with valuable brands want potential customers
to make no mistake about where they are located and develop their entire site
as a sign. They have clear criteria about demographics, and economic status of
communities where they wish to locate, what traffic counts must be, what their
building design and signage is, what their indoor and outdoor lighting is, what
their parking requirements are, and how they will operate. Over-development of
commercial and residential space is rampant because decisions are made in
isolation. Newer larger shopping centers are built at newer larger street
intersections taking tenants and customers from older smaller suddenly less
accessible centers. This leads to more traffic traveling longer distances. This
is ONLY possible with cheap abundant oil. It also leads to abandoned or
underutilized shopping facilities and bankruptcies as almost as much wealth is
destroyed as is created.

are generally determined by maximum intensities permitted under local regulations
and/or the presence, proximity, and availability and capacity of critical
infrastructure. With low cost and readily available oil, it is faster and
cheaper to build one story commercial development further from city centers
than to redevelop sites with multi-story structures. Multistory structures in
the urban fringe are built for status such as residential or office or where
long-term commitments to a location justify more expensive investments in a
site. In any event, each site is developed in isolation of all others and the
developer’s commitment lasts only until all the sites are sold. Covenants,
property or home owners’ associations are geared only to on-site and aesthetic
conditions in isolation of their surroundings and other mutual needs.

National homebuilders operate similarly to commercial developers and users. They build
many of the same design models regardless of local climates or resource
availability. National builders often trade on the commodities markets to obtain
building materials from massive suppliers at favorable prices. This undermines
the ability to use local supplies even when they are available.

Non-profits in the community building business can play their role differently from
for-profit entities. Because they do not require high short term profits, they
can maintain loner term relationships with their communities and can play a
broader role in meeting long term needs of their communities. They can
facilitate farm-to-market networks—whether CSAs, farmers’ markets, or community
gardening. They can facilitate linkages between forest production and users of
forest products. They can provide education and training in sustainability
activities. They can facilitate tool and machinery sharing.  They can also tie together the land
connections through ownership, easements, and other appropriate mechanisms to
create the land and resource networks for long term sustainability.