sustainability
Mexico’s Floating Gardens Are an Ancient Wonder of Sustainable Farming
Standing amid rows of juicy, lime green lettuce and chunky florets of broccoli, Jose Paiz appears as if he could be the owner of a modern, high-tech farm. But the crops thriving here, in the suburbs of Mexico City, are part of a 1,000-year-old tradition.
“My ancestors were doing this before even the [Spanish] Conquistadors arrived in Mexico [in 1519],” says Paiz, while crouching down to pick up a handful of powdery soil from the chinampa, or “floating garden,” on which we are both standing.
These highly productive man-made island-farms, which can be found floating on lakes across the south of Mexico’s capital, date back to the time of the Aztecs or perhaps even earlier — and now proponents say that these ancient engineering wonders could provide an important, sustainable food source as the city faces historic drought.
As a chinampero, Jose Paiz is carrying on a tradition that goes back centuries. Credit: Peter Yeung
“My grandparents taught me the methods,” adds Paiz, 32, who is the fifth generation of his family to be a chinampero working in San Gregorio Atlapulco, a traditional working-class neighborhood about 10 miles south of the center of Mexico City.
Experts say that these chinampas, which have been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, are considered one of the most productive agricultural systems in the world. The artificial islands are built by gathering large amounts of soil from the bottom of the lake and placing it on top of reeds, grasses and rushes in a mass that rises above the water. Farmers then plant a fence of ahuejotes, Mexican willow trees, around the plot to naturally protect against erosion. This system means that the chinampa’s soil is constantly enriched by nutrient-filled sediment flowing in from the surrounding ditches and canals, yielding multiple harvests every year.
Ahuejotes, Mexican willow trees, are planted around the plots to protect against erosion. Credit: Peter Yeung
“In terms of agriculture, they are one of the best examples of how humans can work with nature,” says Lucio Usobiaga, founder of Arca Tierra, an organization providing local farmers in the area with technical and entrepreneurial support.
One of the first traces of the chinampas dates back to the 14th century, when the Aztecs arrived at the region of what is now modern-day Mexico City. There, they founded the settlement of Tenochtitlán — which would become one of the most powerful cities in all Mesoamerica — in the Valley of Mexico.
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But as the Aztecs soon discovered, the valley’s boggy, lake-filled landscape was difficult to cultivate or build on. So they devised an ingenious plan to adapt to the surroundings: the chinampas.
A 2013 paper by North Carolina State University professor Matthew Teti found that in the 16th century, chinampa farms could produce 13 times as much crop as dry-land farming in the same area — a system that provided food for hundreds of thousands of people. Chinampas, the study said, are “one of the most intensive and productive agricultural systems ever devised.”
Credit: Peter Yeung
Greens and other vegetables flourish on the chinampas, which are considered one of the most productive agricultural systems in the world.
“Aztec planners created these vital waterways as integral to the existence of its cultural, physical, and spiritual, urban identity, rather than draining the water and excluding it from the urban experience,” it continued.
In the case of Jose Paiz, the age-old system is still reaping rewards today. He says that his 7,000 square meters of chinampa, for example, can produce as much as 100 kilograms of broccoli per day — which is sold alongside the yields of fresh herbs, spinach, chard, radishes, corn and kale at local markets in the south of Mexico City.
“I’m proud to be continuing the tradition of my ancestors,” he says.
Produce grown on the chinampas is sold at bustling markets in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Peter Yeung
Meanwhile, according to Arca Tierra, their network of seven producers in the region cultivates over 40,000 square meters of land, employing a total of 27 workers in the field and producing 3,650 kilograms per month. At some farms, as many as 95 varieties of vegetables and herbs are cultivated, underlining the fertility of the method. The production brings in over $4,000 per month in crop sales.
“At the beginning, it was mainly a commercial endeavor to source organic produce close to the city,” says Usobiaga, who supplies restaurants in Mexico City and began working with chinamperos in 2009. “But I learned they are very important in many regards and have historical and cultural importance.”
The design of the chinampas is particularly efficient in its use of water, which it can absorb and retain from the surrounding canals for long periods as well as allowing crops to draw from the groundwater directly, reducing the need for active irrigation.
Credit: Peter Yeung
When it comes to farming, according to Lucio Usobiaga, founder of Arca Tierra, the chinampas “are one of the best examples of how humans can work with nature.”
This could prove hugely valuable for Mexico City and its 22 million residents, since water supplies have fallen to historic lows due to abnormally low rainfall partly attributable to climate change. And lessons learned from the chinampas could potentially help cities around the planet: the UN World Water Development 2024 Report found the number of people lacking access to drinking water in cities will likely reach two billion by 2050.
“The technical aspects of agriculture are innate to every place,” says Usobiaga. “But the way of thinking that created the chinampas, that sensibility, has to be appreciated and valued: To work with the flow of nature, the flow of the seasons. That is what we have to use to get us out of the problem we are in.”
The endangered axolotl is only found in the waterways of southern Mexico City. Credit: Peter Yeung
The unique wetlands ecosystem is also home to two percent of the world’s and 11 percent of Mexico’s biodiversity, including the critically endangered axolotl, or Ambystoma mexicanum, an incredible salamander-like amphibian that is able to regenerate every part of its body — even parts of its vital organs such the heart and brain.
Meanwhile, the chinampas also provide a host of other benefits: they filter water, cool the city, sequester carbon, offer green space for locals, and are now a popular destination for tourists who take boats along the picturesque waterways.
The value of the chinampas was underlined during the Covid-19 pandemic, when, as the city’s major markets ground to a halt, the chinampas were able to provide healthy, locally-grown food. In some cases, sales more than doubled.
“People began to search for healthier food,” says David Monachon, a social sciences researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has researched the chinampas as a sustainable food source. “There was this focus on local economy and community. Many people didn’t make this connection before.”
Yet despite their immense value, the chinampas are under threat: rising urbanization means the chinampa landscape is being built on; pollution is dirtying the waters that feed them; younger generations are losing interest in agriculture; and agro-industry is under-cutting the small-scale producers in a price war.
Credit: Peter Yeung
For chinamperos like Jose Paiz, the age-old agricultural system is still reaping rewards today.
“There are a lot of challenges and problems,” says Monachon, who is supporting a local cooperative of chinamperos to sell their goods via the Mercado Universitario Alternativo, or Alternative University Market. “But chinampas could feed the city.”
Now, only 20 percent of the 2,200 hectares of chinampas are in use, and only about 2.5 percent are being actively cultivated for farming food — the rest is being used for growing flowers and tourism. But Arca Tierra is helping to restore the chinampas — five hectares to date — and is training 15 young students in the required skills to cultivate them — the second, six-month cohort — while also carrying out research on the most effective techniques and productive crops to use on them.
Arca Tierra is currently helping to restore the chinampas and training young students in the required skills to cultivate them. Credit: Antoli Studio / Arca Tierra
“We have demonstrated that it can be done on a small scale,” says Usobiaga, who believes chinampas have the potential to produce enough of crops like lettuces, herbs and broccoli for all of Mexico City. “But the chinampas need support and investment from the government to scale up production.”
At Xochimilco market, the largest in the area, there is clear evidence of appetite for a resilient, local food system and signs that this ancient Aztec tradition can still bear fruit. The market bustles with traders and customers, spilling from the covered area out onto the streets.
Rosa Garcia sells the produce that she grows on her family’s one-hectare chinampa at Xochimilco market. Credit: Peter Yeung
Rosa Garcia, 47, is rushing around delivering lettuce, spinach, cilantro and broccoli to her 14 clients of the day. The produce, grown at her one-hectare chinampa at San Gregorio Atlapulco, is in high demand. Garcia says that each day her family-run farm can earn as much as 1,000 to 1,500 Mexican pesos ($60 to $90).
“I’ve been doing this since I was a girl,” says Garcia, ticking off the orders as they are dispatched. “It’s a system that works. Why do anything different?”
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Introducing the Commission on Economic Sustainability Act
by Daniel Wortel-London
New economic paradigm—and policy—needed in the U.S. Government.
What U.S. federal agency is responsible for identifying and reducing the environmental and social costs of economic growth? None, really. The government has plenty of agencies and programs devoted to conservation, natural capital accounting, “green” industrial policy, and just transitions. But none address the elephant in the room: economic growth. Growth is what causes a nation’s ecological footprint to exceed its biocapacity.
To address this issue, in 2020 CASSE proposed a Full and Sustainable Employment Act (FSEA). Central to the FSEA was the establishment of a Commission on Economic Sustainability. Consistent with steady-state principles, the Commission entailed no net increase of bureaucracy. Rather, the Cabinet-level commissioners, led by the Secretary of the Interior, would simply refocus some of their duties on the matter of sustainable population and GDP.
The paradigm-shifting FSEA has evolved into the plainly titled Steady State Economy Act, carefully pieced together with “feeder bills.” The bill I introduce herein is the Commission on Economic Sustainability Act (CESA).
Growth is the Footprint
More growth, more waste. (Ryan Brooklyn, Unsplash)
Since the 1970s, the resource demands of the U.S. economy have overshot the country’s biocapacity. This “overshoot” threatens human wellbeing and the foundations of economic development more generally. To address the social and ecological perils connected to the swollen size of our economy, we must slow economic growth. And we must reduce the economy’s size to be consistent with our environment’s biocapacity.
For this reason policymakers need to focus on GDP in developing our nation’s sustainability strategy. In particular, they should understand what drives GDP growth and what could reduce it. This is because analyzing GDP reveals, in ways that analyses of natural capital or “ecological footprints” do not, the specifically economic drivers behind our ecological crises.
When combined with analyses of the nation’s biocapacity, we can evaluate how much we need to shrink GDP to fit within a “safe operating space” afforded by nature. GDP is already a familiar yardstick to policymakers and the public, and economists calculate it with exceptional rigor. Thus, GDP should be the prime metric for sustainability analysis and a key guide to sustainability initiatives in the United States and elsewhere.
Missing the Target
Most sustainability strategies do not identify the costs of economic growth, much less scale this growth back in a just way. Instead, they focus on reducing the symptoms of growth and advocate for actions like de-carbonization and “net-zero” goals. Others measure overshoot using natural capital accounting and by incorporating “planetary boundary” frameworks into policy planning decisions.
Missing are initiatives that forthrightly address a key driver of our ecological crisis—the economy’s unsustainable size. Nor do we have initiatives that identify viable and just strategies for reducing it. To be sure, scholars like Daniel O’Neill, Peter Victor, and Tim Jackson have developed models proposing policy routes toward a steady state economy. But these paths are generally developed in an academic context. They incorporate only a limited suite of policy tools. And they don’t address the full range of levers driving growth, from federal fiscal policies to planned obsolescence and bank-created money. They generally focus on “ideal-type” policies, rather than those that can be developed realistically within existing national legal landscapes.
More solar panels won’t help much if consumption inside is growing. (Christine Westerback, Creative Commons 4.0)
Here is where a Commission on Economic Sustainability comes in. The Commission’s founding premise—a conclusion really—is the fundamental conflict between sustainability and growth. It would identify the federal policies and initiatives that promote this growth. It would calculate an optimal size for the economy as measured by GDP, based on the ecological requirements of the country and its citizens’ social needs. And it would develop a whole-of-government, 25-year strategy to reach this target in a way that maximizes fair redistribution and efficient allocation.
There are, of course, great difficulties involved in identifying the targets and strategies mentioned here. In part these difficulties are technical, including the challenge of identifying drivers of economic growth that are both granular and comprehensive. Others are ethical, such as identifying the material needs of the population while accounting for ecological health and personal freedom.
These difficulties, however, should not discourage us. We can tackle the ecological emergency only by addressing the forces driving it: the growth and size of our economy. The issues involved in tackling our civilizational challenge can be addressed through science and political debate. The Commission on Economic Sustainability is the agency that will keep us on track.
The Commission on Economic Sustainability Act
The Act establishes a government body responsible for measuring, monitoring, and coordinating federal efforts to reduce economic growth to environmentally and socially sustainable levels.
Section 2, “Findings and Declaration,” states that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Because this conflict threatens both the economy and security of the United States, it is necessary to reduce growth through concerted federal activity. The section therefore declares that establishing a Commission on Economic Sustainability is in the interest of the United States.
A good Secretary of the Interior has the background, resources, and independence required to chair the Commission on Economic Sustainability. (U.S. DOI)
Section 4 establishes the Commission. The Secretary of the Interior will chair it, and members will include the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Secretaries of Agriculture, Energy, and Commerce.
Section 5 directs the Commission’s Chair to produce a report identifying all federal activities that incentivize economic growth. Among the activities to be identified are funded and unfunded rules, regulations, policies, programs, laws, and initiatives implemented by all federal commissions, agencies, and departments.
Next, section 6 requires the Chair to produce a report identifying environmentally sustainable levels for the growth of population and GDP for the United States.
Section 7 directs the Chair to produce a report identifying a 25-year plan for establishing a steady state economy at the optimal levels of population and GDP established in Section 6.
Section 8 requires the Chair to produce a report summarizing the Commission’s activities and proposals, and to submit it to Congress annually.
The CESA is designed as a stand-alone bill and as a key component of the larger Steady State Economy Act. It addresses, as no other federal body currently does, the unsustainable growth that threatens national prosperity and security alike. And by identifying the drivers of this growth and coordinating government-wide strategies to reign them in, the CESA will help ensure a better, steady-state future for our people, nation, and planet.
Daniel Wortel-London is a CASSE Policy Specialist focused on steady-state policy development.
The post Introducing the Commission on Economic Sustainability Act appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Adopting the Aquaculture of the Future in Thailand
Somporn Kaikaew is the owner of Prapapan Farm in Nakhon Pathom, a city 40 miles west of Bangkok. He farms tilapia fish and white shrimp across 160,000 square meters of land.
We hitch a ride on the back of Somporn’s pickup truck, driving along the dusty roads that separate the fish farm’s large ponds of water. His farm is tightly operated, with the ponds segregated neatly, along with bird traps and scarecrows to deter predators and sophisticated recirculation systems to keep the water clean.
There are thousands of monoculture fish farms in Thailand, but Somporn, 60, has been practicing polyculture fish farming for the best part of three decades. When asked whether it was a more complicated operation farming multiple species, he said it’s all he’s ever known.
Somporn Kaikaew (right) has been practicing polyculture on his fish farm for 30 years. Credit: Tommy Walker
“I’ve had this farm for 30 years and I’ve always mixed from the beginning. I copied from another farmer, it looked like it worked so that’s why I did it,” he said.
In Thailand, farming fish and shrimp together is one of the most common practices in polyculture farming. It’s also the first step toward bigger changes in sustainability that Thailand’s aquaculture and fishing industry could see in the coming years.
That’s the hope of aquaculture experts as they prepare to convince more of Thailand’s fishing farmers to shift to a more sustainable model in which marine species are grown within the same system. That system, which is already being successfully practiced on a few fish farms in Thailand as well as in many other places worldwide, is called Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA). In IMTA, multiple organisms from different trophic levels — rungs on the food chain, essentially — are farmed together in such a way that they complement one another, thereby reducing waste and improving growth efficiency. This combination of sustainability and efficiency is better for the environment than monoculture — and more profitable, too.
At Prapapan Farm, we stop at one pond as one of Somporn’s farmers casts a mesh fish net and captures a couple of tilapia fish. A few meters away, another pond is filled with white shrimp.
“We feed both mixed and separate fish and shrimp. The benefit is we can sell both, but shrimp is the trend of the market [at the moment],” Somporn says.
Credit: Tommy Walker
Farming fish and shrimp together, as Somporn does, is a common practice in Thailand. And it’s the first step toward a more complex, sustainable system.
As Somporn explains, the fish’s feces help to make the water balanced and are consumed by the shrimp. The processing, he says, isn’t complicated; he’s able to sell the shrimp in just two months and the fish in five to six.
“In the past the old generation fed the fish and shrimp separately, but it’s not good money and slower for profit,” Somporn says. “But more of the new generation are mixing them together, which is good profit and good results and that’s why we do it this way.”
Thailand’s fishing industry plays a big role in the country, both economically and socially. The thousands of miles of coastline that span 24 provinces in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea provide a rich source for local fishermen to catch millions of metric tons of fish and marine life each year. This crucially contributes to jobs, income and livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of people. The accessibility of seafood also means fish is a cheaper option and protein source for many Thais compared to chicken, pork and beef, especially for those living in coastal areas.
“In the past the old generation fed the fish and shrimp separately, but it’s not good money and slower for profit,” Somporn Kaikaew says. Credit: Tommy Walker
Thailand’s economy is also heavily dependent on exports, accounting for over half of the country’s GDP. The country’s shrimp exports produce billions of dollars for the local economy, despite the industry being affected by disease in the last decade. Overall, Thailand’s agriculture, forestry and fishing industry contributes to over eight percent of the country’s GDP. Around 1.5 percent of that comes from the fisheries industry as of 2021, data shows.
But some aquaculture experts hope more Thai fish farmers will fully incorporate the IMTA model within their farms in the future to increase revenue.
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Of course, the reasons to practice IMTA go beyond the financial. Dr. Pitchaya Chainark, an expert in coastal aquaculture at Kasetsart University, sees IMTA as a way to increase both Thailand’s fishing industry’s GDP and farmers’ income as well as create a balance of conservation and sustainable use of aquaculture resources.
“In Thailand there are not many [practicing] right now, as many prefer to do polyculture. IMTA is different, it is like a food chain. The species should have symbiosis and help each other,” she says.
Thailand produces more tilapia than any other freshwater fish. Credit: Anupan Praneetpholkrang / Shutterstock
In an ideal IMTA system, a higher trophic species, such as a fish, would be paired with suitable middle trophic species, and then lower trophic species such as plants and invertebrates. The cycle would see the plants consume waste, such as fish feces, sediments and uneaten feed to boost their own growth. The trophic species would be grown in conjunction with each other, providing the farmer with more seafood to sell.
In China, IMTA has already provided an environmentally sustainable and profitable solution for nearly two decades. Professor Jianguang Fang of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Institute in Shandong says IMTA was implemented starting in 2000, mainly to combat “self-pollution” that had come from too many intensively fed aquaculture systems in Sungo Bay, Shandong province. According to Fang, the pollution caused high levels of sediment and nitrogen in water, which can cause an excess of nutrients that can decrease the amount of oxygen in the water. Now, fish farms on Sungo Bay have implemented IMTA systems with high and low trophic species, including fish, seaweed, shellfish and abalones. Because there’s a market in China for all of the farmed species, farming this way is boosting profits.
One aquaculture multi-species system at Sungo Bay also included kelp, oysters and seaweed. The farm became more sustainable and profitable when the density of seaweed was reduced — which sped up growth — which eventually led to the farmers’ income growing by a huge 97 percent.
Credit: Tommy Walker
Though only a few fish farms in Thailand are currently practicing IMTA, aquaculture experts — seeing the success IMTA has had in China and elsewhere — hope the practice will catch on more broadly.
In Thailand, Dr. Pitchaya is now waiting on the government’s decision to approve a proposal to work to increase the practice of IMTA. Government grants would assist farmers in the transition. The hope is that once more Thai fish farmers find success using IMTA, other farmers, seeing the financial benefits, will follow suit.“[We are] already speaking with the farmers,” Dr. Pitchaya says. “In Phuket we have two farms that are practicing, and we are trying to promote them to other provinces.” She wants to help smaller farmers by getting them to consider both the financial and environmental benefits. “If my proposal is accepted, I think next year more than 50 farms will be practicing IMTA,” she says.
The first instance of IMTA in Thailand was a cage aquaculture system in the coastal areas of Phuket. And it’s already had an environmental, societal and economic impact. Effluent waste has been reduced through the use of biofilters, and there are decreasing environmental costs. According to Dr. Pitchaya, IMTA has boosted the economy as well as employment at local levels. Thailand now hopes to expand and create earthen pond aquacultures in the east of the country.
But some farmers are still reluctant to change.
Phaisal Phanchatree is the owner of Phaisarnpanpa Farm, a monoculture fish farm in rural Bangkok. He operates his farm out of a garden space in front of his house. Like Somporn, he has also been in the fish farm industry for three decades.
“We have had this business for 30 years. It’s a family business, but I’m the main worker,” he says.
Phaisal Phanchatree runs a monoculture fish farm out of a garden space in front of his home in rural Bangkok.
Nearly a dozen small ponds, filled with different species of fish including tilapia, lie next to his driveway. A wooden structure covered with blue polyethylene liner separates each habitat, large enough for Phanchatree to maneuver between the ponds.
He believes focusing on one species is the “sincere” way. “It is not cheating the customer,” he explains. “We can sell the fish with the knowledge they were grown this way. It’s not only a selling focus, if we teach the customers how it works, and they are successful, they are going to return to buy fish from us. It’s sustainable.”
Although he insists he will always keep farming fish, he admits there is more money in farming several species, and acknowledges that shrimp is more profitable.
Credit: Tommy Walker
Some longtime fish farmers, like Phaisal Phanchatree, are committed to focusing on just one species and not interested in converting to IMTA.
“Some farmers have a low budget and add the shrimp to feed together, and the result is very good,” he notes. “The main reason is to save on expenses, to save money on the feed. We only focus on fish. If we include shrimp, we have more work, more equipment to buy.”
“I’m not interested in mixing species in the future,” he adds.
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Sukkritt Nimitkul, a lecturer at the department of aquaculture in the faculty of fisheries at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, says with prices and competition increasing, farming one aqua species may not be enough in the future for many farmers.
“It’s a tough sell for the farmers. I think they have run out of margin,” he says. “When you have a lot of margins, you can afford to be reckless but now you don’t have that anymore because the labor prices are going up.”
“Shrimp is the trend of the market,” says Somporn Kaikaew. Credit: Amnat30 / Shutterstock
“The older generations have their old ways and don’t want to change. When you do polyculture, you must make sure that the last three months of the species’ lifespans come together. That requires a lot of rotations, planning, categorizing and moving around. So that is quite complicated and time consuming for some farmers.”
But Sukkrit believes change is inevitable.
“Farms will be forced to change in the future, in my opinion, because now the gap [in] the margin is closing,” he says. “Adapt or die will be my word. You must adapt, or the businesses will go out of business.”
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Got Broken Stuff? The Tool Library Has a Fix
I showed up to my first Dare to Repair Cafe with a notepad and a shopping tote full of holey sweaters.
The pad I needed to take notes on the event — a roving ministry, of sorts, for broken household items.
The sweaters, on the other hand, I took as mea culpas: I had said I’d bring a faulty Bluetooth speaker in the hopes a volunteer could make it play again. But my husband had already tossed the speaker in the trash. We were, in other words, part of the problem.
“You won’t do that again,” said Don Winkelman, 71, a long-time volunteer for Dare to Repair. “We have people come in one time, with a lamp or something, and then we see them again and again.”
Don Winkelman is a longtime volunteer for The Tool Library’s repair cafes. Courtesy of The Tool Library
Dare to Repair exists to reprogram wasteful consumers like my husband and me. Since 2017, the roving monthly cafe has traversed Buffalo, New York, and its environs, helping attendees repair broken electronics, household goods and small appliances.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans throw away nearly 40 million tons of such items each year. Repair cafes — of which there are now more than 3,000 across the world — offer an economical and environmentally friendly solution: Fix your broken stuff, instead.
In Buffalo, repair cafes represent part of a larger regional movement around sustainability, communal resource-sharing and mutual aid. The monthly events are organized by the city’s Tool Library, a fast-growing, 13-year-old nonprofit group that lends tools and other equipment to individuals, small businesses and community organizations.
The Tool Library has amassed a collection of almost 5,000 items, from hand tools to a cotton candy maker. Courtesy of The Tool Library
To date, the Tool Library has diverted 7,779 pounds of waste from landfills via its repair cafes and amassed a communal tool collection of nearly 5,000 items. It also serves as a model, a resource and a centralized hub for a range of other community sharing projects, from little free libraries to public gardens.
“We’re part of a broader economic transition away from a system that really hasn’t been serving most people, locally or around the world,” said Darren Cotton, The Tool Library’s founder and executive director. “We’re shifting toward models that are more sustainable, more regenerative and that rely more on people helping one another, as opposed to a market delivering services.”
The birth of Buffalo’s Tool Library
Cotton, 35, first dreamt up plans for The Tool Library while studying urban planning at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The university is an economic and cultural engine for the region, but its decision to open a suburban campus in the 1960s siphoned both people and resources away from University Heights, the city neighborhood surrounding its original campus.
By the late 2000s, entire blocks of University Heights had been gobbled up by absentee landlords who leased their neglected properties back to low-income renters and students. Residents wanted to fix up their homes and address wider neighborhood problems, such as street trash and low tree coverage. But they frequently lacked access to basic tools, or the knowledge required to use them.
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“It was a convergence of all these different problems,” Cotton said. “I realized, ‘Wow — a library is such a great platform for addressing all of them.’”
The Tool Library launched in a tiny storefront in 2011 with roughly 40 tools and $15,000 in federal community development funding. Cotton and his all-volunteer staff developed a membership model, where residents could pay a low annual fee for unlimited tool rentals, as well as a system for tracking their growing inventory of hand tools, power tools and lawn and garden equipment.
The Tool Library processes more than 14,000 loans a year. Credit: Caitlin Dewey
In 2022, Cotton took on a full-time role and hired Lissa Rhodes, a poet and trained carpenter, as the Tool Library’s first operations manager. One year later, The Tool Library relocated to the ground floor of an old neighborhood bank on Buffalo’s Main Street, expanding its footprint from 1,500 square feet to more than 2,500.
Today, the organization boasts nearly 1,500 members and processes more than 14,000 loans a year. Its wide east- and south-facing windows overlook a bright lending room, where tools are shelved in neat blocks of Ryobi green and DeWalt yellow: drills, jigsaws, sanders, drivers, lawnmowers and leaf blowers, hydraulic jacks, router tables. An entire wall is hung with coils of extension cords and hoses, while several shelves gather the library’s growing collection of household miscellanea: a sewing machine, a projector screen, a bocce ball set, a cotton candy maker.
“A tool is anything you need to get a job done, whatever that job is,” said Rhodes. “Is it a presentation? Then your tools are a projector screen and a projector.”
Repair Cafes
That community-minded, DIY ethos has gradually prodded The Tool Library into other initiatives, including tree-plantings, park clean-ups and — of course — repair cafes. In 2017, a director with Buffalo’s recycling department approached The Tool Library about collaborating on a series of repair events.
Since then, and despite a hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Repair Cafe has salvaged more than 500 items. Volunteers will happily tinker with lamps, furniture, small appliances, bikes, broken windows and damaged clothes, though they don’t currently accept computers, tablets or phones.
The March repair cafe was held in the basement of a public library in the village of Akron. Courtesy of The Tool Library
For the March iteration, a team of volunteers set up shop in the basement of a public library in Akron, a small village 20 miles northeast of Buffalo. The room hummed with quiet chatter and the intermittent vrooms of faulty vacuums. Volunteer fixers puttered around a coffee station and traded stories in between work on lamps, clocks, Kitchenaid mixers and old CD players.
The atmosphere is both studious and social; over time, fixers often become friends. They also teach attendees the skills needed to make their own repairs: “What I love is that you not only get your fixes for free, but you get a lesson as well,” said Antoinette McClain, a Tool Library board member who helps organize the events.
Many of those fixes are quite simple — which makes the impulse to junk these items look all the more wasteful. Both of the broken vacuums at the March cafe simply needed a good cleaning, for instance. Jennifer and Rebecca Outten, who brought the vacuums, said they would have spent $400 or more to replace each one.
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“We love the Buy Nothing groups,” said Jennifer, referring to a movement of popular Facebook pages that encourage people to reuse household items instead of buying new. “But this, the repair cafe, I had never heard of.”
I also left the Akron library with a newfound appreciation for repair: To fix the holes in two cashmere sweaters, volunteers Don Winkleman and Tom Guerra coached me through the process of ironing on a fabric patch.
Volunteer Tom Guerra (seated) at the March repair cafe. Courtesy of The Tool Library
Of course, I am but one of the millions of consumers needlessly tossing and replacing my stuff — and the repair movement faces a long, uphill battle against the wider culture of throwaway consumerism. In Buffalo, The Tool Library also faces the sorts of financial constraints common to many small community nonprofits. The organization will soon have the option, for instance, to acquire the building it moved into last year — but the cost to acquire and renovate the structure tops $1 million.
The Tool Library plans to launch a capital campaign in April, Cotton said, and is currently a finalist for a major regional foundation grant. With that funding, he added, The Tool Library could build out new community space, seed mini-libraries across the region and further champion communal resource-sharing as a model for social and environmental innovation.
“It’s one thing to be cool and novel and niche,” Cotton said. “But the question for us is: How do we make sharing and repairing ubiquitous?”
The post Got Broken Stuff? The Tool Library Has a Fix appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
The Women Bus Drivers Overcoming Stereotypes in Bogotá
When Paola Perez shifts into gear and puts her foot down on the accelerator, the lime-green bus zips forward with an almost-silent whoooosh. Neat rows of dozens of identical vehicles are visible on either side through its large rectangular windshield.
“This is a very beautiful place to work,” says Perez, as she steers the bus through the pleasingly symmetrical universe of white lines, smooth gray asphalt and angular metal platforms that house nearly 200 electric charging stations. “It’s new, it’s clean and it all works.”
La Rolita’s 195 buses are 100 percent electric. Credit: Peter Yeung
This impressive space in the southwest of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, which opened in September 2022, is the headquarters of a project taking a rare gendered approach to urban mobility. Nicknamed La Rolita — a diminutive of the word for a person from Bogotá, un rolo or una rola — it is a public transit operator largely driven by women.
“It feels like a sorority,” says Perez, 37, who has been a driver since the start. “There’s a camaraderie. We speak to each other and help each other whenever we can.”
By placing women at the heart of La Rolita, which employs about 300 female drivers and is led by a female director, city authorities are creating a more sustainable, safe, equal and just transport system in the sprawling metropolis of eight million people.
Paola Perez, who has been driving with La Rolita from the beginning, has found a camaraderie among the women who work there. Credit: Peter Yeung
“This is a masculinized sector that we are working in,” says Carolina Martinez, the organization’s general manager. “But we are beginning to change that. There are many positive and important opportunities for us to benefit from in the long term.”
For one, according to Martinez, women bus drivers have fewer traffic accidents: La Rolita, which is the city’s only public bus operator, has the second-lowest number of injuries due to accidents — 72 in 18 months — when compared with the numerous private bus operators. (Other research backs this up: One study published in 2020 by Belgium’s road traffic institute Vias found that generally women drivers “take fewer risks behind the wheel than men” and “are less involved in serious accidents.”)
The presence of female drivers in public transit also helps female passengers to feel safer in the face of high levels of gender-based violence across the city, adds Martinez. A survey in 2020 found that 84.3 percent of women in Bogotá have experienced sexual harassment while using public transit.
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The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies – review
In The Big Con, Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington claim that our overreliance on the consulting industry has negative consequences for society, inhibiting knowledge transfer and corporate and political accountability. The authors expose how consultancies’ goal of “creating value” may not align with addressing major issues such as climate change, arguing convincingly for greater transparency and a revitalised public sector, writes Ivan Radanović.
In their book The Big Con, Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington warn that relying on consultancies harms the public interest. Asking what happens to the brain of an organisation when it is not learning by doing because someone else is doing the doing, they conclude that societies must return public purpose in centre of attention.
The authors’ thesis is that overreliance on consultancies harms public interest, disables governments, and threatens democracy.
In 2021, the consulting industry was valued at over 900 billion dollars. Its ninefold rise since 1999 is the result of rising reliance of states on consulting agencies. The authors’ thesis is that overreliance on consultancies harms public interest, disables governments, and threatens democracy. They investigate this trend and how to reverse it.
The “Big Con” is the term Mazzucato and Collington use to mark the biggest auditing, accounting, and consulting agencies such as Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Accenture and others. The consulting market emerged during early industrialisation, when engineers, periodically recruited by major industrial firms, formalised their work. In the 1920s many consultants, among them James McKinsey, cooperated with American businesses. The popularity of management consultancy rose in 1970 when BCG introduced the matrix for mapping the profitability of business portfolio. After two years, this tool was used (and paid for) by more than 100 enterprises. American firms, on the wings of the Marshall plan and later IT management projects, have spread throughout Europe.
Golden years
The election of the right-wing populists Margaret Thatcher in the UK (1979) and Ronald Reagan in the US (1981) occurred after a decade of economic turmoil, led by the end of the Bretton Woods system and two major oil crises. The opinion that the responsibility for the turmoil lay in how states were run mushroomed. The neoliberal credo was that the only value creators in society are markets, and with Thatcher and Reagan, favour was refocused from the worker to the citizen-taxpayer.
The neoliberal credo was that the only value creators in society are markets, and with Thatcher and Reagan, favour was refocused from the worker to the citizen-taxpayer.
Contrary to the belief that the essence of neoliberalism is to slash public spending, Mazzucato and Collington suggest “it is more precise to describe it as public spending redirection towards the stronger role of the market” (49). In Thatcher’s era (1979-1990) government expenditure rose in real terms by 7.7 percent (43). In Reagan’s (1981-1989) federal spending rose by almost nine percent annually (43). From the US to Australia, thousands of neoliberal reforms such as privatisation, deregulation or outsourcing states had to be implemented, and advised. The authors show us that the annual public spending for consulting in the UK from 1979 to 1990 rose fortyfold – from 7.1 million to 290 million dollars. The 1980s saw the advent of a new management doctrine. In place of earlier stable forms of organisational life emerged the model of flexible “learning organisations” which view instability as an opportunity. The main goal becomes maximising value for shareholders. In the 1990s, that led to the popularisation of storytelling in politics and business. It is no longer a product or brand that is sold, but the story about value, challenges and business success through positive change, peddled by elite consultants or management gurus.
Creating the impression of value
Today, consultants are seen as experts who transfer know-how and utilise advanced management techniques to improve clients’ businesses. The enormous rise of consulting in the last four decades is explained by the “value” they create for states and companies. However, according to the authors, consultants do not always meet expectations and they seldom transfer knowledge. Created “value” is often unclear and depends on the perception of the client. Consultants hustle to create the impression of value.
Created “value” is often unclear and depends on the perception of the client. Consultants hustle to create the impression of value.
There are many examples where engaging consultancies has backfired for states. In developing countries such as Nigeria, Mexico and Angola, hiring consultancies was a condition of their IMF loan agreements (50). The authors focus on wealthy countries, arguing that even if contracting consultants experienced in the implementation of complex macroeconomic programmes could be justified in developing countries, it is less justifiable in developed countries, which should ostensibly have high competency in these areas.
Unmet deadlines, spiralling costs
Consultancies often fail to deliver on their promises. In 2010, Sweden started the construction project for a new university hospital in Stockholm which would be the most advanced in Europe. Its operations were to be grounded in “value-based healthcare”, a concept designed by management guru Michael Porter. Costs were initially valued at 1.4 billion euro, with the project set to be completed in 2015. City authorities opted for a public-private partnership which contracted consultants from PwC and EY who claimed they would ”maximise the value and keep the costs under control” (145). Representatives from the construction company Skanska stated that this model would “transfer the risk from the state and taxpayers to the private sector” (145). However, the costs immediately surpassed the projections because vital equipment had not been included in the budget The project, beset by problems, was passed to BCG, who had nine consultants working on its implementation while earning a monthly salary of almost 70,000 euros over six years. Another consultancy, Nordic Interim AB was then contracted for an additional 12 million euro, and when the hospital was eventually finished in 2018, costs a billion euros higher than the original estimate.
Absence of accountability
It is not all about money. Consultancies contribute to many undemocratic practices, maintaining what Acemoglu and Robinson named as extractive institutions. Often, they act as a mechanism for public wealth extraction, whereby states recruit consultants when they want to “hedge” the political risk of unpopular economic measures. The states maintain legitimacy, and consultants get their share of political influence. Authors emphasise the example of Puerto Rico, which faced bankruptcy in 2016. Then-President Obama initiated the creation of an Oversight Board to supervise the bankruptcy process. Keeping reputational risk low, Washington ensured that the majority of members of the Board were of Puerto Rican heritage. The Board did not hire a large staff, to avoid looking like it was setting up a parallel government. Instead, it brought in consultants. Instead of the state, McKinsey engaged in the privatisation of public enterprises, healthcare reforms “based on value”, slashing public spending and restructuring debt. Moreover, McKinsey owned $20 million of Puerto Rico’s bonds: consultants were set to profit from the very same debt they were helping to restructure.
Regaining control
Even though consultancies did not cause the maladies of neoliberal capitalism, they have profited from them. Without transparency and democratic permission, they erode the capabilities of states and enterprises. Because knowledge is not cultivated within state workforces and institutions, a dependency on the “expertise” of consultancies spirals.
[Consultancies] erode the capabilities of states and enterprises. Because knowledge is not cultivated within state workforces and institutions, a dependency on the “expertise” of consultancies spirals.
The last section of the book is about “climate consulting”. Omnipresent and long-term, climate change is ideal ground for consultants. Competition is fierce; consultancies’ “websites are replete with beautifully designed free reports on sustainability issues for every sector, from oil and gas to healthcare” (190). They promise solutions, pitching themselves as an avant-garde of change.
The key takeaway, according to Mazzucato and Collington, is that we must challenge the predominance of consultancies. With their ultimate goal of “creating value”, they advise both the fossil polluters and the governments mandated to reduce emissions. Moreover, states are catalysts of technological change for public good, while the private sector only invests in fundamental research when it becomes enticingly profitable.
Putting aside the authors’ techno-optimistic view – which holds that climate change mitigation is mostly a technical issue regarding innovations for green transition, which is being debunked – their final suggestions are valid. A new narrative and vision for the role of the state, recovering public capacities, embedding knowledge transfer into consulting contracts’ evaluation and mandating transparency are, undoubtedly, desirable. The book’s importance lies in how it reveals the political implications of the consulting industry. Whether we choose “green growth” or abandon the growth imperative, one thing is certain: democratically elected governments are key actors. Only they can mobilise the resources required for achieving “moonshot” missions, the most urgent of which is climate change.
Note: This interview gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: Alena Veasey on Shutterstock.
The Danish City Reimagining Reuse
Every morning, about 50 to 100 people gather in line in front of a center owned by the municipality of Aarhus, the second-largest city in Denmark. Here, they can give — and take — all sorts of materials for free. More than two metric tons of objects pass through the center per day, from sofas to dishes, lamps to wardrobes, electronic devices to tables, all of which can be brought to new homes via cargo bikes the city lends to citizens.
The project started in 2015 when Kredsløb, a company owned by the city, noticed how much the citizens of Aarhus were throwing away. To solve this problem, they created a center called Reuse, explains Peter Christensen, its coordinator: a reimagined recycling station where goods can be taken for free.
Citizens of Aarhus look for kitchenware at the circular economy center Reuse. Credit: Yael Berman
Denmark is known for its green policies and efforts to create a circular economy, in which “nothing becomes waste and the intrinsic value of products and materials are retained,” as defined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It was ranked first in the 2022 Environmental Performance Index, and cities in the country are working on plans to become climate neutral. As part of one such plan, Aarhus has developed a waste strategy that will ultimately include seven material exchange centers placed inside recycling stations across the city, of which Reuse is the first.
“You take something that wasn’t worth anything and add value to it just by picking it up. This idea is maybe the key or the cornerstone of what Reuse is to me,” explains Lasse Andersen, a Reuse regular of about four years.
The city lends out cargo bikes that people can use to transport their goods home. Credit: Yael Berman
With a passion for design that led him to create a company to relaunch classic pieces from the Danish Modern movement, Andersen emphasizes the value of classic, old and possibly reused furniture. He notes that those who know what they’re looking at can find pieces from renowned, retro brands — and knowing what those items are worth makes people value them more, even if they’re used. “They just need to be seen in the right context,” he says.
Taking into account the success of the pioneer center, Aarhus is now investing in its next step: creating other centers in the city’s recycling stations so that the initiative becomes more local — and circular. Thus, the things donated by the community of a certain neighborhood will stay inside that area, explains Sofie Schousboe Laursen, who manages the project.
According to Laursen, this is why the city is actually planning to close the first center, which requires containers with goods from the surrounding recycling stations to be be transported on an approximately daily basis: “We don’t want to keep transporting, so when we open new centers in the city it becomes more circular, more local,” she says.
Lasse Andersen looks at donated things at one of Aarhus’ reuse centers. Credit: Yael Berman
This is the goal of a new reuse room at the Lisbjerg recycling station, located on the outskirts of Aarhus. The area is part of one of the city’s largest urban development plans, according to the municipality, and it’s expected to grow to a population of 25,000 residents over, approximately, the next 65 years — almost 20 times the current population. That’s why it was the first recycling station to receive a reuse room. “It’s part of being prepared for the city that is being developed,” explains Laursen, adding that the recycling station itself is made with around 70 percent of recycled material.
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The area is fairly quiet these days, but there are residents who come to drop off and take things. Among those residents are Tamer and Ulla, a couple in their 50s who go every week to look for things to reuse instead of buying them. “We don’t have a lot of money and it’s for free here. … So it’s perfect, instead of throwing it out, [there] are a lot of things that can be used again,” says Tamer.
The Lisbjerg recycling station was designed to serve the influx of residents that the area is expecting in the coming decades. Credit: Yael Berman
Ionel-Laurentiu Mavrodin, who visits the Lisbjerg recycling station about once a month, agrees. One day in early February 2024, he arrived with a friend, bringing a computer monitor and speakers. “I believe it’s good for the environment,” he says. “There’s no need to buy new stuff.”
Another center that opened after the new plan was launched was the Godsbanen center, located in the creative and cultural area with the same name. This one operates differently from the other centers, which are bigger and have staff. “It’s more cozy, self-serve. You log in with your identity number and come in,” says Laursen. “It’s a trust-based, community-based center.” It also offers a room where, with an ID, citizens can borrow things such as a sewing machine, construction tools or video games.
Construction tools placed at the borrowing room of the Godsbanen reuse center. Credit: Yael Berman
Aarhus’ plan was inspired in part by a book-saving project in Hungary, recalls Christensen, in which “Book Rescuers” circulated through the streets with special vehicles full of spare books, which they sold at very low prices. Aarhus took this concept of distributing unused things and adapted it.
Aarhus is an ideal place to experiment with such plans because its residents are keen on recycling and reusing. Besides its second-hand shop culture, the city also has a Facebook group with over 80,000 members aimed at giving things away for free.
A 2017 project, a collaboration between Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen and led by Danish senior researcher Anders Branth Pedersen, found that most Danes were willing to spend a considerable amount of time sorting their waste.
An elderly woman carries a suitcase at the circular economy center Reuse, in Aarhus, Denmark. Credit: Yael Berman
Pedersen highlights the role of residents’ trust in their government, a factor that may also influence the success of the reuse centers. The level of trust in Denmark is unusual compared to other countries, with higher trust rates for both central and local governments. When asked if they trusted that the municipality was handling the waste correctly, only 10 percent of Danes expressed low trust.
Christensen, Reuse’s coordinator, notes that people in developing countries are naturally inclined to keep things or give them another life, whereas in a wealthier country like Denmark, people sometimes give away goods that have barely been used at all. “Maybe 20, 30 percent of all the things we have here [at the center] are 100 percent unused,” he says.
Changing people’s behavior is a slow process, Christensen notes. But he is proud of what Aarhus is achieving. When it comes to building a circular economy, he notes, convincing citizens to go to recycling stations and pass on their unused objects is a crucial step.
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An Accidental, Systematic Attack on OER Sustainability Models
UPDATE: In a discussion about this post on LinkedIn, the following points of clarification were made: (1) the Kansas State University fee I use as an example below is a course type fee, not a course materials fee, (2) faculty have to proactively ask the university to charge their students this extra fee for their course, (3) despite being called the “Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative course fee,” 90% of the money students are required to pay goes to that same faculty member’s department, and only 10% goes to the initiative, and (4) there is no way for students to opt out of paying this fee. So perhaps this fee wasn’t the best example to use in the post.
On the other hand, I am utterly at a loss to understand how this fee is supposed to be better than inclusive access programs. This fee is deceptively named and students cannot opt out of paying it, but it’s ok because the fee’s administrative categorization is different? (No.) But because it’s a course type fee instead of a course materials fee, the KSU fee may indeed be exempt from the effects of the current round of negotiated rulemaking. And the KSU fee may, unwittingly, chart a path forward for inclusive access and other similar programs – institutions may simply need to establish “inclusive access” as a course type because, apparently, those fees are ok.
A few weeks ago I wrote about how organizations in the OER community whose advocacy is focused almost exclusively on the cost of course materials could hurt the work being done by the rest of the OER community:
Many OER advocates are vocal critics of inclusive access and equitable access models, and the US Department of Education is poised to prohibit schools from automatically billing students for their course materials. However, inclusive access and equitable access aren’t the only models that automatically charge students a fee for their course materials. Many institutions charge students a fee associated with their OER courses as a way of funding the institutions’ OER efforts. For example, Kansas State University’s Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative course fee is a $10 fee that is payed by students in courses that use OER and other free, traditionally copyrighted resources. But this fee, and others like it that have helped sustain institutional OER efforts for many years, will likely be prohibited under the new rule.
Well, late last week we learned that at least some of these advocates are perfectly aware that these institutional OER programs will be prohibited under the proposed rule. Last week’s OER Digest links to a letter from the Student PIRGs to the US Secretary of Education that explicitly includes programs like the Kansas State initiative in the kinds of programs it encourages the Secretary to “curb” through the rulemaking process.
The sustainability of OER efforts has been a primary concern for the open education movement from the beginning back in the 1990s. It had become enough of a concern by 2007 that the OECD convened a special meeting on the topic, which resulted in significant contributions from Downes, myself, and others on the topic. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it took decades to find models to sustain the creation, maintenance, and ongoing improvement of OER that actually work in practice (as opposed to “working” in an academic paper) – beyond the pseudo-model of “write more grants.”
However, as I said in my last post, it feels like every time someone in the OER community finds a model that promises to sustain the creation, maintenance, and ongoing improvement of OER, someone else in the OER community finds a way to undercut that model.
An Accidental, Systematic Attack on OER Sustainability Models
Whether they realize it or not, advocates are targeting the sustainability models of both the ecosystem-level OER creators (like OpenStax) through their advocacy for ZTC policies and the institution-level OER creators (like Kansas State) through their more recent rulemaking advocacy. Those in the community whose advocacy is focused on the cost of course materials, and especially those who advocate for “zero textbook cost” (ZTC) initiatives and policies, are actively undercutting the sustainability model used by OpenStax, Lumen, Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative, and others, as I have described at length previously. And this latest rulemaking advocacy is a different kind of example – some creative institutions actually found a way to sustain their local OER efforts, only to see others in the OER community find a way to undercut those efforts (or in this case, try to make them illegal!).
ZTC programs are a textbook example (pardon the pun) of the classic free-rider problem:
The free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods and common pool resources do not pay for them or under-pay.
(And yes, OER are public goods not common pool resources.)
If only a few institutions forbid students from being assigned materials that have any costs associated with them, there may be little harm done. But what would happen if every institution in the US had a ZTC initiative? What would happen to OpenStax if the ongoing revenue they receive from their numerous homework system and other platform partners (including Lumen) suddenly disappeared because of ZTC initiatives? If a large number of institutions were ever to adopt ZTC policies – that is, if a large number of institution became free-riders – much of the broader OER ecosystem could collapse. There would be a large body of orphaned OER with no one responsible for maintenance or updates. And it wouldn’t take long before faculty stopped using these out-of-date resources and returned to more expensive, traditionally copyrighted resources.
And if the rulemaking advocacy is successful, and individual institutions lose their mechanism for funding their OER efforts, you can expect to see institutional programs across the country – like OER mini-grants that fund faculty creating or adopting OER – be cancelled because their funding disappears. And there might be follow-on effects, like decreasing registration rates for OER conferences as funding to participate disappears. &c.
OER advocates often hold up commercial publishers as the bogeyman that threatens to destroy the OER movement and undo all the righteous work it is trying to do. But it looks like OER advocates are doing far more harm to the OER movement than commercial publishers ever have or will. There are several possible futures in which the OER movement as we know it ceases to exist – and none of them are the result of the efforts of commercial publishers. I don’t think that advocates are consciously trying to harm the OER movement, but doing it accidentally doesn’t change the outcome.
How a Colombian City Cooled Dramatically in Just Three Years
It’s mid-afternoon along Medellín’s Avenida Oriental, a traffic-clogged road that scythes through the heart of the second largest Colombian city, and Nicolas Pineda is crouched down on his haunches as cars zoom by on both sides.
Wrapped up in heavy duty workwear and armed with a machete, Pineda is weeding a thick strip of tree-lined greenery running between the lanes. He hacks at a patch of dead, browning bush and then pulls up a rogue, zig zag-shaped shrub beside his foot.
“Es bien bonita,” grins the 54-year-old, evidently pleased with his handiwork. “It’s very clean. That’s what I like to see: a clean, green city.”
Citizen gardeners at work. Credit: Peter Yeung
Pineda has helped to sow and maintain hundreds of thousands of trees and plants across Medellín as part of a people-led scheme to fight back against extreme heat through a network of “Green Corridors” across the city.
In the face of a rapidly heating planet, the City of Eternal Spring — nicknamed so thanks to its year-round temperate climate — has found a way to keep its cool.
Previously, Medellín had undergone years of rapid urban expansion, which led to a severe urban heat island effect — raising temperatures in the city to significantly higher than in the surrounding suburban and rural areas. Roads and other concrete infrastructure absorb and maintain the sun’s heat for much longer than green infrastructure.
“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation,” says Pilar Vargas, a forest engineer working for City Hall. “We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.”
Tree engineer Pilar Vargas inspecting a flower. Credit: Peter Yeung
Efforts began in 2016 under Medellín’s then mayor, Federico Gutiérrez (who, after completing one term in 2019, was re-elected at the end of 2023). The city launched a new approach to its urban development — one that focused on people and plants.
The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometers of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.
These plant and tree-filled spaces — which connect all sorts of green areas such as the curb strips, squares, parks, vertical gardens, sidewalks, and even some of the seven hills that surround the city — produce fresh, cooling air in the face of urban heat. The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.
Credit: Peter Yeung
Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the Green Corridors program.
Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square meter surface.
“It’s like urban acupuncture,” says Paula Zapata, advisor for Medellín at C40 Cities, a global network of about 100 of the world’s leading mayors. “The city is making these small interventions that together act to make a big impact.”
At the launch of the project, 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees were added to roads and parks across the city. By 2021, the figure had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Each has been carefully chosen to maximize their impact.
A vertical garden at Medellin’s City Hall. Credit: Peter Yeung
“The technical team thought a lot about the species used. They selected endemic ones that have a functional use,” explains Zapata.
The 72 species of plants and trees selected provide food for wildlife, help biodiversity to spread and fight air pollution. A study, for example, identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellín at absorbing PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter that can cause asthma, bronchitis and heart disease — and surviving in polluted areas due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms.”
And the urban planting continues to this day.
The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners like Pineda, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialized forest engineers. Pineda is now the leader of a team of seven other gardeners who attend to corridors all across the city, shifting depending on the current priorities.
Credit: Peter Yeung
“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation. We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.” –Pilar Vargas
One of them is Victoria Perez. Back at the Avenida Oriental, where 2.3 kilometers of paving has been replaced by gardens, she is pruning a brush. The 40-year-old, like all of the other gardeners in the Green Corridors project, received training by experts from Medellín’s Joaquin Antonio Uribe Botanical Garden.
“I’m completely in favor of the corridors,” says Perez, who grew up in a poor suburb in the city of 2.5 million people. “It really improves the quality of life here.”
Wilmar Jesus, a 48-year-old Afro-Colombian farmer on his first day of the job, is pleased about the project’s possibilities for his own future. “I want to learn more and become better,” he says. “This gives me the opportunity to advance myself.”
The project’s wider impacts are like a breath of fresh air. Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change. In turn, City Hall says this will minimize the need for energy-intensive air conditioning.
Wilmar Jesus. Credit: Peter Yeung
Going forward, preventing and adapting to hotter temperatures will be a major and urgent challenge for cities. The number of cities exposed to “extreme temperatures” is set to triple over the next decades, according to C40 Cities. By 2050, more than 970 cities will experience average summertime temperature highs of 35°C (95°F).
A separate study estimated that in just one of Medellín’s corridors, the new vegetation growth would absorb 160,787 kg of CO2 per year and that over the next century 2,308,505 kg of CO2 will be taken up – roughly the equivalent of taking 500 cars off the road.
In addition, the project has had a significant impact on air pollution. Between 2016 and 2019, the level of PM2.5 fell significantly, and in turn the city’s morbidity rate from acute respiratory infections decreased from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people.
There’s also been a 34.6 percent rise in cycling in the city, likely due to the new bike paths built for the project, and biodiversity studies show that wildlife is coming back — one sample of five Green Corridors identified 30 different species of butterfly.
A map of Medellín’s Green Corridors. Credit: Medellín City Hall
Other cities are already taking note. Bogotá and Barranquilla have adopted similar plans, among other Colombian cities, and last year São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America, began expanding its corridors after launching them in 2022.
“For sure, Green Corridors could work in many other places,” says Zapata.
But there are some challenges. The corridors in the inner city areas have to contend with huge amounts of pollution as traffic piles up. Often drivers will also dump trash along the corridors. And the city’s homeless are forced to take shelter in the spaces.
“Like anything, nature requires maintenance from time to time,” adds Zapata. “You need to allocate a part of the budget for this.”
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The previous administration “didn’t give enough money” to maintain the corridors properly, says Zapata, meaning some parts have become overgrown and dirty.
That’s a particularly tricky issue as the city now finds itself $2.8 billion in debt. Maintaining the city’s green corridors costs $625,000 a year, according to City Hall.
But now that he’s back in office, Mayor Gutiérrez has pledged to reinvigorate the project of urban planting. And experimentation with new technology, such as “geotextile” pavements that can soak up rain and bend to allow tree roots to spread, is already underway.
“The plan is to plant more Green Corridors and link them to even more hills and streams, recovering what we have already planted,” Gutiérrez tells Reasons to be Cheerful. “It will be a more green Medellín.”
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The Commons of Ameland: An Uncommon History.
There is no ‘tragedy of the Commons.’ But a tragedy of the absence of Commons-as organizations, let’s call it ‘the tragedy of uncommons’, does exist. Below, I will provide the example of the island of Ameland in the Northern Netherlands, in line with the historical examples of successful Commons mentioned by Elinor Ostrom (especially those […]