This is part 2 of a two-part article. View part 1 here.
There are SO many What if questions we can ask. What if residential streets could be play streets? What if there were food forests in every neighborhood? What if our public buildings were powered by renewable energy? What if we could swim in clean lakes? What if the waterfront was really restored? What if school lunches were sourced from local farms? What if all the parks were connected by bike paths and green belts? What if public projects were done by local businesses and tradespeople, not outsiders? What if the songs of birds drowned out street traffic? What if there were more cooperative housing for all kinds of people? What if there was public art on every street? What if our local officials prioritized resilience and sustainability?
Rob Hopkins presents many examples of communities asking What if questions to inspire us in his book. Here are some of them.
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– What should we to do with a closed silk mill? (Think Olympia Brewery) In Derby, UK, The public was invited in to imagine what they could do in a historic mill. Through events and activities, a collective vision emerged and with direct community participation in the design and buildout, instead of using hired contractors, a Museum of Making, workshop and cafe was born.
– ‘What if our city could feed itself?’ Transition City in Norwich, England members set up a CSA farm at the edge of the city, and developed the idea of growing beans, pulses and peas as alternative protein sources. They designed a trial to distribute the beans to community groups and local stores with a beautiful illustration and recipe, and got an overwhelming positive response. People loved the bean story, and they’re now developing production of quinoa and selling a range of products made from British beans.
– ‘What if, in one generation, the majority of the food grown in this city were to come from the land immediately surrounding it?’ was asked by residents of Liege, Belgium. Using money raised in a cooperative vineyard, the Transition team founded 14 more cooperatives, including a mushroom grower, a brewery, a farm, a food processor, food co-ops, a seed-saving co-op and more. By creating a story that mobilized citizens to reimagine the food system, they were able to raise money to invest in more ventures. They were so successful, that the local municipality now wants to be a Transition City.
– What if the community responded to the debt crisis with art and playfulness? From 2018-2019, an artist and filmmaker created the Hoe Street Central Bank (HSCB) in London with the goal of printing and selling their own currency. Instead of the Queen’s face, the notes featured photos of four community heroes from the food bank, homeless kitchen, youth project and the school. They raised the money and divided half of it between the four organizations, using the other half to buy off ‘zombie debt,’ which can be bought for pennies on the dollar. The debt was exploded at an event appropriately named the Big Bang. The HSCB became a printing shop and education space for talks on money and debt. People of all ages came in to print ‘money’ using screen and block printing, enjoying the sensory tangible experience of creation.
–What if we were more resilient? was asked by Transition Fidalgo close to home on Anacortes Island. Since its creation in 2011, it has created solar energy projects, a gleaning program, urban food gardens and an annual forest lands survey, and created Vision 2030, a guide to what is possible for the future, parts of which have been included in the Island’s ten-year plan.
– What if local governments rebuilt their economies to improve the community’s resilience and prosperity? It was done in Preston, UK (population 140,000). When planning for the usual unimaginative large shopping center fell through, a local official, looking for initiatives to boost the local economy, brought the city’s seven largest spenders of public money together, which included the police, two universities, the city council and the largest public housing provider, and commissioned a study to see where all the public money went that these institutions were spending. They were shocked to find that only 5% stayed in Preston, and only 39% stayed in the county. They began to explore where they could plug those leaks and redirect that money back into their own community. They reimagined procurement, spreading contracts out to many smaller local firms instead of awarding it to one company. They redirected their Pension fund from overseas to invest in new buildings downtown. Public housing maintenance now goes to many local tradesmen. The university now sees itself as a ‘civic anchor institution’ capable of nurturing the city’s economy and cultural well-being. What if our local governments did a similar audit? What would they find?
An economics of imagination could go further. What if there were Universal Basic Assets – affordable housing, healthy care, education and transportation? “What if housing could be built in a way that would maximize the economic opportunities already present in a community…What if the housing were built by local companies, or by newly formed cooperatives, using locally processed materials, powered with community-owned renewable energy and held in community ownership so that it generated an ongoing income stream to make other things possible?” What if, and why not?
And perhaps the biggest What if – What if our Leaders prioritized the cultivation of imagination? What if they realized our survival depends on being able to focus and imagine how to adapt to the overwhelming challenges we face? How would we replace the economics of endless growth with one in harmony with the natural world? How would we reimagine democracy?
Hopkins offers us the model of deliberative democracy where people deliberate and contemplate issues in a safe environment. He describes Citizen Assemblies that reformed the electoral system in British Columbia, the Convention on the Constitution in Ireland that resulted in legalizing gay marriage and abortion, and the bottom-up policymaking that won back Barcelona for its citizens in 2015 as a reaction to austerity measures. And he describes Ministries of Imagination in Mexico City, Bologna, Italy and Wales that use imagination “to solve problems in a new way.”
Olympia’s Got Imagination
We’ve experienced the power of imagination. This issue includes an article about Restoring Earth Connection’s completion of a survey to find Olympia’s largest trees. There’s another by Gary Kline on re-imagining the work of the granges to foster an agricultural system that produces healthy food and builds healthy soil. Bonnie Blessing asks us to imagine a regulatory system that actually protects endangered species, and Standing for Washington imagines a legal system where nature has rights.
Every April, the Procession of the Species imagines up an amazing festival celebrating nature, art and joyful human connection. OlyEcosystems imagines a clearcut into a forest. The Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team imagines a free-flowing river. The City of Olympia re-imagined the old Armory to create the Armory Creative Campus, home to 8 community arts non-profits. Lacey has a MakerSpace on the St. Martin’s campus, which supports “artists, entrepreneurs, and makers of all skill levels” in woodworking, welding, textiles and digital design. The Woodard Co-housing imagines a shared supportive community.
But there’s so much more we can imagine that hasn’t been actualized – a healthy waterfront, affordable housing for all, clean lakes and streams, local resilient farms, vibrant community centers. Can we reimagine Olympia as the local jurisdictions now write their Comprehensive Plans which will guide development for the next 20 years?
Let’s go Olympia. Time to dream – together.
Esther Kronenberg would like to thank Clare Follmann, formerly of Orca Books Cooperative, for recommending this wonderful book.
From the Editor – We invite all readers to submit their imaginings – as art, narrative, poetry – to create a collective vision of what could be. Future issues will look at opportunities for imaginative projects and policies that can make our community resilient and a place where things really do turn out OK.
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