YES! Magazine May Newsletter

Powerful Ideas, Practical Actions May 2010

“That’s public space. Nobody can use it.”

City Repair Turns Public Spaces into Gathering Places
Should our towns and cities be built for cars or for people? City Repair sides with the latter. The Portland, Ore., nonprofit helps people organize, design, and implement new, people-friendly visions for their communities—and reclaim the notion of “neighborhood” in the process.

YES! web editor Brooke Jarvis interviewed visionary co-founder Mark Lakeman during his recent visit to Bainbridge Island.

:: YES! INTERVIEW READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH MARK LAKEMAN :: PHOTO-ESSAY SEE CITY REPAIR IN ACTION	VIDEO Beyond the Grid Life is about more than the shortest distance between two points. See how City Repair helps people imagine and create lively public spaces.	VIDEO The Village Building Convergence This City Repair project draws on the power and creativity of neighbors to build the places they’d like to live.	VIDEO Depaving Portland The residents of Portland are literally tearing their city up. Who says cities have to be islands of concrete?

Creating the Cities of the Future …

Our cities can be transformed. Here are some of YES! Magazine’s most popular articles on how to create a more livable, sustainable human habitat.

	Living Large in a Tiny House Dee Williams chose to downsize and now lives in a 84-square-foot home. She says she has never been happier.

	The Righteous Small House: Challenging House Size and the Irresponsible American Dream An architect asks, at what point does size cancel out sustainability?

	The City We All Want to Live In How to make our cities just, inclusive, and green. :: 10 STRATEGIES TO CREATE SOCIALLY JUST, MULTIRACIAL CITIES

	A “Living” Built Environment What if buildings, communities, and infrastructure projects were designed to be beautiful, socially just, and as gentle on the environment as plants are? :: THE 20 IMPERATIVES OF the Living Building Challenge 2.0

SEE INSIDE
Dee Williams’ tiny house

What’s New Online



Fix the Economy, Not Wall Street David Korten asks “Why regulate a broken system when we can build a better one?” Welcome to New Economy 101.	Beyond Us and Them Very often, what we dislike in others is something that we need to acknowledge, heal, integrate, and empower in ourselves.	Citizens United: People Strike Back How states and people are mobilizing to defend democracy.

Radical Homemaking

In Search of Radical Homemakers
Wondering if her family was a freaky aberration to the conventional American culture, Shannon Hayes set out to find other families who are achieving ecological, social, and economic transformation … starting under their own roofs.

Shannon asks, and tries to answer, many of the questions we all wrestle with in search of sustainable living. Follow her articles, written exclusively for YES! Magazine, and seek out her new book Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture.

“Brilliant, visionary, and practical. This is a mind-bending book that will forever change your view of human possibility and compel you to rethink your life. My highest recommendation.”—David Korten



:: CONSUMERISM The Birthday Balloon Do children need a pile of wrapped toys in order to know that their family and friends are delighted and honored that they share this lifetime with us?	:: EDUCATION Can Money Buy Education? She taught her daughter that they don’t buy things they can make or grow at home. But then she had to wonder: Does that include higher education?	:: CHILDREN The Kid Question Does reproduction have a place in a quest for a sustainable life?	:: ANIMALS The Case for Sustainable Meat Can meat have a place in the life of a “radical homemaker” trying to live sustainably?

YES! Monthly Cartoon Caption

Write a caption for this month’s YES! cartoon. Winning entries will be posted online, and the funniest will be printed in YES!

Enter the competition.

“I’m not sure this whole ‘living building’ thing is all it’s cracked up to be.”
The best captions for this cartoon.

Did you miss…

Highlights from the last newsletter:

:: The Power of Art to Transform
Bearing Witness: Photographer Chris Jordan on Art, Grief, and Transformation.

:: The NZ Way: Another Approach to Health Care
Ken Fabert traveled to New Zealand to see what patients and doctors think of their single-payer system.

:: No Car, No Problem
How one man’s choice to live car-free brought him more in touch with his neighbors, his community, and himself.

How to Get More YES!

GIVE A FRIEND THE GIFT OF YES!
Our summer gift subscription package includes this 100% recycled tote. POSTERS
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DONATE and amplify our voice of hope and solutions in these times. YES! BACK SET
Treat yourself to 13 years of inspiring stories from YES!

We’re Hiring

YES! is seeking a part-time web managing editor who is passionate about using the power of independent media to change the story about what’s possible.

:: LEARN MORE…

Just the Facts

Corporate Food
Hunger. Pollution. Instability. Obesity. The problem with corporate food—by the numbers.

:: MORE JUST THE FACTS

New books

Welcome to Eaarth
Bill McKibben’s latest book explores what it’ll take to live on a planet less sweet than it used to be. During a recent stop in Seattle, he described the smaller, slower, and wiser future that may be our best bet.

:: MORE YES! REVIEWS

YES! Web Picks

VIDEO

Food Revolution
Jamie Oliver’s campaign calls for Americans to rethink their relationship with food.

A Climate Summit for the Rest of Us
The Cochabamba summit was designed to respect the power and knowledge of world social movements and indigenous peoples.

What Happens When We Make Choices Fun?
The Fun Theory is at it again! Turning bottle recycling into an arcade game produces smiles and a healthier planet.

This is Our Home
Robert Redford discusses the history and importance of Earth Day.

YES! Magazine is published by the Positive Futures Network :: www.yesmagazine.org
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