<div><strong>Michel,</strong></div>
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<div>Thanks for establishing this link with Franz.</div>
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<div><strong>Franz,</strong></div>
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<div>Thank you for your interest on the work we have developing and also for sending me the link for the slideshare with the speech by Phil Turner / Pam Moore. I was not aware of this European initiative and also found it very interesting.</div>
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<div>I will try to sumarize some of the activities we are developing, that are somehow related to what is beig developed by ASSET members, as I could understand from the slideshare. I am with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, at the southmost State of Brazil (having borders with Argentina and Uruguay). I have been working with several postgraduate students in this field since 1997. I then organized the First Brazilian Conference on Sustainable Buildings and Communities (we just had, in 2009, the Fifth Brazilian and Third Latin American issue of this Conference. For the First Conference I invited Steve Curwell, from Salford University, UK, as a Guest Speaker. At that time he was leading a European project called Bequest, related do Sustainable Cities. I mention him because it was Steve who made us interested working on this scale.</div>
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<div>Lately we have been running short courses related to Sustainable Buildings and Communities in several regions in Brazil, but also in Uruguay (MSc) and Paraguay (MSc), mainly as part of MSc and PhD Programs, led by our PostGraduate Course in Civil Engineering. At the moment I am supervising 7 PhD students, all working in the area that aims at getting more sustainable cities (four of them are just starting their research at a northeastern city, in the State of Paraiba, working with a town of nearly 30.000 inhabitants; one student is working in the area of urban metabolism, in Montevideo (a large city), capital city of Uruguay; and two others are developing their studies in our State: one in a city of about 13000 and other with a city of about 7000.</div>
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<div>In the city of 13,000, we started working in 2003, with the preliminary studies for a more sustainable technical school (for about 700 students). That was demanded by several municipalities sharing the same watershed (of Rio Caí), that due to their characteristics and potential aimed at atracting students in some areas of interest of all of them (like agroindustry and ceramic clay bricks and tiles). The school was built and several MSc dissertations were developed to monitor the buildings and user´s satisfaction. Due to this starting project, we established interesting links with the communities (mostly the one were the school was built - municipality of Feliz), leading to the start of several new works. Two MSc studies were already completed: one, evaluating a simplified Ecological Footprint for the municipality; the other led to sistematization of 108 Alexander´s patterns that were found to be related to sustainable communities. Presently a PhD student is working with the urban metabolism of the municipality of Feliz; another with the preservation of water quality (very high there) and water pollution; one more MSc student is working with Strategies for Creating Greenways for small municipalities; and one more MSc student working with construction and demolition residues and strategies for managing them sustainably. In all initiatives we give a return to the municipality, that is slowly strengthening our links with their people and representatives. Other initiatives are constantly under development, either by Diploma or undergraduate students, mostly focusing in this municipality.</div>
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<div>This was a looong sumary, but as you said you had interest on our work, I tried to give you an appropriate picture of what has been going on here.</div>
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<div>Regards,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Miguel Sattler</div>
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<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">2011/1/20 Franz Nahrada <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:f.nahrada@reflex.at" target="_blank">f.nahrada@reflex.at</a>></span><br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">Thanks Michel for the kind mentioning! Sorry I do not follow this list all the time.</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">I am getting a bit puzzled if you mean "rural" or "urban" population in your last sentence.</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">I think the 80 rural - 20 urban ratio is desireable, IF and only IF human beings in rural areas have local clusters and subcenters where they can physically access the amenities of support that the modern world provides.</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">IT can make a village intelligent, it can make a small town superintelligent.</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">Global Villages is a strategy of redesign, to make rural areas really agreeable. I consider it as a kind of fully fledged branch of urbanism by the way. I think Nikos gave me a great portion of encouragement ...</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">---</font></div><br>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">Miguel, I am very interested in your work in Brazil, sounds exciting to me!</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">my friend Arthur Spiegler developed a "conference on the small town" that led to the ASSET project. (Action to strenthen and support small European towns)</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">a very neglected area, even Christopher Alexander does not analyze the relation between the town and its hinterland in greater detail. But of course he gives a hundred time more consideration than the mainstream.</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">I canned a basic speech by Phil Turner / Pam Moore from the recent 4th Symposium on Small Towns here at slideshare which describes the goals of ASSET: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/globalvillagesinfo/phil-turner-pam-moore-the-asset-of-the-project-ecovast" target="_blank">http://www.slideshare.net/globalvillagesinfo/phil-turner-pam-moore-the-asset-of-the-project-ecovast</a></font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">I was chairman of ECOVAST Austria for some time, I hope we can link P2P Urbanism to this topic and people!</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">Franz</font></div><br><br><br>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande"><b>Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>> </b>wrote <b>:</b></font></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Times New Roman">A remark on ruralization. I don't think we should empty out the cities, but nevertheless, a new balance may be necessary. As I see it, people leave rural areas for two main reasons, one is they have to for reasons of economic survival, as capitalist dynamics destroy their livelyhoods; but the other one is cultural: many young people, leave rural areas for cultural reasons, they see no dynamic future in their static and isolated rural areas. Here is where the Global Villages strategy of Franz Nahrada comes in, the use digital connectivity, empowerement and peer learning to de-isolate the rural. I can take my own life as an example, I can be a throught leader from a provincial city in the forests of northern thailand, a place which two generations ago was still three days travel from the capital city, but is now connected through global satellites and broadband internet, and I feel hardly any sense of isolation anymore. Of course, I have the cultural capital to use these tools, which many still lack, but these are not insurmountable problems. Just want to say, it's not either-or, rural or urban, but a mix, and my guess is that the relocalization you call for, and a return to say organic sustainable agriculture, will require a more labour intensive rural area. I've read, again I forgot where, that a sustainable world would perhaps require a return to a rural population of about 20%.</font></span></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Lucida Grande; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Lucida Grande">MIGUEL ALOYSIO SATTLER <<a href="mailto:masattler@gmail.com" target="_blank">masattler@gmail.com</a>> wrote</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">Actually, after working for several years with cities or</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">large communities, we started concentrating in the small</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">municipalities. There are, in the whole of more than 5000 Brazilian</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">municipalities, more than 70% with less than 20.000 inhabitants. About</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">50% of Brazilians live in these municipalities. I believe that in the</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">future a "reverse migration" will occur, according to all scientific</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">documentation I have been reading in the last 15 years I have</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">dedicated to the study of more sustainable communities. And this will</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">happen, I believe, mainly due to lack of food. What we are trying to</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">do, is to try do develop directives, strategies, that will help this</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">communities to avoid the sort of chaotic growth that resulted in our</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">megalopolies. Thus, what we are concentrating on, now, is to develop</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">those tools to keep Green Fingers, in their rural-urban tissue; to</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">preserve the quality of their water, air and soil; to deal with their</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">waste waters; to optimize urban morphology (in harmony with urban</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">climatology, solar access); to optimize energy use and efficiency; to</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">provide mobility and accessibilty with minimum impacts; to produce</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">food diversity and quantity localy (as far as allowed by different</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">soil and climate limitations); to keep the population healthy</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">(physically, mentally, psicologically and spiritually). This is what</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">we are trying our students to do, in class, but also by working close</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">to the communities. And Alexander gives us a lot of guindance and</font></span></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left" align="left"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d0d0d0"><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Geneva; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt" color="#000000" size="+1" face="Geneva">inspiration...</font></span></div>
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<p></p>-- <br>You received this message because you are subscribed to the<br>"P2P-Urbanism World Atlas" group.<br>to register to the group<br><a href="http://cityleft.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://cityleft.blogspot.com/</a><br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Prof. Miguel Aloysio Sattler, PhD<br>Depto. de Engenharia Civil/NORIE<br>UFRGS<br>