This program explores the role that design plays in community and it visits some of the most progressive thinkers on the subject.
It goes to San Francisco to listen to "new urbanist" planner Peter Calthorpe; to Berkeley for "Eco-City Berkeley" author Richard Register; to Toronto to meet architect John van Nostrand; and to a Vancouver suburb where an unusual development called Murray's Corner has become an experiment in human-scale design. It has brought together people of different income levels into a new neighborhood--where there are pocket-sized parks, old fashioned front porches, garages discreetly around the back, and rental units actually planned for.
Other titles in the series are:
Community Animals - Leading thinkers explore community, work, time, values, and change.
Virtually Intentional - Finding community in the cloister, a commune, and in cyberspace.
Making Shelter - My Home with Others - Co-ops and co-housing provide new models for building community.
Reclaiming Community - Communities in Toronto and Oakland take back and revitalize public spaces.
Ageing with Community - The search for community and independence as we grow old.
The Boundaries of Change - Cities cope with changing demographics.
Finding Us and Them - Physically and mentally challenged people find community.
On the Road - RV owners leave their home towns and build their own communities.
Maps with Teeth - Bioregional mapping by locals communicates a sense of place and regional identity.
Grade Level: 7-12, College, Adult
US Release Date: 1997
Copyright Date: 1997
DVD ISBN: 1-59458-502-4
VHS ISBN: 1-56029-693-3
Reviews "You can't keep community down. Give people a little encouragement and a few tools, and they'll recreate the sense of community spirit in any available cracks and crannies in our otherwise alienated culture...These stories...are upbeat, encouraging - and replicable." Communities
"This is not an indulgent journey into nostalgia, but an exploration of the people we have become, touching on our diversity as well as our similarities." Orion Afield
"What (the producers) found was a growing belief and faith in the community as the cure for social ills like poverty, crime and estrangement from other people...It is precisely because WAYS WE LIVE is politically astute, without being partisan, that it is so compelling." Alex Strachan, Vancouver Sun
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