[Lapg] Who do you know?

[Bruce Woodside]

Who is doing the crucial critical work of relocalization and/or  
environmental rehabilitation here in Los Angeles? Who's involved in  
projects that represent the future infrastructure of resilient  
communities in this city?

The Transition groups of L.A. County are proposing to host a series  
of community Think Tank sessions over the coming months, organized  
around topics that will eventually make up an Energy Descent Action  
Plan (you can find out more about the concept of the EDAP here:  
http://www.eatthesuburbs.org/edap-primer/).

We envision this plan as a living document, not some "study" that  
will sit gathering dust on a government agency's shelf - more like an  
Open Source wiki, accessible to all participants (and the public at  
large) and subject to adaptation, innovation, localization, and  
change. Our goal is to cobble together a collective vision of a  
(hopefully better) future urban environment, and to document the hits  
and misses it will take to get us all where we need to go, on  
individual, neighborhood, and collective levels.

Idealistic? Unrealistic? Maybe, but I personally know many people who  
are on this path, individuals working in their own discrete areas or  
with single-issue environmental or community groups, and making a  
positive difference doing so. I like to refer to these people as the  
"Usual Suspects" because I see them all the time at area events. I  
met a number of them at last weekend's Convergence. I know that you  
know them too, and I think there must be many others who I do not know.

So, if you were to take part in one or more of these discussions in  
this series of conversations (on such topics as Food, Water,  
Transportation, Shelter, Energy, or Land Use, to name but a few), who  
else would you want to see in the circle? Whose contributions do you  
think would be absolutely vital to elevating the discussion, keeping  
it focussed, informative, inclusive, and grounded in the realities we  
face and the practical solutions we can implement?

Please feel free to contact me personally (warnwood at mac dot com)  
if you wish, or pick up the thread here in this forum. I'll be  
forwarding names on to the group planning this series and we'll  
probably be announcing a schedule within the next month or so.  
Everyone, of course, will be invited.

Thanks,
Bruce Woodside
Transition SFV