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"The Dream" vs "The Establishment"

Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 15:31:55 -0400
Reply-To: Urban Studies and Planning Housing and Community Development
     <URSP-HCD@UMDD.UMD.EDU>
To: URSP-HCD@UMDD.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: Fwd: Our Dream

>    I am envisioning families all over the world taking a few acres of
>land and developing it for agricultural self-sufficiency so well that they
>hardly need anything outside of that.  Then the retired, the students, the
>scholars, the pilgrims, etc. wandering here and there throughout the earth
>will find these cruelty-free agriculturally self-sufficient villages all
>over the world, and they will be just like an oasis for the weary
>traveller.
>
>
>
>
>Sincerely,
>
>CJ Flores
>
>
>ps At present we do not have the funds to maintain printed publications.
>Most of our work is through the internet.
>
>
>            _____________________________________________________
>                             O.O.A.S.I.S., Inc.
>             Cruelty-free Sustainable Agriculture and Food Relief


Perhaps I am not reading this right, but it seems like OOASIS is suggesting
that families all over the world take a few acres of land and develop it
for agricultural self-sufficiency, so well that they hardly need anything
outside of that.  Then the "retired, the students, the scholars, the
pilgrims etc." will find these self sufficient villages as an oasis?
Hmmm...that does not sound like pure _self_-sufficiency to me, but rather
the basis for a barter/market economy where a producer produces something
in excess of its basic needs in order that it might trade with others who
produce other commodities (crafts, tools, knowledge) they desire.

I am left with the distinct impression that time has passed the visionaries
at OOASIS by.  What they are describing, it seems, is something akin to a
prehistoric agrarian economy (they might look at the Huron Nation of the
15th century, in what is now the Province of Quebec, for a model of what
they propose).  But, if they look carefully at the modern economy, and the
history of the development of our global, commodity-based economy they
should be able to see how and why people have chosen to evolve past merely
subsistence living, and through a specialization of labour and production
have sought to maximize utility while at the same time minimizing effort.
This is the engine of economics, and it would seem unlikely that any
visionary (and I might add unattainable?) ideal is likely to alter or
reverse this.

All the best,

Matthew Baldwin
Urban Planning Consultant
Prince George, BC
Canada

Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 15:10:23 EST5EDT
To: URSP-HCD@UMDD.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: Fwd: Our Dream

I think our friends at OOASIS have a point.  Communities like they
describe have worked in places such as the Kibbutz in Israel, where
all residents live on subsistence agriculture, sharing equally the
work and the food they produce.  I know people who have lived on one
for a few months and said it was a very rewarding experience.
However, this kind of pure micro-communist system could never work on
a large scale.

-srm

________________________________________________________________________________
 _____________

Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 21:12:50 +0000
Reply-To: Urban Studies and Planning Housing and Community Development
     <URSP-HCD@UMDD.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Our Dream

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..... and by doing so, all cities all over the world will have to be
destroyed. Take down most buildings in all dense cities, and the need
for travel (to schools, cinemas, shopping, work, restaurants, officies
etc) will double and tripple... It´sa nice vision, but as most visions
only looking at one aspect of life, it can only be realized at the
expence of all other factors and so on. Even in Sweden we have persons
that propagate a return to medieval small villages. But who want´s to
live in them? Maybe Los Angeles is the city most like your vision,
spread out, with, as one newspaper article wrote this summer, miles and
miles between the art exhibitions". (As opposed to New York, where you
cn actually walk from one gallery to the other.

greetings.  jerker söderlind bye bye 
(but, if you take the roofs, then it´s OK. Instead of nothing at flat
roofs, you could have some gardens there, that´s OK)  ds


Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 14:59:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: ox-oasis@igc.apc.org
To: ox-oasis@igc.apc.org
Subject: Our Dream


Hi!

	Thank you so much for your messages.

	I am envisioning families all over the world taking a few acres of
land and developing it for agricultural self-sufficiency so well that they
hardly need anything outside of that.  Then the retired, the students, the
scholars, the pilgrims, etc. wandering here and there throughout the earth
will find these cruelty-free agriculturally self-sufficient villages all
over the world, and they will be just like an oasis for the weary
traveller.  




Sincerely, 

CJ Flores


ps At present we do not have the funds to maintain printed publications. 
Most of our work is through the internet.


            _____________________________________________________
                             O.O.A.S.I.S., Inc.
             Cruelty-free Sustainable Agriculture and Food Relief
          <a href="http://www.gnofn.org/~oxoasis/dgroup.htm">OX</a>
            _____________________________________________________

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