EPISODE 5: Dry Land

Music credit in this video to Jeremy Robert Harris: jeremyrobertharris.com

We just keep paving. Urbanization and suburban sprawl means tarmac and concrete, convenient for drivers and cyclists, but it doesn’t absorb the rain. We lose an acre of farmland every minute, according to the American Farmland Trust, much of it to car-centric urban development. Looking across a landscape laid bare by bulldozers it’s hard not to cringe, especially when the over-paving creates the conditions for flash floods, urban heat island effect, and loss of habitat for native creatures.

Like many of our other destructive patterns, this paving trend may seem too big to shift, despite being wasteful and banal. Not so! Brad Lancaster shows us how to increase the life potential where we ourselves live, and intervene in the system to plant shade trees, edible fruits trees, and native plants for wildlife habitat. In this episode Brad shows us how suburbs can be modified. He’s one politically savvy redeemer, and has created a city-wide change starting from one illegal act and a powerful demonstration of what is possible.