Adam Clare

Farming Could Save Detroit

Detroit has been hit hard by the ongoing economic claptrap that’s plaguing the global economy; the once-thriving oil-driven economy of the city is not fairing well. The city of Detroit is now looking to environmentally friendly sources of renewing their economy: farming.

Housing in Detroit is so cheap that it actually makes sense to tear down old lots and start planting!

Mr. Bing has long campaigned for a new master land-use plan that would rezone depopulated residential areas for other purposes, including farming. But after being sidetracked amid a fiscal crisis, city officials are now working on crafting a comprehensive farm policy that can satisfy investors like Mr. Hantz, residents, local activists and the state’s Right to Farm law, which limits municipalities’ power to regulate agriculture.

Hantz Farms officials acknowledge their self-funded venture would create few new jobs in the short term, and only modest revenue for Detroit. Hantz is offering only $300 a parcel, one-tenth of what city officials wanted. It has agreed to clear the land and demolish as many as 200 structuresâ€”at an estimated cost of more than $2 million, offset in part by tax credits and state assistanceâ€”before beginning to pay roughly $60,000 a year in taxes on the land.

WikiLeaks Releases Syria Files

WikiLeaks continues to bring the world information that would otherwise be hidden from the masses, this time it’s millions of emails and documents from Syria. The Syria Files have been given to some media organizations to filter through (much like the last large release of documents from WikiLeaks).

This new release should shed light on the volatile situation in Syria and potential more. Already, it appears Italy was illegal helping Syria, who knows what else will be found. The more open and transparent countries are the more democratically they can function (the irony in all of this is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being threatened by America).

â€œIt helps us not merely to criticize one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it,” the announcement quotes Julian Assange, who is currently in the Ecuador embassy in London, where he is awaiting a decision on his appeal for political asylum.
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There are 2,434,899 documents in the leak involving 678,752 different senders and 1,082,447 different recipients, WikiLeaks says. Thatâ€™s about eight times the size of â€œCablegateâ€ in terms of a number of documents and 100 times the size in terms of data. Cablegate was the release by WikiLeaks of US State Department confidential cable exchanges between American embassies and Washington, which angered the US administration.

Declaration of Internet Freedom

Around the world governments are trying to restrain the ability of people to freely share information across the internet. Bills like SOPA in the USA and Bill C-30 in Canada to the more recent TPP all focus on propping up old media monopolies and curtailing people’s privacy and communication rights. The most effective and extreme example of clamping down on the internet can be seen in the Great Firewall of China.

WIth the above in mind, it’s good to see that a group of people have taken up the challenge of creating a universal declaration of freedom for online access and participation!

The Preamble:

We believe that a free and open Internet can bring about a better world. To keep the Internet free and open, we call on communities, industries and countries to recognize these principles. We believe that they will help to bring about more creativity, more innovation and more open societies.

We are joining an international movement to defend our freedoms because we believe that they are worth fighting for.

Letâ€™s discuss these principles â€” agree or disagree with them, debate them, translate them, make them your own and broaden the discussion with your community â€” as only the Internet can make possible.

Go to the Declaration of Internet Freedom.

Canadians please check out OpenMedia.

USA Urban Population Growth Outpaces the Suburbs

Regular readers know that in the modern world an urban lifestyle is more sustainable than a suburban lifestyle so it’s pretty good news to see that more people in the USA are moving into urban centres. America is where the suburbs started and have had the largest cultural impact and seeing a transition away from unsustainable suburban living in America is definitely a good thing!

Even among those who are buying homes rather than renting, there is a strong preference now for close-in locations, where sales prices driven by demand have increased while those in outer suburbs have plummeted. Where home purchase prices are still recovering, the recovery has been much stronger in inner, urban locations than in outer suburbs.
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Roughly 52 of the 73 US cities with population of greater than 250,000 showed faster annual growth (or slower rates of losses) in 2011 than their average growth over the last decade. Primary cities in large metropolitan areas with populations of more than one million grew by 1.1 percent last year, compared with 0.9 percent in surrounding suburbs. Cities switching from declines to gains included Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, both previously written off by some as â€œshrinking citiesâ€ because of what was perceived as irreversible decline because of the loss of manufacturing.

Reading for Faster Freedom in Brazil

Prisoners in Brazil may be able to shorten their stay in jail by reading and writing. It’s only 48 days but it can make a difference, the prisoners need to read from a collection of philosophy, science, literature, or the classics then reflect on them in a submitted paper.

Educational programs like this are a good way to help people returning to society restart with more focus and support.

Prisoners will have up to four weeks to read each book and
write an essay which must “make correct use of paragraphs, be
free of corrections, use margins and legible joined-up writing,”
said the notice published on Monday in the official gazette.

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“A person can leave prison more enlightened and with a
enlarged vision of the world,” said Sao Paulo lawyer Andre
Kehdi, who heads a book donation project for prisons.

“Without doubt they will leave a better person,” he said.