The Life-Sized City Blog

This essay by Ivan Illich was first published in 1973, in Le Monde. In the previous guest essay The Social Ideology of the Motorcar by André Gorz , a number of references were made to Illich. This is the essay he was referring to. Thanks to our reader, John, for the link. Read the whole thing but I'm going to just jump right to the last sentence. It's quite brilliant. "Participatory democracy demands low-energy technology, and free people must travel the road to productive social relations at the speed of a bicycle." Energy Crisis by Ivan Illich First Chapter of Energy and Equity, first published in Le Monde in early 1973. It has recently become fashionable to insist on an impending energy crisis. This euphemistic term conceals a contradiction and consecrates an illusion. It masks the contradiction implicit in the joint pursuit of equity and industrial growth. It safeguards the illusion that machine power can indefinitely take the place of manpower. To resolve this co...

This essay by André Gorz, the French philosopher who pioneered ideas of political ecology, was first published in 1973 in Le Sauvage . Much of it is still applicable today and well worth a read. The Social Ideology of the Motorcar by André Gorz The worst thing about cars is that they are like castles or villas by the sea: luxury goods invented for the exclusive pleasure of a very rich minority, and which in conception and nature were never intended for the people. Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don't have one. That is how in both conception and original purpose the car is a luxury good. And the essence of luxury is that it cannot be democratised. If everyone can have luxury, no one gets any advantages from it. On the contrary, everyone diddles, cheats, and frustrates everyone else, and is diddled, cheated, and frustrated i...

Imagine my surprise at Prague Airport when, while waiting outside to be picked up, I saw a taxi driver in the line of taxis pushing his car forward to the front of the line. Imagine my further surprise when all the taxi drivers in the long line followed suit. How completely bizarre and how completely cool. I wonder if there are similar laws in Czech Republic as in Denmark about having to turn off your engine if you're motionless for for than two minutes. Whatever the case, it was brilliant to see all these men pushing their big, fancy, late model Volkswagons. I was lecturing about Marketing Bicycle Culture in the city of Pardubice yesterday and am currently in Prague. More on the state of the bicycle union in the two cities later.

So there's me, cycling towards the City's Technical & Environmental Administration for a meeting at the Bicycle Office when I spot something strange outside their offices. I realised from a distance that it was a kind of wind turbine. For some reason, some people have issues with the sound that large wind turbines produce. Curiously, they don't seem to mind the sound car traffic generates. But when cars started appearing on the roads of the world, there were many complaints about the noise. I don't have this issue with wind turbines, personally, but as I cycled closer I was listening to hear when I'd be able to hear some sort of whine or swoosh sound. Amazingly, this wind spire, as it's called, was completely silent, even when standing underneath it. It was also a bit of a headturner as I was photographing it. People on both sides of the street stared at it and passersby read the sign. Four students rode past, girls, and one of them announced to her friends ...

Got a call from Larry vs Harry the other day. One of their customers had converted a Bullitt cargo bike into a power station with a wind turbine and solar panels charging a battery. That's something I had to see for myself so I called Ulrik Bing from HumanBattery.dk and met up with him and his colleagues last week. The bicycle and the wind, in Copenhagen anyway, are often at odds with each other. It's a frightfully windy city and it always seems like there is a headwind. The very idea of combining the two is fantastic. Creating a Bullitt with a wind turbine and solar panels is just one of many ideas on the go with Ulrik Bing, Carsten Koch [the construtor] and Claus Nørregaard. With the UN Climate Conference on the horizon in December 2009 they have a thick idea catalogue with ways to bring climate consciousness to the people. Speaking with them and hearing their enthusiasm as they rattle off their many idealist ideas is infectious. The Bullitt cargo bike is a flagship for th...

The famous Tivoli Gardens in the centre of Copenhagen plans to be the world's first amusement park to be powered by wind energy. Tivoli Gardens were opened in 1843 and, with the exception of Bakken north of Copenhagen which opened in the late 1500's, it is the oldest amusement park in the world. It inspired Walt Disney to build Disneyland. In collaboration with DONG Energy [Danish Oil & Natural Gas], Tivoli aims to be wind powered by 2010. Next year, in December 2009, the world will descend on Copenhagen for the UN Climate Conference - also called COP 15 . It will be time for the countries of the world to sign a new climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Agreement. There is enormous focus on this climate conference. There will be many environmental projects launched between now and then and we're going to cover what we can here on Copenhagenize. Focus on bicycle culture, of course, with a bit of sustainability thrown in. And hopefullly a load of good things involving ...

The world's first offshore wind farm, at the head of Copenhagen harbour. Denmark has long been a world-leader in wind energy and now the country will act as a laboratory for the development of infrastructure for electric cars, using wind power to charge the new vehicles. The main reason is that in five years Denmark will have wind turbine capacity enough for 1 million homes. This goal will be reached when the world's largest offshore wind turbine farm opens in 2012, between Anholt and Djursland. The offshore farm will look like this new one off the coast of Copenhagen. The colossal amounts of energy generated will also be used to power cars, in order to exploit the wind energy as best possible. The energy generated at night, when usage is low, will be used to charge the cars for use the next day. The island of Bornholm will be the first test area and Peder Andersen of Energinet.dk believes there will be 100,000 electric cars in Denmark in five years. It will be considerably ch...

Copenhagen beach with offshore wind turbines in the background. The Danish Prime Minister said something the other day that you won't hear many other statesmen in OECD countries say: Namely that petrol prices need to be raised drastically in order to clear the way for environmentally-friendly technology and to free us from our dependence on oil. He was quoted in the New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman who met with the prime minister on a recent visit to Denmark. "I've observed that people in all other countries, including the USA, are complaining about rising gas prices. The cure isn't lowering prices, but instead we should raise them further in order to break our dependence from oil." "We will propose a new tax reform with an even higher tax on energy and the money raised from this will be used to lower the income tax - so we will strengthen the incentive to work and the incentive to save energy and develop sustainable energy sources" , said Anders Fo...