RE: [Futurework] Teleworking -- or, a fortune awaits a house-builder

[Karen Watters Cole]

Keith, combined neighborhood office centers are already being implemented in small communities and suburbs as part of the ‘redevelopment industry’, wherein small pieces of real estate are converted as you envision, to lease on a temporary basis, bring revenue and enhancing property values instead of vacant buildings, reducing sprawl.     There isn’t anything I disagree with in your comments on this subject, but we should get out of the habit of thinking that all construction needs to be new construction – we are running out of land that is better saved for ecological and mental health reasons and more lasting values.  There is a fortune to be made, absolutely, in remodeling older and vacant properties that in many cases sit in well-established, close-in neighborhoods, which would as you say, reduce not just traffic congestion, smog, fuel consumption and commuter stress, but reward contractors, developers, real estate and local taxes – and get you out of the house occasionally.   I redirect your attention to Storm Cunningham’s book, The Restoration Economy: The Greatest New Growth Frontier - Immediate and Emerging Opportunities for Businesses, Communities and Investors, (Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, 2002. ISBN 1576751910 - it was at my library).  This is a sales book, no question.  He is converting old concepts about growth to new concepts.  He often reads like a preacher full of enthusiasm.  I’m pasting some of the Introduction.  He praises the US EPA for originating brownfields programs to rescue abandoned and polluted properties for redevelopment.    By the way, identifying disaster/war as a major feature of built environments explains why this Iraq war by a corporate-led Bush2 administration is cynically, a market expansion opportunity as much as a global stability/anti-terrorism campaign.  If Bush2 wanted us to think otherwise, they should mend their ways favoring all their major contributor$ and have included allies from the beginning. - KWC “Restoration is the business and the spirit of the twenty-first century.  Let’s now expand on the subjects mentioned in the Preface, so you’ll understand why this opening sentence is accurate, rather than wishful.  Part of that understanding will come from facts and figures, and part from grasping three key concepts:   1. The Trimodal Development Perspective  Development has three modes of operation, corresponding to natural life cycles: new development, maintenance/conservation, and restorative development.  Each category produces its own realm of players.   Communities and nations normally start with new development, for obvious reasons.  The maintenance and conservation mode then kicks in, to service the newly built environment (and to save parts of the newly threatened natural environment).  When their creations get too old to maintain, when the “highest and best” uses of their structures change, and/or when they run out of room and have to start redeveloping the land they’ve already developed, then the final, and longest-lasting, mode becomes dominant: restorative development.   When viewed from this “trimodal” perspective, the causes of many “mysterious” national and community problems suddenly become conspicuous, and strategizing becomes far simpler.  The most interesting fact for business and government strategists is this: restorative development is now the fastest growing of those three modes, and it will soon be the largest of the three realms of development.   2.  The interactivity of the Built and Natural Environments  This concept should be painfully obvious, but you’d never know it from the way we plan and run our world today.  Industries involved in new development are, by nature, generally exploitative.  They normally ignore the negative impacts of their activities, chalking them off as “the price of progress” in a manner disturbingly similar to the “justify anything” style of fundamentalist religious fanatics.  When we attempt to restore the aging products of new development, however, the importance of the interrelatedness of built and natural becomes startling clear.   For example, city planners now know that a key to restoring the quality of metropolitan life is restoring the surrounding watersheds.  Watersheds are their major source of both clean air and clean water, not to mention mental-health-enhancing green spaces and recreational areas.  (A recent poll of US public works directors revealed water supplies to be their top concern.)   Combining watershed restoration with infrastructure restoration is now a proven path to metropolitan restoration.  Add just one more element to the mix (such as heritage restoration) and a near-magical renewal often results, as businesses become attracted to the area because it’s now healthier, more efficient, and more interesting.   3. The Eight Industries of Restorative Development   Most restorative development can be divided into two sectors; restoration of the natural environment, and restoration of the build environment.  For practical applications, though, the realm of restorative development must be sliced more finely.   Here, you’ll find it divided into eight industries, four natural and four built.  The four natural environmental restoration industries address ecosystems, watersheds, fisheries, and farms.  The four built environmental restoration industries address brownfields, infrastructure, heritage, and disaster/war.   The Biggest Thing You’ve Never Seen This most vibrant new economic growth sector has been hiding in plain sight for over a decade, but has now become too large to ignore.  More than a trillion dollars worth of restorative development takes place around the world every year, but it isn’t yet perceived as an industrial sector – or as any kind of whole, for that matter.   (Actually, this trillion-dollar-plus figure I’m using is extremely conservative.  Just one of those eight restoration industries – infrastructure restoration – probably accounts for over a trillion dollars worldwide each year, all by itself.  The heritage industry probably comes close to another trillion, if one includes all of its facets: adaptive use of old buildings; historic district redevelopment; and rehabilitation of architectural treasures, old forts, monuments, ancient artifacts, classic homes, etc.  I’m purposely understating the size of the Restoration Economy to avoid accusations of exaggeration, because no one (yet) has an accurate tally [as we’ll see in Chp. 4].   When formal recognition of the realm of restorative development begins, the Restoration Economy will accelerate its already impressive rate of growth.  This heightened pace will encompass research, business, and technology.  It will also spawn numerous new professional disciplines. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>