Four-Story Limit
In any urban area, no matter how dense, keep the majority of buildings four stories high or less. It is possible that certain buildings should exceed this limit, but they should never be buildings for human habitation.
You may think it’s crazy, but Alexander’s reasoning is just the opposite, being that living high up makes us crazy:
The higher people live off the ground, the more likely are they to suffer mental illness.
Alexander believes this is because living high up creates such a barrier from the world and interactions. If you live high up, it requires more effort and you need a task in order to leave your building. Living high up isolates you. And children:
Only 2% of the children aged two to three years in the high point blocks play on their own out of doors, while 27% of the children in the low blocks do this. Among the children aged five years in the high point blocks 29% do not as yet play on their own out of doors, while in the low blocks all the children aged five do so.
It reminds me of socializing dogs when they are puppies. Typically, city dogs are pretty chill, because they’ve grown up sniffing other butts all the time. A suburban or rural dog, however, is much more likely to protect their property from other dogs. So, in human terms, you raise this kid with significantly less interaction with other kids, and of course it’s going to grow up with less social ability. And perhaps stick to staring at its smart phone all the time. Even when it shouldn’t. Even when it should be sniffing other butts.
Brain Dump on Beneficial Marketing
Is there a place for a marketing agency that promotes only truly net-positive goods and services? And not just promotion with the goal of increasing sales, but with the goal of bettering our world. Obviously this flies in the face of capitalism and the need for profit, but I think there are plenty of business owners who would agree with that sentiment, and who believe their products do such a thing.
I’m thinking things like Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket“. One of the premises behind Patagonia’s values is that its goods are built to last, and that due to their quality you don’t need to replace them as often which means less waste. For “Cyber Monday,” Patagonia said don’t buy things. This worked for them because no one else had this message.
This hypothetical agency would have a high bar for clients. Being a client of the agency would be as much as a certification as being a ‘B-corporation‘. The agency would only use the most efficient means of advertising. Maybe some of the resources would be used to attack greenwashing, exposing other companies ‘Yes Men‘-style.
This type of marketing would usually be called activism. But if it participates within the system and remains profitable, it could be another gear in the progress machine.