THE LAND INSTITUTE: PINK, TO GREEN, TO WHITE COLLAR TRANSFORMATIONS OF CULTURE, ECONOMY, AGRICULTURE, AND ECOLOGY.
We are pleased to present this proposal to design, organize, and implement a unique program that rallies a number of necessary forces at a time of economic restructuring. The current ‘collapse’ of the American-and partially world-economy has been caused by many factors and practices. At the beginning of the 21st century we see a number of elements that can be restructured to make the most of a quick recovery and forge a society that reflects the dynamics and values of a larger ‘global’ economy’.
Much of the current crisis has been based on a crisis of trust: an erosion of trust in a type of pyramidal trust in our national financial markets has been foremost. The motivations and the assessment of millions of loans made for easy housing credit has led to a massive defaulting of the system and has, therefore, affected the employment market and many other sectors of the economy. Many ‘bad loans’ were made to people who thought that homeownership was something that would elude them and their families within their ‘pink collar’-earning earning bracket. While artificial forces continued to drive up housing prices (so the wages would be supplemented with the increased value of the property thus creating a type of ever faster merry-go-round) loans-about-to-default were aggregated and then traded by individual financiers making commissions on the sales of these aggregations. The system…the ‘algorithms’ last as long as the housing prices at the fringe of the city keep going up. Yet, as we learn in second grade science, what goes up must come down. How and why did this happen on such a scale? We found that pink-collar worker were living within nuclear family and not maintaining home ownership because they were living beyond their means. We found that financial agents…from bankers to consolidators…rewarded for the short-term commissions and not the long-term economic effects of selling ‘bad loans’. We find that the very probing and questioning of the system-to provide commodity housing at a further concentric ring district from major urban cores (suburbanization) –leads us to our current mission statement. We a seek to realign the human and economic factors that erodes not only the fragile and ambiguous ‘belt’ that surrounds most cities of the world. We will attempt to align the elements. We have grouped the elements for funding in two necessary ‘sets’ of algorithms. One is for the context we are designing within a rural setting. The other are for suggested ‘algorithms’ of the individual entering into this particular context.
Land, Agriculture, and Sustainability:
We are seeking loans, business incubation grants, and institutional and infrastructure grants to forge a new type of small, ‘learning’ farm. This farm…as an institution and test case…will respond to the high utility of nutritious food delivered to local markets. The sustainable business practices will train a new generation of educated ‘green collar’ participants in land management, food and nutrition, and sustainable practices.
Context: a select farm chosen for its capacity for multiple housing of students, collective machinery use, sustainable housing and consuming practices and design, and facilitate with a high speed internet delivery of immersive classrooms, CAD stations, and other distance and personal education that bring the libraries and teachers to the site in types of ‘classrooms of the future’. This will be done with a residency of a minimum of three months to a maximum of two years. The site wills careful chose the successive semesters of student/workers for a social dynamic enhancing collective work and study. The ‘farm’ will offer a graduate degree in either a MBA in sustainable economics or a Masters of Social Work. The institute will work very closely with job placement firms for direct placement of graduates. The technological advance of telematics makes this possible. The linkage with other global institutes makes this system very dynamic.
Agent: young, out of college, out of high school, willing to work with mind and muscle. Back to work training for pink-collar worker. The ‘algorim’ desired but not exclusive should be the ‘unattached’ agent who is willing to work long hours at both study and farming and look to the other students for social cohesion for the given time. Sister sites would be established world wide for continued work. The ‘algorithm’ of the traditional nuclear family is something that the agent must ‘push back’ or extend into their later lives if at all considered.
The Pink Collar service economy:
Context: they must be ‘at risk’ yet willing to reintegrate into a system of higher utility. Agents with a loss of home are desired yet they must have a desire to work and retrain into a system of ‘green collar’ economics. They are the minimum wage earners at Wal-Mart where home ownership and even rent is a challenge. They must be willing to learn new telematic skills for a partial entry into the ‘creative class’.
Agent: at risk economically.
Other elements and agents:
The recent college graduate:
Context:
The recent high school graduate:
Telematic Omnipresence:
Urban Rural Dynamics:
Lifestyle ‘Algorithms’:
The Global Blue Collar:
The Green Collar and the Creative Class:
Distance Collaborations and New Americans:
