eco dreams

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about our next car. Not that the Corolla is giving us any problems. I'm expecting it to take us to 2015. (This is very much like I fantasize about my next cell-phone. This will off course be some variety of smartphone, maybe something like this model.) Of course, one would expect hovercars to available by then. However, I'll settle for a more practical version of this car. I might even go back to buying Fords if they actually come out with a model like this.


All they have to do is lose the lame@$$ "reverse butterfly" doors and maybe add some of these new nanotech solar cells to the roof.

Of course, since our friends Mara and Doug are moving into co-housing, it has reinvigorated my imagination. I just thought that it would be really cool, instead of building a co-housing development out on a piece of land outside of town, why not build an apartment building right in the middle of a low-rent neighborhood (read, gentrification). In my imagination on the first two floors there would be parking garages, storage units, and a store front. The store front operator would get subsidized housing in the building, and the co-housing association would own a piece of property outside of the city where tenant farmers would receive subsidized housing in return for working the land and operating a CSA. The CSA could sell fresh produce out of the coffee shop/whatever store on the first floor. On the next floors would be common areas such as a laundry room, theater room, cafeteria and kitchen, work-out room, nursery or day care center, etc... Then, on top of this would be apartments which would use the used shower water to flush toilets. The whole building would be made out of energy-efficient or recycled materials. It would have energy efficient features throughout. On the roof, there would be a community garden and whatever rainwater wasn't collected in the green roof would also be used to flush toilets (especially on the top floor). There would be solar water heating on the top floor as well. Possibly there could be a wind farm and even solar cells for electricity. There would be a few outdoor spaces for hybrid electric plug-in vehicles with solar panels. These would be community cars. Okay, I'm done fantasizing, back to work.