poverty

Review of the Second Feasta Review by James Robertson

from James Robertson’s December 2004 newsletter.

This fine collection of high-quality items (207 double-column pages), edited by Richard Douthwaite and John Jopling, and published in November 2004 by the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability in Dublin, is something special. […] It can be read online at www.feasta.org/documents/review2/index.htm.

On that page, there’s also an option to order it for £9.95 from Green Books.

Unlike Feasta Review No.1 (2001), this one has a title – “GROWTH: THE CELTIC CANCER: Why the global economy damages our health and society”. But potential readers should not be misled into supposing the Review …

Response to ‘Sustainable Rural Housing; Consultation Draft of Guidelines for Planning Authorities’

May 2004

This submission critiques the current Irish Rural Housing Guidelines, arguing that their formation lacked proper participation and consultation; they are based on insufficient information; they over-emphasise dispersed housing to the detriment of other types of housing, in particular that of small settlements and villages; they fail to acknowledge important environmental and social factors such as peak oil and the fact that dispersed housing is more likely to be built and inhabited by the relatively well-off; and they introduce a discriminatory planning system based on the provenance and circumstances of the applicant. It suggests that a Rural Housing Commission …