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Sustainable Living: Some Alternate Takes

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Some residents of Slab City

Not everyone can afford to build a passive house, or do a green remodel of their home. But they may be living a more sustainable lifestyle–even if it is not their intent.
Here are two vivid examples. The first is a brief film by Time Video,  Off the Grid in Slab City–about an ad hoc community in the California desert.

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California Architect Teddy Cruz

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A flooded street in Tijuana

The second is a TED Talk by California architect Teddy Cruz. In that presentation, Cruz discusses the radical differences between the neighboring communities of Tijuana and San Diego. Although they are contiguous–and interdependent–they are divided by an international border that heightens their different cultures, economies, and regulatory systems. It raises the question of whether the far wealthier community of San Diego can remotely be sustainable–whereas the impoverished people of Tijuana are in some ways getting it right.