Announcing: Pando Hubs

Artwork copyright (c) 2015 Tucker Nichols. 

I usually don’t report on happenings within our Pando Populus board meetings, given that they typically focus on fairly mundane matters behind-the-scenes.  But new events are very exciting for the future of Pando Populus and for Los Angeles, and I’m eager to share.  

Recently, the board of directors voted to take the next step in creating a more ecological civilization – in line with the pope’s call for “integral ecology” and Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Kortez’s initiative DECADE: Climate Safe (2016-2025).

Beginning immediately, we will put into place the organizational structures that are needed to identify and name locations in Los Angeles County where ecological civilization is already starting to take root.

We will help them thrive by creating connective tissue of community and rich intellectual resources.

And we will work to stimulate many more such places across the southland, in collaboration with others.

Our aim is that, within a decade’s time, we won’t still be waiting for ecological civilization to happen. We will have established a vast network of specific locations throughout Los Angeles already starting to create it.

We will call them Pando Hubs. A Pando Hub is a place where life is being rethought and reworked from the ground up, with the planet in mind.

A Pando Hub might be an urban eco-village. Maybe an environmental magnet school. Maybe an urban farm. Maybe centered around a neighborhood vegan restaurant and supply chain. There are lots of possible models.

The kind of place we’ll want to name a Hub is a place that is not only doing important work, but is doing so with a new, ecological worldview in mind.

What will Los Angeles look like by 2026 with a string of Pando Hubs networked across it?

To find out, we’re going to need your help. Over the coming weeks, we will be reaching out to organizations across Los Angeles and beyond to see how we can work together to make this happen.

Stay tuned!