Madison Sustainability Guide

Capitalism and sustainability are incongruent concepts. The former is based on infinite growth through resource consumption, while the latter on human systems being in balance with the finite capacities of our earth. For many years, the narrative around sustainability was focused on individual choice. Thankfully there has been a shift toward recognizing the structures in place that limit our agency to affect change for a sustainable future. Thanks to the work of environmental activists and scholars, most people today understand that auto, energy, and tech companies bear most of the responsibility, rather than individuals choosing which car to drive, or where to spend their money. With income inequality at an all-time high, the economic situation of most prevents us from even making meaningful choices in this realm. This shift in consciousness often manifests in feelings of powerlessness. Indeed, if there are overbearing structural forces minimizing our individual agency, it is easy and perhaps even logical to conclude “what’s the point in doing anything?” or “what can I even do”?

To reclaim our agency in sustainability we must first identify gaps in the structures. The coronavirus pandemic has rekindled a desire for sustainability that is beginning to bubble beneath the surface in the form of community gardens, free markets, cooperative living and working, mutual aid and solidarity networks, public transportation, and biking infrastructure. These community economies, counter to the hegemonic capitalist economy, are already functioning here in Madison and are at the core of what a sustainable future will look like. As we continue to see the simultaneous collapse of economic, political, and ecological systems, we must foster existing community economies and build new resilient ones for the future.

Thus, the goal of this project was to summarize the existing sustainability networks and community economies in Madison. I did this by creating a paper pamphlet that identifies neighborhoods in the city where it is easiest to live sustainably and summarizes relevant locations for community economies in a poster-sized map intended to be hung on the wall. Currently all this information exists online on different city websites and data hubs. To my knowledge, this data has never been compiled in this way. It hasn’t been brought offline into a pamphlet to serve as a guide to these resources and to invite people to think about how to build new ones.