vision of how twenty-first-century urban spaces should look, and he’d begun dabbling in Siler City, pressing the town to provide tax incentives to attract artists and small businesses. Leah and I wandered through this revitalizing space and talked enthusiastically about it on the drive back to the 12 × 12. She dropped me off there as the sun was setting, saying she had an outof-town trip planned the next week but hoped to visit again. I told her she was more than welcome.
I BUMPED INTO BRADLEY A COUPLE DAYS LATER , while hiking near the spot where No Name Creek meets Old Highway 117 South.A pickup pulled over and a bearded man got out and shouted over to me.
A little startled, I began heading back into the woods along the path, and he continued after me. I spun around, calling to him from a distance: “Can I help you with something?”
“I own this land,” he said. “Can I help you with something?”
“ Bradley ?” I said.
He nodded, approaching me. He was nothing like I pictured. He had a shaved head, smoky beard, and red baseball cap, much too big for his head, that read “Libertarian Party.” His body was tight, sinewy.
I explained I was living at Jackie’s and he nodded, saying he was busy and only had a moment. He talked about how he allowed eleven-year-olds into his permaculture courses at the community college, saying, “If people want to learn sustainable living, why should the government tell us how old they have to be?” Then he extended his tiny hand, passed me a business card (“Environmental Solutions, Inc., Bradley Jamison, President”), and he was gone.
Bradley was so busy, evidently, because his Siler City idea was evolving into something bigger. Along with encouraging eco-development in rural areas like Jackie’s, he wanted to roll into towns. His most ambitious plan was to buy up a massive tract of land abutting Siler City’s shell of a downtown. There he would develop an ecological community using permaculture principles — dense concentration of family houses surrounded by a large, thriving green space — but with a difference. Bradley would cluster the human settlements right around Siler City’s dying downtown and thereby revitalize its businesses through ecologically inclined residents wanting to shop locally.
A related development trend was then going on in North Carolina’s Research Triangle: Southern Village outside of Chapel Hill. I’d been there once, before coming to the 12 × 12. It’s a massive village— 550 single-family homes, 3’5 townhomes and condominiums, and 250 apartments — but none of it seemed like Levittown suburban monotony. The designers had created a beautiful town plaza: an organic co-op grocery, clothing stores, bookstores, and jewelry shops ringed it and seemed to thrive. Though it has the positive effect of allowing folks to feel more community and walk and bike everywhere, there are big drawbacks. Southern Village has no expansive green spaces to speak of, just the thousand dwellings. It also duplicates Chapel Hill’s downtown, thereby actually putting a bit of a strain on its economy by creating two competing centers. And it’s very expensive. Very little affordable housing was included in the design, so Southern Village is populated with mostly white and Asian professionals, employees of the hospital and university. A little too lovely, too planned, Southern Village lacks the authenticity, charm, history, and spontaneity of an old tobacco town like Siler City.
Bradley’s dream wasn’t to create a Southern Village from scratch, but rather to adapt and reshape what already existed, so that people could feel the nurturing cycle of personal authenticity, robust community, and connection with nature. Residents of Bradley’s eco—Siler City, once it was completed, could grow their own food organically, exchange it in farmers markets, create and sell art in the new galleries as part of the growing tourism economy, and perform any number of
I BUMPED INTO BRADLEY A COUPLE DAYS LATER , while hiking near the spot where No Name Creek meets Old Highway 117 South.A pickup pulled over and a bearded man got out and shouted over to me.
A little startled, I began heading back into the woods along the path, and he continued after me. I spun around, calling to him from a distance: “Can I help you with something?”
“I own this land,” he said. “Can I help you with something?”
“ Bradley ?” I said.
He nodded, approaching me. He was nothing like I pictured. He had a shaved head, smoky beard, and red baseball cap, much too big for his head, that read “Libertarian Party.” His body was tight, sinewy.
I explained I was living at Jackie’s and he nodded, saying he was busy and only had a moment. He talked about how he allowed eleven-year-olds into his permaculture courses at the community college, saying, “If people want to learn sustainable living, why should the government tell us how old they have to be?” Then he extended his tiny hand, passed me a business card (“Environmental Solutions, Inc., Bradley Jamison, President”), and he was gone.
Bradley was so busy, evidently, because his Siler City idea was evolving into something bigger. Along with encouraging eco-development in rural areas like Jackie’s, he wanted to roll into towns. His most ambitious plan was to buy up a massive tract of land abutting Siler City’s shell of a downtown. There he would develop an ecological community using permaculture principles — dense concentration of family houses surrounded by a large, thriving green space — but with a difference. Bradley would cluster the human settlements right around Siler City’s dying downtown and thereby revitalize its businesses through ecologically inclined residents wanting to shop locally.
A related development trend was then going on in North Carolina’s Research Triangle: Southern Village outside of Chapel Hill. I’d been there once, before coming to the 12 × 12. It’s a massive village— 550 single-family homes, 3’5 townhomes and condominiums, and 250 apartments — but none of it seemed like Levittown suburban monotony. The designers had created a beautiful town plaza: an organic co-op grocery, clothing stores, bookstores, and jewelry shops ringed it and seemed to thrive. Though it has the positive effect of allowing folks to feel more community and walk and bike everywhere, there are big drawbacks. Southern Village has no expansive green spaces to speak of, just the thousand dwellings. It also duplicates Chapel Hill’s downtown, thereby actually putting a bit of a strain on its economy by creating two competing centers. And it’s very expensive. Very little affordable housing was included in the design, so Southern Village is populated with mostly white and Asian professionals, employees of the hospital and university. A little too lovely, too planned, Southern Village lacks the authenticity, charm, history, and spontaneity of an old tobacco town like Siler City.
Bradley’s dream wasn’t to create a Southern Village from scratch, but rather to adapt and reshape what already existed, so that people could feel the nurturing cycle of personal authenticity, robust community, and connection with nature. Residents of Bradley’s eco—Siler City, once it was completed, could grow their own food organically, exchange it in farmers markets, create and sell art in the new galleries as part of the growing tourism economy, and perform any number of
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