My Carfree City and Membership Recruitment

Thanks for the focus on this particular matter, the real point of 
Joel's work I surmise. Regarding recruitment, I don't want to 
discount the power of talking to people AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY about 
carfree PERSPECTIVES. Most people are not even aware that they have 
lost the option to walk or ride a bike ( I ride, but it takes some 
effort and much saftey preparation). One of the moderators meantioned 
their zeal in talking to others. If of the hundreds of people I've 
spoken to regarding these non-main stream perspectives, say five have 
moved closer to carfree than if I had not spoken to them, I would say 
its a success, a five fold increase if universally applied to all 
carfree proponents. 

Personally, I'm thinking of commiting to using a series of bumper 
stickers and placards on utility poles such as "NO! to the CARFREE 
OPTION", "Do you want to live in a CARFREE Area? Call BR5-xxxx", 
etc... around Austin. Anyway, I'll do what I can to get membership 
up. 

Karen Mell of Kansas City, MO's letter in the Jan '03 Carfree Times is 
what prompted me most to ask about creating a Carfree Buyers List in 
the Carfreecities group. I do hope she has been made aware of this 
group.

My Carfree start is at least a district size as a target for success 
with the capability if things work well for more carlessly connected 
districts. My streets and blocks are very mush like Joel's, as are 
others' here so far apparently. 

My own background and direction is that I'm an ex-electrical engineer, 
who hated that. I have always thought i should have been an architect 
but have recently chosen to go into urban planning, now applying for 
entry into the masters program at the University of Texas, holding an 
option open for rural fish and wildlife management as a complicated 
and far fetched mechanism to get me into Ravenna, Italy; I would be a 
transfer agent between the Po Valley Parks folks and the Texas Parks 
and Wildlife folks - the Po Valley and Delta are a minature version of 
the Texas Coastal Plains. I think a US Carfee City would be more 
probable. I'm learning GIS and AutoCAD in case the Planning thing 
doesn't happen and to help pay for the schooling and enhance my 
usefulness as a planner if it does.

My tie to Ravenna is that I could row Venetian Style through the many 
canals through Po delta waterlands because I've spent some time in 
Venice learning to row gondolas and other Venetian barche. My wife 
creates mosaics and Ravenna is known for its Byzantine mosaics; and 
its carfree center. And we are lovers of Italy, as all sane people 
are. Please save me from this impossible "Plan B", and maybe I could 
even work as a planner with the governmental entity or developer or at 
least do some GIS/CAD work. 

Paul Parma