Sometimes you need to look no further than your own backyard to find inspiration. I live in Marin County, north of San Francisco. Next door to our town is Fairfax, California. Last night I got together with Fairfax's mayor, Larry Bragman, and a few others from that town of about 8,000.
We talked about Fairfax's significant sustainability factors: it's one of the few towns with no permitting fee for solar installations; it helped ban herbicide use on its neighboring watershed a few years back; and its 30 or so vibrant local businesses are almost all locally owned or operated--no chains in town that I know of.
People are so attached to their local shops that when a devastating flood ripped through this valley north of Mt. Tamalpais on December 31, 2005, citizens put together a massive fundraiser with local musicians, food and drink (there's a great local brewpub, Iron Springs Brewery) to help keep impacted businesses flourishing.
Fairfax also is home to two heavily solar-powered public schools, White Hill Middle School and Manor Elementary School, the latter which has a nationally awarded Green Team 4th grade teacher, Laura Honda.
In transportation, Fairfax was the partial birthplace of the mountain bicycle during the 1970s (co-inventors Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze still live here); it has a massive bike-to-school and walk-to-school contingent that was co-sponsored by a local volunteer group of parents called "An Inconvenient Group," and has more plans for being a national model for transportation by bicycle and foot, through the national Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program.
The town has a wonderful farmers market that features locally grown produce from within the county and state, and it has one of the nation's best food markets, featuring mostly organic and sustainably produced food, called The Good Earth. The Good Earth also prepares and provides organic and locally grown food for a number of the county's school lunch programs.
If you're good, you'll get organic and locally made ice cream from The Scoop for desert, which features locally grown blackberries and strawberries mixed with organic milk from free-ranging Straus dairy herds in West Marin.
Fairfax knows how to be green and have a good time, with four clubs supporting live music every night of the week, and parades galore. This Saturday will be the Little League Opening Day parade, where the younguns from West Marin Little League walk--or skip--down main street in their uniforms, and then in summer comes the human-powered parade.
The townsfolk have put up signs recognizing local steelhead trout populations in their streams and have replanted native plants around the schools and baseball field.
Paradise? Take a look in your own backyard or alley and see what you can dream up to make your community healthier, more sustainable and worth living in.
Thank you for featuring Fairfax on your blog!
Linda Kelly
Town Manager
Town of Fairfax, Ca
www.townmanager.blogspot.com
Posted by: Linda Kelly | March 23, 2007 at 12:01 PM
Shhh! Don't tell everyone! They'll all want to move here...
Posted by: Jory | March 26, 2007 at 08:48 AM
Also check out Earthsite.net, high tech meets sustainability in downtown Fairfax!
Come check out our offices at 11 Bolinas, Suite B.
~Joey Shepp
Earthsite.net Principal
Posted by: Joey Shepp | April 09, 2007 at 06:05 PM
and we have Sustainable Fairfax too!
Check out our website at www.sustainablefairfax.org
Posted by: Stacie Wickham | April 09, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Yeah, right. Our quaint little town has about 60,000 cars go through it every damn day. Our largest business property (used to be Albertson's)has been lying vacant for over a year now. It's cheaper for me to drive to work than take the bus (which barely ever comes, btw.) We have drunk drivers tearing through the narrow residential streets every night while the on duty cops are usually found snacking and napping at home (I caught two cop cars exiting a 2-car home garage at 1:00 am the other night; they skulked away without even glancing up at me, let alone waving or nodding in my direction. Guilty behavior if I've ever seen it!) -- sometimes, they might go push around the teenagers that hang out at a parking lot because there's no other suitable public space for them. The roads are terrible, the few pedestrians that are out there are rude or drug-addled. Honestly, everyone drives everywhere. Going to the post office, maybe 3% are on foot. If that. I see maybe one pedestrian every time I walk to the grocery store, which is about 3/4 of a mile away. the mail comes late, and there are no street lights on some of the most dangerous corners in the neighborhood. Not to mention there not being a frickin' recycling center anywhere at all in our supposed green town. It's all a joke. These rich idiots have more in common with Orange County Republicans than with me.PATHETIC. Sorry excuses for hippies, I swear!
Posted by: seth | May 11, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Anyways i like it.;..
Posted by: Juno888 | July 09, 2007 at 10:30 PM
It's true. It's a great town, I am blessed to live somewhere so pretty. But god, these people think they are so green. They need a wake up call, it's time to step up to the plate and stop driving everywhere. It's funny what seth said about the cops and the parking lot. Most people take advantage of our towns great location and resource. I walk everywhere, catch me in town someday.
Posted by: Andrew K | February 13, 2008 at 09:07 PM
It's cheaper for me to drive to work than take the bus (which barely ever comes, btw.
Posted by: generic viagra | March 24, 2010 at 12:04 PM
Hey this is really great town... Now I'm planning to migrate here.... :-)
thanks for sharing it.
James, NY
Posted by: generic viagra | June 15, 2010 at 11:34 PM
Hi thanks for this excellent blog
very interesting, good information
Posted by: Round and Brown | June 26, 2010 at 06:17 AM
See what Abundance is; love yourself for what it is, not what you’re missing, or what that can be better, but for what it is at this present moment.
Posted by: coach purses | July 08, 2010 at 12:54 AM
Our students love the digital tools but don't necessarily know how to manipulate them or push them out of their social lives and into their school or work lives.
Posted by: guanacaste costa rica | July 17, 2010 at 04:25 PM
Even though we are choosing one big destination marathon, many of us are already making plans to strike out on our own, so you can probably find a half-crazy friend if you get a hankering to go somewhere. The combination of pictures and expressive content is really expressive.A very nice blog.Keep the good work on...!
Posted by: viagra online | August 19, 2010 at 10:45 AM
Environmental point of view and social friendly help - two of the most important things to have in a small city like Fairfax California.
Posted by: movers in California | August 22, 2010 at 06:08 AM
this is awesome, because this town is very united and that's awesome because in disasters like flood or something else, they support each other
Posted by: temporary internet miami | April 30, 2011 at 05:11 PM
It is indeed such a great town, my folks live there, I always love to go and visit them.
Posted by: 4rx | October 12, 2011 at 01:29 PM