COLLECTIVITY II

Prompting Election Time

Back at the city hall, election has come up. Seemingly as a surprise to everyone but the duck - with a sudden majority in the polls.

Mayor: What crisis do we tackle to run for office this year? I’m thinking: Housing! But every day my inbox fills with contradictions. Build faster. Fix prices. Ban cars. Attract investors, but end capitalism. House the unhouseable. And, decarbonize by lunch.

If I say we’re delaying construction to meet CO₂ targets, they’ll hang me from the nearest parking meter. If I say we’re cutting corners to build fast, the climate youth will camp in my compost.

The truth? Cities weren’t designed to survive this much pressure. Or this many PowerPoints.

Architect: Cities and urbanism can handle any pressure. We invented it. History has proofed, and occasionally collapsed!

Well, the problem is that we live in a contradiction: Build fast, and emissions skyrocket. Build slow, and rents do.

We’re trapped in a linear perspective with no exits. Either we suffocate the planet in precast concrete, or we politely postpone until the city evicts its own population into the suburbs of despair.

My proposal? Circularity! Adaptive reuse! Transformation! Retrofit! Prefab timber units craned onto rooftops. Housing stacked like ecological lasagna. Instant density. Minimal carbon. Tasty, eco friendly future!

Parking Lobbyist: Listen! I speak for the CIRCULAR searchers of space. The drivers. The parkers. For too long your voices have been drowned out by bike lanes, bird noises and ecological lasagna…Well, A CITY is not a fantasi forest. It is a garage of dreams!

You build fast, you erase character. You build slow, we lose momentum.

But if you build parking—You build freedom. Freedom with cupholders.

Architect: It’s pure modernism. And out of fashion.

Then again, here we all are - living it!

Tree: You paved my family. That’s not a metaphor. That’s zoning. You say “urgency”, I say you only remember the future when there’s a diet drug attached to it. Build fast, and you emit carbon and regret. Build slow, and the poor vanish into footnotes.

Either way, no one plants me. They just name streets after me. If I had a vote, I’d give it to the moss. It spreads slowly. Silently. But never forgets where the roots were. Unlike your city development agency - which i propose to cancel or reform to:

NOHH - None Only-Human Habitats.

Duck: Enough with the human metaphors. Let me explain the city. You either have too much concrete, or too many consultants. Every month, another symposium about “resilient living.” Still no wetland.

I say: give every species one vote and a nest. The problem isn’t speed. The problem is no one’s asking ducks. I’m running for office, and my platform is simple:

Immigrate away from cold seasons.

Robot: Observation: the dilemma is systemic. You cannot simultaneously optimize for speed and sustainability without turning both into jargon.

Historical precedent: Cities that built fast gave us traffic, congestion, heat islands, regret. Cities that built slow gave us protests, displacement, and seventeen types of spreadsheet.

My proposal: Pause. Reboot. Implement a carbon-rent parity index. Allocate permits via climate lottery. And yes, delete pigeons from the urban model. They are neither productive, nor biodegradable, nor, frankly, willing to participate in any policy.

Mayor: Fine. Here’s what I’ll put in the next coalition agreement on housing — assuming I survive the duck vote:

Every new Home must come with a carbon budget, a rent cap, and a window view of something green — even if it’s just a fake tree on the side of a parking garage. For the circular searchers.

All high-end developments must include at least one affordable unit per rooftop yoga terrace, and a wetland for emotional compensation.

We legalize multi-species co-housing. If you can share a flat with three strangers and a duck, you’re awarded the future of urban resilience.

There. Oh, and finally I’ll consider NOHH, if you will support my coalition?

Tree: Sure, if its rooted in existing soil.

Mayor: Of course, ‘Back to Earth’ is my new go to poster.

Now someone print it on recycled paper and call it a manifesto. Hand it out to bicyclist while playing barbie girl on a boom blaster.

I’ll be in my inbox.