This weekend marks the fifth birthday of Vox Civitatis , the New Colonist's blog, and this summer will see the tenth anniversary of the New.... This weekend marks the fifth birthday of Vox Civitatis, the New Colonist's blog, and this summer will see the tenth anniversary of the New Colonist itself.

In that time, we have seen Global Warming finally recognized by all but a few fringe groups as real, and as a real threat to our culture, our species, and the planet itself. We have seen the US population devote itself to revivifying its cities, its countryside, and its transit systems, despite monolithic opposition from a delusional Federal government for eight years, and we have seen the first unpologetic urbanite elected president to replace the cavemen.

We have seen an economy premised on unsustainable concepts of eternal growth and infinite debt come crashing down, bringing with it some (but by no means all) of the most formidable terrorists the world has seen, men (mostly men) who are willing to hold an entire world hostage to their personal desire for wealth and lord-like power over the rest of us.

Now we face the necessity of building a new, gentler, and more equitable economy, one that allows the Earth to breathe, and every man and woman to earn a living according to the worth of their work, and not the subtlety of their manipulations; one in which satisfaction derives from creative labor and the love of our fellows, and not from mindless display, compulsive acquisition, and the crude bullying of those we have deemed "below" us.

Cities--the generators of wealth in every living culture--bring us together where we can meet, if we wish, with others both alike and unlike ourselves, where we can explore new avenues of expression and invention, where we have the resources ever at hand to make a business or a family or a life among friends, and where we can live efficiently, without burdening the strength of the Earth that nurtures us nor our own limited hours on that Earth. In cities, we find places where transit and proximity free us, and our planet, from enslavement to the car, and where the square, the coffeehouse, the corner bar, and even the seat on the tram present us with opportunities for heart and hand every day.

It is the City we hail, and the People who make it up that we serve, here at The New Colonist.

Onward!