The Planning Lady

Stocks are basically anything that can be measured or counted, such as a fleet of buses or a pond. An example of an important stock in the world is the level of CO2 in the atmosphere which is steading filling at an ever increasing rate.

In Chapter 2 of Elizabeth Sawin’s book Multisolving, she introduces readers to this topic and ends with a series of questions to reflect on the concept.

First she asks readers to identify as many stocks as possible and their attributes from a walk around the neighborhood. Some long lived stocks in my neighborhood are the established tree canopy, the older homes, the sidewalk network, and the playgrounds. The quickly turning over stocks are the residents out walking, the snow that just fell this week, the leaves in the trees, and the traffic driving by. Most of these are connected, including the trees that are heaving up some of the sidewalks, the sidewalks that connect to the homes and playgrounds, the cars that drive to the houses, and the snow covering all of it. None of the stocks are causing any major problems for the neighborhood regularly, although at times they do. The summer wind storm caused many of the trees to drop large branches or uproot altogether causing damage to several houses.

The world looks different when you view it as a collection of interconnected stocks (or ponds when using the book reference). Viewed in a silo, the solution to traffic is widening the road to accommodate more cars. But viewing it as interconnected stocks reveals negative impacts of that solution. Widening the road means less yard space for the houses and businesses along it, less impervious surface for water to infiltrate into the ground, and encouraging more driving which increases CO2 emissions and reduces safety for non-vehicle travel.

Stocks that I am building right now include my ever expanding garden, growing blog and podcast, expanding knowledge from reading books like Multisolving for the show, and at work, a growing stock of affordable housing with our permanent supportive housing project under construction. One stocks that I would like to be building is more relationships in my professional network to improve my work output.