I do climate organizing, I’m on a climate commission with my city, and I work as an engineer. I will say that everything engineers hate about “waterfall” devel

I do climate organizing, I’m on a climate commission with my city, and I work as an engineer. I will say that everything engineers hate about “waterfall” development, local communities hate about technocratic top-down solutions raining down to “help them”. I see a lot of comments here saying we need to fix the energy system, make distribution more reliable, add solar and DC air conditioning to houses. These solutions are valid and can do wonderful things for people in the right situations. We need to be conscious of the communities we’re serving when we make these proposals. I worked with my city on a microgrid proposal last year for a low income part of the city. The project proposed solar, storage, rain water harvesting, and multimodal transportation, low cost reliable electricity. When I talked to members of the community where the project would go in they were totally against it. They told me that whenever the city plans projects like that, developers swarm in, buy up properties in the neighborhood, on the anticipation that the property values will go up, and raise rents, causing residents to need to leave. The value of engaging communities and finding their solutions is that you build understanding of their needs. You also learn what they are already doing, which might be cheaper, more scalable, or more responsive than technical solutions by themselves.