Also maybe take a look at coppices while you're on that track! Forestry management and harvesting trees while leaving mature trees around and letting new growth come up from stumps. If folks might be doing some clay/wattle construction it would be a potential source for sustainable housing materials.

I'll definitely dig into this. At first glance it looks like at this distance the easiest way to represent it would be as rows of trees with crops in between, but I'll do more research. Thanks for recommending this, I wouldn't have thought of it otherwise!

Thanks! I included bikes in the first two solarpunk photobashes I did, and definitely plan to add them to future scenes (though I'm not sure they'll show up in this one as it's a pretty distant zoom on most of the scene). I'll definitely include a long cargo bike next time, I love seeing all the different versions people use around here.

ebike + bike trailer or an cargo ebike could be a potent light cargo hauler. you can pedal, but I could build a bike with off the shelf parts with a horsepower a decent percentage of a small car without all the extra weight, before you add in your own pedal power too

I really dig these! I never really considered gondola-type cable cars for practical use outside of ski mountains, and I really like the idea! I don't know if I can make one work in this scene but if I can't, they're definitely going on my list for future photobashes! Even with whatever rough maintenance roads necessary to get to the posts, these seem like a super low-impact, and probably pretty cheap, way to cross terrain.

100% agreed with your first paragraph - I hate box stores and how they've reshaped our communities and the sort of formalization of everything that came along with them - this is harder to explain, but the endlessly-duplicated franchise chains are a part of it, this sense that a business isn't legitimate unless it's a big brand operating out of a specially-built concrete box. A lot of businesses around here were just built in houses and vise-versa until they started stamping these things down all over the place. My town still has a bunch of local places I prioritize, and I can see a solarpunk society really emphasizing local, unique places.

I've done one scene of big industry (solar furnace steel recycling) but I've got a smaller scale one in the works - a local workshop/co-op, possibly somewhere that makes custom replacement parts in small batches to keep machines going now that some of the companies that produced them are gone. I could definitely see a return to apprenticeships and trades, especially in a post-post-apocalyptic setting like this where they're trying to rebuild better. Next summer I'm going to try building a solar forge (I've got the forging tools from years back, had a super informal apprenticeship with a blacksmith when I was a kid) and we'll see if it's possible to make basic stuff short of forge welding using free heat.

You caught me at a good time for adding stuff to the village - it's still pretty much a blank spot on the map. I know I want to have a food forest/park somewhat near the middle, possibly around/shading a levada carrying water to/between water wheels. I'll have a courtyard/market somewhat near the middle, so a community garden wouldn't be out of place (though the village will have a lot of farms around it). Any flat roofs will have some garden stuff on them, and the rest will probably have solar panels or solar water heaters.

Thanks for your input!