Through methods of permaculture, we can provide much of our own food and materials on the local scale, and with greatly reduced inputs of crude oil, natural gas, artificial fertilizers and freshwater, while rebuilding the soil from carbon taken out of the atmosphere, thus acting to ameliorate climate change. A win-win situation, in any estimation, and the supplanting of despair by optimism. We seek to demonstrate the viability of these methods, in the form of a number of different development projects. Since over half the World’s population lives in cities, it seems likely that strengthening the resilience of these environments, using urban permaculture, may be a crucial strategy in achieving a measured reduction in our use of energy and other resources, rather than an abrupt collapse of civilization.