Cities: a problematic paradigm of design

Our cities are spreading like a cancer into the regions that once sustained them. I recall as a child driving for mile after mile through productive farm land on my way to school. I never questioned where my food came from, and never expected that the huge expanse of urbanicity would one day consume all that had provided for me and my community as much as it had for those in the metropolis merely 60km away. Yet here we are. Those areas I once observed now only remain where insurance companies will refuse to cover in case of flood or fire. And it is not just the land of my childhood which has suffered a similar fate. Within sight of any of our ever expanding cities you will find the same picture. We have bought into a dream without an historical precedent, based on an inefficient allocation of scarce resources, in an era where the economic paradigm respects efficiency and intensity. It is the urban equivalent of supporting a low tech Australian consumer electronics industry, yet we defend it to the death because THIS is the great Australian dream.

Having bought into this misrepresentation of living standards, we realise something is fundamentally wrong with our present condition. Our response? rather than question the underlying design concept, we hanker for any small resemblance of the former paradigm. Enter the farmers market which now involves farmers travelling inefficiently vast distances in order to sell produce at highly inflated prices, not because their product is overpriced, but because they need to cover the ever increasing transport costs to bring their superior product to market. The alternative, growing your own produce in your ever shrinking backyard, street verge, roof top or balcony. And while this is also a move in the right direction, it ignores the fundamental flaw in the design: we have pushed our farmers away in a selfish desire to have a little (note, not a lot) more space to call our own.

With our trajectory set, the developers move in with big profits in their eyes, and a vested interest in maintaining the new status quo. Here lies a wonderful opportunity to cash in on the new bonanza of land and lifestyle, and inevitably dependence and a reduced quality of life. No, this is not a quantum leap in logic, merely a representation of the reality facing many Australian families, and perhaps families in many an industrialised country. With our patch of dirt, we bite off ever bigger pieces of economic dependence from financial institutions as our piece becomes a commodity to be traded in and upgraded, then downsized or subdivided.

With prices gradually moving beyond the reach of the average household, we sacrifice other elements of our lives in order to enter the fray, or at least, keep up with the trend. We first sacrificed our family model, and while much of the gains that were hard fought and won by the feminist movements of the 60s and 70s was rightly a fight for fairness in opportunity, it was also capitalised upon by that same developers who could see the benefit of it driving ever growing prices. But what happens when all the income a household can earn through their two or sometimes three incomes (often from two individuals or less) is still insufficient for the average house price? Enter the investor and the government handouts of negative gearing. If we want to discuss middle class welfare, one need not look any further than this. When government housing provided the safety net for renters, prices did not increase as rapidly as they have since it was wound back, and still it continued to push the affordability frontier beyond the average household. The USA provides us with a very clear demonstration of the consequences of this path, because even if we take out the effect of negative gearing, the drive to put people in suburban housing commodities eventually made it necessary for lending institutions to push the boundaries of sustainability and good business sense. Enter the sub prime time bomb.

Irony is everywhere in this model. In an attempt to continue the flawed rationale of the suburbs, we have laid the foundations of economic self destruction, design which is increasingly returning our suburbs to a false reality of space, and social fracture in the process. Sub prime loans are our evidence in the first instance, but what about the false reality of the spacious suburbs. With increasing affluence we have demanded larger homes and consumed more resources than ever before, and yet with our ever increasing wealth, why is it that our average land size in all major cities has fallen dramatically? It is yet another function of the failure of the entire suburban model. The ever increasing prices have pushed buyers out of the market, and therefore pushed developers into a volume race where each will outbid the other to maximise the return from each estate, not in terms of the price, but by reducing the size of the package they are selling, setting ever smaller average block sizes at relatively stable prices in order to continue the paradigm.

So what's next? Those who have realised they have been fooled by this false reality have sought to look further afield for REAL space. Enter the semi rural allotment. Have the space, and there certainly is space. And where can one find this space? None other than that rural urban fringe; the periphery where our sustaining food supplies once originated, or valuable conservation areas, or our open and public spaces. If we are willing to sacrifice our quality of life within the home in terms of the two full time incomes or two or more jobs per person, how much less will the collective consciousness care about such ethereal concepts as conservation or food miles, especially when we marvel at the size of our country or the effectiveness of our technology or transport. Who will subdivide further when faced with the continuing expansion of our cities into these peripheral areas? Will our new semi rural populations be as productive as our committed farmers? And if we are prepared to sacrifice this, then why not the rights of these new residents when the economic machine rolls on and discovers (or rediscovers) a more valuable resource in the same location? (Doubtless, the coal seem gas debate will continue to rage in this respect in Sydney at least!) Will we then say enough, or will it then be too late.

No, our chance is now. We need a moratorium on suburban expansion, and not just in our biggest cities, but in all our cities. Let cities be cities, and country be country. High density does not have to mean no green spaces. Country does not have to be so far away we can only access it for long weekend escapes. We have been sold the lie that we can have it all, but that is just not the case. Just as for every action in physics there is an equal and opposite reaction, so too is there a trade off in society. Often not in exactly the opposite direction, for society is too complex a beast to predict it so exactly, but the cost exists. It may be a health cost, an environmental cost, a cost in amenity, or security or in our very freedoms we hold so dear. No, our cost exists, and often it is not borne by those who create it. Does the mining magnate suffer the loss of their aesthetics when the fruits of their labour are constructed? Does the cost of the military contractor come back to the CEO or their family, or is it the price paid by the child soldier or the community destroyed by the wayward missile? This is not a conspiracy, but it is reality. It is vital that we all understand this reality so we might collectively act upon it and affect real change. Lets change the paradigm of design to reflect a more stable and equitable reality.

To be continued...

To be an Earth Keeper...

As early as I can remember I have been passionate about the planet; sometimes overtly when marching in protest of a development or logging old growth forests; sometimes just in my belief that a slower pace of life and old fashioned foods and lifestyles are not only better for you personally, but collectively. I've written passionately about conservation in university papers, been a member of several environmental groups at one time or another and even voted Australian Greens. I loved Midnight Oil, took Geography at school, then studied it again at university. Taught teenagers in high school how to be aware, take care, and share information that would create a better future than the one they inherited from their parents.

Then I forgot! I forgot to care; forgot to be an agent of change for sustainable living or social justice. I became intent on making it (whatever "it" was); of making my fortune and then living on my estate enjoying my due rewards. Seduced by the all powerful, all important dollar. Lured by the promise of a full and extravagant life of parties and travel and cars and real estate, fine wines, fine foods, classy hotels and fame.

I'm not exactly sure what the tipping point was, but 2009 was a watershed year for me. I had been teaching Business Studies and running a small business with my wife for years, and I was ready for a change; seeking a shift to the country to find myself and give my beautiful wife and boys a slower paced and more peaceful life. I thought we could live off the land and leave our lives behind. It was all about me, and even though my motives were better, they were still inward looking.

We have always had a passion for cooking, good food and wine, enjoyed the search for quality produce and farmers markets, and were looking for the perfect region for our resettlement program, all the while watching family and friends slowly accumulate more and more while having less and less time for those they loved. It finally came down to 3 things:

1. My wife and I went to the USA for a friends wedding, and while we had an amazing experience, we saw American capitalism at work first hand with its strip malls, huge fuel guzzling cars (and trucks!) food servings to feed a small village, and cities (New York in particular with it's bitter-sweet lifestyle) which had life but no ecology, and while we would love to return, were also acutely aware of what we didn't want our planet to resemble in 100 years time;
2. A good friend and colleague invited me to help her fulfill a dream of creating a school garden which we could use to encourage our students and their families to be actively involved in growing food for themselves and their families, as well as being a practical application of theories we were teaching every day. Instantly I saw it as a way of achieving my self sufficiency goals in an environment where food prices going through the stratosphere, fuel prices at historically high levels, economic uncertainty and one of the worst droughts in Australia's history;
3. Whilst researching markets for my wife to sell her hand crafted wares, we came across a kitchen garden project being run by CarriageWorks performance space in Sydney. We attended the launch in which they played the documentary "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil", among other speakers relating their experiences in their goal of achieving a more sustainable future for themselves and our wider community. At this point something inside me turned on, like a culmination of all previous learning, beliefs, experiences and goals had been leading to this point. I applied to be involved in the workshop and was selected. What I have learned since will be the point of future blogs.

Today, I write as one who treasures life, in all it's intricacies, forms and relationships. I am an environmentalist, and as such I believe that life is is intricate web of systems, both biophysical and human, and to disregard one would be to the peril of others. I am about living sustainably, so that everyone from my grandchildren through to their great grandchildren and beyond will live in a world which allows them to have a quality of life as good as our own, and not, as Ron Laura suggests, living in a way which inadvertently sacrifices our quality of life for our standard of living. I am about community and our collective responses to the challenges which face us. Through collective action we can, as Paul Hawken calls it, be a part of the earth's immune response system to ecological decay, economic disease, political corruption and social dysfunction. These are the aims and duties of an earth keeper; a steward of an earth we have borrowed from our children, rather than an earth we have inherited from our ancestors. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and hearing yours.