The suburbs are often lined up for derision. They have too many roads, too many cars, the houses are too big, they suburbs wasteful, they are ostentatious and so forth. But suburbs are popular, and develop strong and tight communities. One school of thought seems to be that the suburbs will end up wastelands as energy prices increase to the point where they are unsustainable, an opposing viewpoint is that the suburbs can become the focal point of intellectual, food, energy and commercial production.
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Lee Malatesta : The missing element in your analysis: The cost of labor.
Most suburbs in the US (and I\'m assuming Australia) are dependent on inexpensive labor to tend the yards, do the housework, etc. Without a nearby city with less expensive, higher density housing, most suburbs would not work. I would think that if trends such as widespread suburban permaculture took off, this would be exacerbated as it takes far more labor to tend and harvest crops than it does to tend a lawn.
Not that I think this is an insurmountable problem. I\'m only bringing it up because it seems like something that ought to be addressed.
I also think you ought to be a bit more clear about the community aspect of suburbs. I don\'t think that there is any evidence that community varies according to the urban/suburban/exurban/rural distinction as community is largely a function of the desire of the people in a neighborhood to be social. As long as people desire community, communities will obtain. If you know of any objections to the ability of suburbs to grow communities, present them and explain why they do not pan out.
Lastly, I think it interesting that your description of the suburb as the future sounds remarkably like a plantation. This is not a criticism, merely a curiosity.
cam : It has been a while since I read Permaculture: the whole way through, but rather than what wikipedia suggests, the book was 98% devoted to agricultural methods. It was also aimed toward small farms for increasing production. Small farms can include suburban plots too. It was intended to be sustainable, basically chug along as a productive garden on its own and with minimum input of effort (both labor and material).
I don\'t think Mollison is intending that suburban plots outsource labor in the same way our high maintenance lawns and decorative gardens require.
Also, suburban plots are intended to be a supplement to more centralised and specialised forms of agricultural production. IIRC one of the arguments was that the average household spends 33% of their weekly budget on food. Having a productive suburban plot can take a lot of that pressure off.
I have also seen businesses that package and value-add herbs. Memory is dim, but I think it was from the south coast. Basically people grew herbs in their garden, which is a low maintenance crop, and trimmed it twice a year, selling it to the company that value added. A form of decentralised agriculture, but not a co-operative.
I am not arguing the suburbs create any better sense of community, other than to say they have strong communities. The stereotype is often that the suburbs are soulless, disconnected and cause inter-personal isolation. I do not agree with that.
It would also be interesting to see if social production (like opensource) is an urban or suburban phenomenon, or if there is no predisposition to location.
cam
adam : Inexpensive labour: Do you mean paying people (who live in the city) to mow the lawn, clean the house etc, or something more abstract? Because the former is quite rare in Australia. I\'d assumed it was pretty rare in the US too, outside TVs and movies selling a particular upper middle class lifestyle.
Australia has a deplorable history with refugees, having lost all our national conscience and compassion at the hands of the Liberal government. With water levels rising due to global warming and climate change, we are slap bang in an area that will likely be the most affected. The
Carteret Islands of PNG are already having issues including starvation and loss of arable land to a rising ocean
. It is likely the 1,400 inhabitants of the islands will become the first climate change refugees.
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Reading some of
Costello's comments
on the rule of law, independent judiciary and cabinet parliament as being "Australian Values", reminds me of
Greg Egan's pillorising this behaviour as acting like a "Professional Australian"
.
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The word "elite" gets bandied about alot but often defies definition due the nature with which it is used. One of the most insightful descriptions of the Australian elite I have seen is by
Greg Egan
. In his novel
Distress
one of his characters called the elites the "Professional Australians".
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monkeymind : Egan: I greatly enjoyed Egan\'s comment on Oz Culture. I overherd a great back up the other day on the bus home.
\"Why do I need to see the rest of the world? this is the best country on the planet\"
meika : first usage: I first heard the term \"professional australians\" in the early eighties refer to clive james, germaine greer et al
rolf harris was probably the first
lisa : waking up: Good point. Everything in life is a balancing act. That includes waking up to realities and maintaining a level of skepticism in your own peer group without succumbing to sensationalism.
