Break the bad news bubble (Part 2) | Angus Hervey
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It's time for our periodic update of good news from Angus Hervey, founder
of Fix the News, an independent publication that reports stories of global
progre...
Which image shows the most sustainable lifestyle? A terrace house in Fitzroy? Or an 'earthship' in New Mexico?
That urban sprawl is not sustainable seems pretty self evident – the growing sprawl of suburbs and ever growing McMansions is chewing through natural resources. In outer Melbourne, green field development is eating into remnant grass lands and red gum stands. Heating & cooling those big houses with their multiple bathrooms and lack of eaves is a problem, as is the fuelling the ever growing daily commute, as well as catering for the increasing congestion in the city.
And there’s not much in the way of alternative transport for these people because of there are so few residents over a large area, it’s difficult for outer suburban areas to support effective public transport networks.
And sprawling suburbs, bereft as they are of their own town centres, except the ubiquitous shopping malls, tend to lack community, lack identity, lack a ‘sense of place’.
So, if the endless sprawling of our cities is a social and environmental problem, then there is only one solution: higher density housing.
I think it’s funny that people who are otherwise into sustainability are always quick to have a go at “greedy developers” building apartment buildings, or townhouses in their neighbourhood. The developers who are building higher density housing may well be greedy, but they’re also helping the planet.
Perhaps it’s a NIMBY thing (not-in-my-backyard), or maybe it’s an understandable concern about an erosion, or change in neighbourhood character. And of course, there are problems attached increasing densities including increase pressure on infrastructure, noise and privacy concerns, and impact the solar access of homes surrounding new developments.
Of course there are good things about increasing density too. Neighbourhoods with higher densities can support higher levels of infrastructure, which means more choice: more schools, more doctors, more public transport, more shops (especially more specialty shops) and more cafes with decent coffee.
More units and apartments mean more mixed communities – more old people, more students and lower income residents, which is good for social diversity.
A lot of people seem to have an idea about sustainable living that it’s something like this self declared sustainable community in New Mexico. That is, being truly sustainable requires leaving the city and setting up a self-sufficient house somewhere in the desert or the bush.
Houses, aka ‘earthships’ built with recycled materials.
Of course it’s good that they’ve used recycled building materials, and they’re attempting to grow their own food. But I guarantee that they’re regularly piling into their pickup trucks to head all the way into town and buy their toothpaste, donuts and sugar and shampoo like everyone else. Hell, they’re probably commuting into town to work.
After all, many of us live in 'recycled' houses already, mine was built in about 1920, so it's embodied energy is pretty low. The only difference to the way most of us live in the city, and this community, is that our food and other supplies have less ‘food miles’, and we haven’t messed up a pristine desert ecosystem by building a house on it.
I visited the earthship site recently and was appalled the find the following comments:
From: scotty o (Tue 15 Jul 2008 04:38:17 AM EDT)
cool, we need something like this in aust (downunder)
From: GMB (Sun 20 Jul 2008 07:02:12 AM EDT)
It would be good if you could "homestead" land on either side of the desert roads in Australia for this purpose. We have heaps of this land that is going unused and is more or less useless for any other purpose.
Useless? Not being used? How many people still believe that a piece of land which filters water, and supports ecosystems and plant life which in turn reduce greenhouse gases – is useless unless we build a house on it! Makes me cranky...
So we can forget the dream of running away from the city to be green. The answer is not to turn our backs on the city, in fact it’s the opposite. We need to make our inner urban areas more city-like by increasing density.
One of the best things we can do here in our neighbourhood to help the planet is support higher density: Each extra person living here in Collingwood is one less person driving past us on Alexander Parade to their home in the outer suburbs, and producing carbon emissions all the way home.
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Thank you for your time and your concern. By the way, I´m from Colombia, South America. Most of the big cities I´ve seen in third world countries are already packed.
How are the people living in the high-density homes going to eat?
The food loop needs to be closed as close as possible, which is one that that the earthships seem to aim for.
A city of a million can fit in an area about 11 mile by 11 mile, with plenty of green space.
See the info at:
http://oilcrash.com/articles/roots_up.htm