[permaculture-oceania] New publications: YES, it's true - it's the cities that will save us

[Russ Grayson]

ALL OF A SUDDEN there's a lot of focus on cities and the sustainability of
our modern cultures. But the city as saviour? Yes it is. This is not some
abberation in thinking but a recognition, at last, that it is the city that
will drive humanity down the path to sustainability.

With next year likely to be the one in which humanity becomes a metropolitan
species, a life form with a predominately urban habitat, it surely will pay
sustainability and environmental organisations to put the bulk of their
effort, funds and education into cities and towns - into urban environments
of one sort or another. It's not that rural problems will suddenly cease,
they won't, but it will become even clearer that rural problems also have an
urban dimension.

What's so sudden is the arrival of a number of publications exploring the
habitat of Homo sapiens sapiens urbanicus. This week's issue of New
Scientist (17 June), for instance, features cover art depicting wind-powered
high rise towers standing over urban farms and is emblazoned with "Ecopolis
- last hope for the natural world".

Inside, veteran envioronment writer Fred Pearce explores the topic in his
feature "Ecopolis Now':
- how China is planning not an ecovillage but an entire ecocity - Dongtan -
which will skip traditional industrialisation and go straight to the
'ecological modernism' phase of development that includes low-rise
residential surrounded by organic farms and lakes; it will be largely
car-free and powered by renewable energy
- that compact, medium density cities make facilities such as public
transport and recycling achievable because they have sufficient population
density to support them and to make them economically viable
- that zero-emission and hydrogen powered cars might not be enough - public
transport is probably the only viable means of moving people in the
long-term.

There is also a page on how cities can feed thamselves through urban
agriculture.

Pearce's article covers the problems that cities create as well, however a
reading restores hope that the very thing that some environmentalists blame
as the problem is probably the only solution. As Pearce writes, dividing up
the countryside so that everyone has their little patch on which to grow
food simply won't happen.

Seeing the New scientist cover I was reminded of Ernest Callenbach's 1970s
novel of sustainable utopianism of similar name.

A SMALL DELUGE OF BOOKS
Pearce's article comes at the same time that three books arrive on the
shelves, all worthy reading for permaculturists and sustainability types
with their focus on urban systems and their improvement.

Gwendolyn Hallsmith's "The Key to Sustainable Cities - meeting human needs
through transforming community systems", uses the principles of systems
dynamics to demonstrate a new approach to city planning and is aimed at
local government planners, community leaders and sustainability educators.
(New society Publishers, Canada: ISBN 0-86571-499-1). It's a conceptual
book, big picture stuff.

Mike Davis' "Planet of Slums" investigates the "nightmarish production of
slums that marks the contemporary city", arguing that it is the megacities
and the 'link cities' that are developing along lines of communication
between them where the future population will predominately live. It offers
a global perspective with a focus on the developing countries in whihc
population increase will be concentrated. (2006; Verso, London. ISBN
1084467-022-8).

Brendan Gleeson, writing in "Australian Heartlands - making space for hope
in the suburbs", argues that Australia always has been an urban nation and
that it really is time to recognise our suburbs as the country's true
heartland and not look to some nostalgic but completely mythic heartland in
the country. The book investigates the health of our suburbs and the issues
we find there. 

An understanding of the suburbs is surely a prerequisite for any
sustainability activist planning to work in commuity development. Gleeson -
professor of urban policy at Griffith University in Brisbane - has written a
book that makes a good place to start. (2006, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest.
ISBN 1 74114 721 2.)

Readers probably don't have time to go through all of these books, so may I
recommend Gleeson's title on Australia's suburbs as a useful, easy to read
text on the contemporary state of life in our suburbs?

If we are to follow Bill's dictum of making careful, protracted thought
before taking action, then we need to understand life in the suburbs and the
economic, social, policy and environmental forces acting on it. This is the
way to informed action rather than running in with simplistic and
ill-informed action. We have to be equipped with more than no-dig gardens,
chooks and compost bins to interact meaningfully with the people in the
suburbs. This book gives us that extra dimension, that extra insight with
which we can temper and shape what we offer.

...................................
On another matter...
Last Update: Wednesday, June 21, 2006. 6:38am (AEST)
Londoners breathe easier in eco-oasis

A giant eco-friendly kinetic "flower" is offering Londoners an escape from
the heat and stress of city streets.

Designed by architect Laurie Chetwood, the 12-metre-high structure is called
the Oasis.

It has a wind turbine on top and branches that open and close in response to
the sun and moon and use daylight to generate power.

Inside the blooms of the flower, Mr Chetwood has made five "people pods"
that visitors pull down over their heads.

Here they can retreat from the busy streets to breathe clean, cooled air
while listening to relaxing music and birdsong - safe in the knowledge that
the Oasis is powered by recycled natural resources.

"It's somewhere to really get away from it all," Mr Chetwood said.

- Reuters


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