[Pil-pc-oceania] Deb Guildner: Backyards are disappearing

[RussGrayson]

On 9/5/07, Deb Guildner <bocor at bigbutton.com.au> wrote:
'Backyards are disappearing'

Very eloquently put, Deb (see following), and as someone who lives in
Australia's largest city I sympathise with many of your comments. Also, see
the Sydney Morning Herald (this morning's edition) article that follows my
comments.

Except, that is, your finishing line: ' Cities just SUCK.' I know they can,
and here are an increasing number of occasions that I wish I could live
somewhere else than this city. I also know cities are the future of our
species with, as the UN points out, most of humanity living in urban centres
by next year. So, as urban permaculture promoters, we can't really afford
that attitude even though we certainly feel it at times. The cities, rather
than the rural areas, are the key to sustainability.

Of your city of Adelaide I have only a good impression. It' something to do
with its pace, it's mix of modernity and the old, the scale of the place -
and  especially the human scale medium density development at Christies'
Walk - and then there's those juicy, fresh figs. Pity to see the place
wrecked though poorly thought out urban planning and the mapping experiments
of public servants with too little work to occupy their day constructively.

May I comment on another statement?: 'What is happening to the great Aussie
backyard.....where is there room for the white mans sacred site, the sacred
BBQ (barbeque). No, nothing is sacred anymore.'
 
I agree that the humble BBQ is of social importance in our culture because
it encourages friendships, dialogue and a sense of conviviality. But where
are they?

Well, here at Fairlight (a small suburb adjoining Manly, at the southern tip
of Sydney's Northern Beaches strip) it is medium density all the way, just
like Manly... 1930s Art Deco three and four level apartments (like St Kilda)
and a few higher rise blocks... some duplexes... and some free standing
houses. Few with quarter acre blocks - I haven't seen one of those since
venturing out to the city's old, middle ring suburbs - once the sight of
urban decay with the ending of the 'old industries', but now the site of
rebuilding, with apartments, especially. Interestingly, the Herald just this
week reported that free standing houses are now only half the number of new
dwelling startups in this city. The rest are medium density apartments.

Oh, those BBQs - they're here, on people's apartment balconies. Every day I
walk downtown to Manly, along the harbouside walkway, I pass them, and when
I walk down on weekends there are often people around them, enjoying
whatever it is that is being cooked on their smoky hotplates and having a
hospitable beer with friends. Apartment life has not killed friendship and
conviviality.

URBAN CONSOLIDATION
For years, Sydney has had a policy of urban consolidation, and that includes
infill housing on existing urban blocks such as you describe. It also
includes the establishment of urban mini-cities around major train stations
comprising high and medium density dwellings and the economic development of
local hubs in the suburbs so as to create local employment and
decentralisation of commerce. The mini-conurbations around Chatswood,
Hurstville, Liverpool, Penrith and Parramatta are examples.

And, yes, with the infill housing here are isssues with loss of open space.
The rationale, though, is the reduction of the city's sprawl into the
countryside. That's an important consideration here because as the city
fringe spreads it covers valuable farmland, home to the market gardens that
make Sydney largely self-sufficient in vegetables and herbs and that grow
100 per cent of the city's Asian vegetables.

Given that most people are not interested, don't have time for or are
otherwise disinclined to participate in the home or community gardening of
foods, the presence of a viable market gardening industry on the city fringe
is important to the city's social, economic and food resiliency, not to
mention livelihoods and jobs (see www.sydneyfoodfairness.org.au to download
a brochure on the value of Sydney's market gardening industry). In a coming
era of peak oil, more people living closer together and close to public
transport also has some relevance.

You say: 'More alarming, in a society where kids and adults have an
increasing tendency to obesity, smaller blocks of land now contain larger
homes with almost NO front or backyards, so kids must either roam the
streets, be restricted to organised sporting activities, or just sit around
inside watching TV or sitting at a computer looking at a 2D world. What a
joyless, soulless existence for a human being. What are their parents
thinking? '

Perhaps 'joyless and soulless' is a projection of our own values onto other
people, for they mightn't find it to be that way.

You ask what parents are thinking about. If you are talking about the newer
suburbs on the city fringe, then what the parents are thinking about is
housing affordability. As for obesity, you're right again. As for the effect
of computer games on children, the evidence is inconclusive and there is
even some evidence that kids pick up skills from this activity. But you're
really talking about the opportunity for physical exercise. Where that's
organised sport, the extra Saturday traffic just adds to the congestion, but
I guess it does the kids good. And, yes, I feel a sadness that many kids
today don't experience the wandering in the bush, exploring creeks, long
bicycle rides and yahooing on poorly-trafficed streets that I had as a kid
in Brisbane. 

It's not only the newer suburbs that lack space for kids to roam in. In this
city, there's a substantial shortage of public open space in the older,
inner suburbs. If you work in or near the city then these suburbs are
desirable places to live as you can use public transport and the transit
routes are short. In some cases you might even be able to walk to work.
There's also cultural and other facilities nearby. This land shortage is
also places like Manly. I am living here because Manly has something that
the Inner West does not have - an ocean. And that's good for local kids
because Manly is a beachside surf culture urban village type of place and
kids go surfing, swimming and do other good things here.

The competition for open space is increasing in Sydney because that space
has the property of scarcity. Allocating its use is a challenge to local
government. This I have confirmed during my current project, which is
producing a policy directions document on community food gardening for an
Inner West council, and the scarcity of public open space I have found a
real issue limiting the potential for urban food production - limiting Bill
Mollison's dictum of 'returning food producion to the cities'.

I wonder if we can have the benefits of medium density living and adequate
space through clever design? And can permaculture play some role in this?
Anyone got any good ideas?

...Russ

.................................

Sydney Morning Herald... today......

Bigger homes causing a backyard blitz

Dying tradition Š Australia is losing its desire for a home among the gum
trees with backyards rapidly shrinking.

Sunanda Creagh Urban Affairs Reporter

September 6, 2007

AUSTRALIA'S backyards are shrinking at an alarming rate in a trend that
experts warn could lead to environmental degradation, more friction between
neighbours and unhealthy kids.

Research by a Griffith University professor, Tony Hall, shows that while
houses traditionally took up about 30 per cent of a block, in newer
Australian suburbs they are covering up to 70 per cent of the block.

Professor Hall said the "disturbing trend" was not happening in North
America, New Zealand or Europe.

"Whatever the size of the lot, people are extending their house to the
edge," he said. "This is a physical example of the way Australian lives are
changing: they are not about barbecues and swimming pools and the outdoor
life any more. People are not noticing the lack of outdoor space because
they are working all the time."

Professor Hall said aerial photos showed houses were more spaced out in
outer suburbs, but in newer parts of the same suburbs homes they were
crammed together.

His report examined all Australian cities and compared older and newer parts
of Mount Druitt for the Sydney example.

"I looked at old bits of Mount Druitt like Hebersham but if you look at the
latest bits you can see new ones don't have gardens or swimming pools, even
though it's a long way from central Sydney."

In the older parts of Mount Druitt, houses covered between 23 and 30 per
cent of the block, while in newer sections of the same suburb the coverage
ranged between 40 and 70 per cent.

People in these areas were building homes that maximised the value of the
property - extra rooms, extra garages, big living areas - but forgetting the
social value of outdoor amenity, he said.

"I couldn't live like this - I would go crazy. There's no view, there's
nowhere for children to play, there's air-con going all the time. You could
live your entire life without going outdoors at all."

In contrast, newer inner-city apartments focused heavily on the value of
outdoor spaces - through balconies and communal courtyards.

Professor Hall said smaller gardens meant fewer trees, which could affect
backyard ecosystems, and that privacy between neighbours was limited, which
could lead to tension.

A town planner who co-wrote the NSW Government's Metropolitan Strategy,
Patrick Fensham, said it was clear people were beginning to value indoor
time over outdoor time.

"Expectations around the size of a home have gone up. The big backyard used
to require a fair bit of maintenance and people have decided to trade off a
few things," Mr Fensham said.

"If new-release areas are planned with reasonable communal open space, then
it may not be such a problem."

Bill Randolph, an urban planning expert from the University of NSW, said
Australians should prepare for a generation of children who were not very
sporty.

"If you want to keep beating the Poms, you need the backyard to do it in,"
he said. "The whole issue of run-off and drainage is important too. If there
is very little [outdoor] space then less water soaks in and it's not good
for the soil."

..................................


On 9/5/07, Deb Guildner <bocor at bigbutton.com.au> wrote:
Backyards are disappearing:
they are being subdivided off from the front of blocks, and the only
requirement for it is having the width of a driveway down ONE side of the
block, to provide access to new homes being constructed in what were once
people's backyards.

What is happening to the great Aussie backyard.....where is there room for
the white mans sacred site, the sacred BBQ (barbeque).  No, nothing is
sacred anymore.  If you want to hold an event in some of the public open
spaces which is frequently the only choice left, guess what....in some
parks, you have to BOOK AHEAD.

The consequence of this redevelopment nightmare is that there has never been
so much concrete covering urban areas.  Rain falls there but it don't
infiltrate into the ground, and frequently it goes out to sea via stormwater
channels, and even creates local flooding in urban areas where it has never
been known..  There has never been so much cracking of homes on clay soils,
partly due to less rain and partly due to the excessive concreting over of
the ground. There have even been some really interting articles in 'New
Scientist' in recent times , regarding evidence that these artificial albedo
urban landscapes create their own extreme weather storms. Ithink Dallas or
Houston, Texas,  ws used as one example....all that glass and concrete..

It has also been pointed out that someone could make a tidy fortune by
designing and patenting modular street kerbing with small predrilled holes
drilled in to assist with groundwater infiltration. There really are
fortunes to be made by smart thinking people designing their way out of this
mess, on a large industrial scale.

More alarming, in a society where kids and adults have an increasing
tendency to obesity, smaller blocks of land now contain larger homes with
almost NO front or backyards, so kids must either roam the streets, be
restricted to organised sporting activities, or just sit around inside
watching TV or sitting at a computer looking at a 2D world. What a joyless,
soulless existence for a human being. What are their parents thinking?

In 2002 I began a GIS (Geographic Information Systems: ie
cartography/surveying/remote sensing) course at UniSA.  Before the course
even began, the relevant industry bodies and the uni co-sponsored an awards
presentation  day, where the winners etc presented their projects.  One
which stuck in my mind was by the SA State Govt planning authority, who had
cunningly plotted the entire metro area of Adelaide (using Arcview
software - Adelaide was one of the first places in the world outside the USA
to take up Arcview as a mapping demographic tool), to assess the subdivision
potential and suitability of every single block of domestic urban land.

The plot: it basically came to down to two key factors:
1)  Whether there was room for a driveway down one side of the block (with
its existing domicile) to create a legal access for a separate title to be
created - for another dwelling to be constructed at the rear, and/or
2)  whether the value of the existing dwelling was lower than the land value
(as expensive homes would preclude the economic gain to be had from
potential subdividsion income). if the existing home was old and relatively
cheap, you could just knock it down and divide the block lengthways down the
middle (from front to back) and then build two very skinny long homes along
the length of the block, each having a separate title.

Why have a backyard with fruit trees and space for kids if you can make a
quick $100,000+, especially since home and land prices have doubled in the
last 7 years?  (esp. land). Good point, seeing as the affordability of homes
is well beyond many low income families reach. very tempting way out of a
barely serviceable mortgage nightmare.

I have observed this phenomenon for a couple of decades in some of the
lovely older inner city suburbs, but now it is happening nearly everywhere.

As I walk through my favourite suburb (where I lived on and off for 25
years), I am haunted by the ghosts of the old people and their once
beautiful homes and gardens which they tended with love all their
lives.......and it makes me mad and sad, all at the same time.
Cities just SUCK.

Deb

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Leahy" < alfski at gmail.com>
To: "permacultue discussion list"
<pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
<mailto:pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org> >
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 12:13 PM
Subject: [Pil-pc-oceania] Where have all the gardens gone?


> Hi, for those who are teaching urban permaculture you may want to
> check out this recent paper from Griffith University's Urban Research
> Program.
>
> If you haven't lived in or visited modern Australian 'suburbia' you
> might be in for a shock!
> It is certainly going to provide some design challenges.
>
> 
http://www.griffith.edu.au/centre/urp/urp_publications/research_papers/URP_RP13_
Hall_ResidentialForm.pdf
<http://www.griffith.edu.au/centre/urp/urp_publications/research_papers/URP_RP13
_Hall_ResidentialForm.pdf>
>