by Max Lindegger

"If the population of a region is weighted too far towards small villages, modern civilization can never emerge; but if the population is weighted too far towards big cities, the earth will go to ruin because the population isn’t where it needs to be, to take care of it." - Christopher Alexander et al in "A Pattern Language".

In A Pattern Language, which was published in 1977, Christopher Alexander offered a balanced view and some solutions for cities. He recognised that we should not allow the development of super-cities - he wrote about towns of 1 million. However, we have a growing number of cities with populations above 10 million. Alexander warned that cities that grew too big would be "overburdened with air pollution, strangled transportation, water shortages, housing shortages, and living densities which go beyond the realm of human reasonableness."

Bill Mollison, one of the founders of Permaculture, had much stronger views. He considered cities to be the sinks of the land - grabbing too many resources and creating a large percentage of the world’s pollution.

City Population Growth

The United Nations announced at the Habitat II conference in 1996 that, for the first time in history, 50% of the world population lived in urban areas. And the fact is that many of the people moving from their rural homes to the cities are forced to live in informal settlements or slums along the fringes.

Australia is often described as one of the world’s most urbanized countries. This is not a very accurate interpretation of what is in reality a very suburbanized community. Our cities are spread over large areas and are rarely very densely populated.

Whether one likes cities or suburbs or not, they will be with us for the foreseeable future. Cities have important and valuable contributions to make. They are the cultural centres and commercial hubs of nations. They are vulnerable not only in situations where ‘bugs’ like Y2K hit, but are potentially subject to shortages in any situation if transport, water or any other supply fails. We need to make them less vulnerable and more sustainable. We need to make them fit for human habitation.

What are the solutions?

Alexander (in a A Pattern Language) suggests ‘City Country Fingers’ which would allow farm land and urban land to interlock. This creates the advantage that food does not have to travel very far to the people in the city, and in reverse the people don’t have to go far to be in the green fields of the country.

A number of planners have over many years suggested that population densities should be increased around railway stations. They believe that this would reduce the walking distance to public transport and make train commuting more viable. It would also, it is argued, reduce the spoiling of the rural landscape by an ever increasing suburban sprawl.

Personally, I believe that zoning by-laws on one hand have to be relaxed to allow a mix of living, working and playing in the same place, while on the other hand tightened to avoid the loss of prime rural land to a suburban appendix. Rather than separating our work from our living areas, our food production areas from our kitchens, our recreation areas from our homes, we need to bring these closer together. Zoning should permit this to happen rather than prohibit it. We need to find ways to reduce the need for the daily trip by car, which is time and energy consuming, as well as being polluting. I believe that a situation where one works and plays near one’s home encourages stronger community feeling.

Ted Trainer (in Saving the Environment, UNSW Press) describes a sustainable community succinctly. He argues strongly for small, highly self-sufficient settlements and communities. These may very well be part of a larger city as we still see them in some European cities and large urban sprawls like Buenos Aires. He envisions that most of the basic goods and services would be produced from local land, resources, talent, labour and capital. Imports and exports would play a minor role. It is a theme which is supported by many writers and observers. Richard Douthwaite (author of The Growth Illusion and Short Circuit) points to the need to reassess work, the economy and a need to focus on one’s community and reduces alienation.

City Farms

City Farms are of course doing exactly that. The City Farm term is well known in the USA and the UK as it is a movement that has been operating in those countries for many years. In recent years City Farm groups have mushroomed in Australia too. This is no fad but a strong trend. People are re-discovering that growing food is not just beneficial to the environment and saves money, it can be great fun. Check the City Farm newsletter for more information and contacts. (Community Harvest Newsletter. See City Farm article.)

The Russians are growing food on roofs. The Swiss and Germans have legislated that a percentage of every roof has to be "green". The Canadians are turning it into an art form. A Brisbane suburb is looking into the viability of growing food on large roofs. There are some exciting rumours on the same theme coming out of Victoria.

World wide, neighbours are pulling down fences, expanding their gardens, growing food, sharing their lawn mowers and consolidating their children’s play areas.

The image of a city is often portrayed as one of a concrete jungle. The fact is that there are many spaces, often unused, which can be productively and creatively utilised. We may never get the chance to re-design our cities but we do have the opportunity to retrofit them into vibrant places, fit for humans to live in.

Our suburbs and inner city areas need not waste land. Positive ideas, indeed examples, are available to inspire. It just needs neighbours to start talking to each other and acting together.