Haiti – a lesson about big cities

January 24, 2010

The terrible humanitarian situation in Haiti following the big earthquake is saddening beyond measure. As for so many other outsiders I’m sure, for me there is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness that even donating significant sums of money cannot alleviate.

The disaster also offers some lessons and insights about modern living, and I’m going to discuss one. Please note, however – it is not my desire in any way to take advantage of the situation to plug some of my beliefs, but rather, hopefully, to add just a little long-term perspective. (Other lessons will doubtless be learned, especially political ones, and many will be quickly forgotten as well.)

Most of what we’re read and heard and seen in the various media has centred on what’s happening in and around the capital Port-au-Prince, a city, we’re told, of 3 million souls.

It’s easy to feel anger or disgust when reading about or watching the looting and anarchy, the stampedes for food, but try to imagine a similar situation in a quake-threatened Wellington with its population of around half a million.

With the airport essentially out of action, how would planes get in with aid? With roads damaged and buildings collapsed along major thoroughfares, how would stuff be distributed? How would you get your survival food after days, even weeks, if all the shops ran dry or were destroyed? What would you drink if the water reticulation system was broken?

How long would it take before you took matters into your own hands and grabbed what you could from wherever you could find it? Desperate shortages lead to desperate actions.

We in New Zealand started to imagine the implications of such infrastructure stress when swine flu caused alarm a year or so ago. What would you need on hand within your home if you couldn’t easily get to the supermarket or the chemist? We’ve also had civil defence analysis and advice put to us to contemplate what would happen in an earthquake or tsunami struck here. We tried to think down that path, but it’s so hard to actually picture. I think it wouldn’t be much different to events in Port au Prince, perhaps just a slightly more dignified or restrained desperation J

My point is that cities of the size of Port-au-Prince, or Sydney, or Auckland simply cannot operate for their residents without the infrastructure to enable goods and services to be traded or exchanged. In all but the most primitive of lifestyles, life depends on the exchange of products and services. You have no garden? That’s OK, you simply buy food from those who do, using money you got from selling what you do have or services you offer to others in the city who don’t have what you do.

It all works as long as there are places of exchange, the means for buyers and sellers to travel to those places, accessible producers of all goods and services regarded as necessary or desirable for life (including transportation to ship in goods not produced locally), and willing buyers and sellers.

But what happens when the market infrastructure breaks down physically? If sellers cannot get goods to market, or cannot even produce the goods, and/or if buyers cannot get to market or cannot afford to pay for purchasers, then it all turns to custard. In a big city, that is.

In smaller communities, people can exchange without the need for the intermediary marketplaces, and distance and access to market is not a problem.

Four months ago I moved from a city of 400,000 people to Motueka, a town of around 10,000. Now everything I need to live comfortably and productively is within walking or cycling distance. The surrounding countryside is capable of supporting the living needs (in particular, the food) of all the residents. The water is sourced locally so, if push came to shove, I could walk to the river to fill a few pots.

If a major disaster hit Motueka, many people’s livelihoods would be severely affected, but we would mostly get by with locally grown food that is accessible via barter trades from walkable sources. We could get clean water (although a tsunami may limit that for a while if lots of seawater got in). With a town built of discrete houses rather that built in top of and hard up against each other, it would be relatively easy to gather enough materials to built adequate temporary shelters.

Sure, there are some nice things that are not readily available in this town, such as big-box retail outlets, concerts by overseas entertainers, tertiary learning institutions, and a full range of eateries (though we do pretty well here on these). For these we do need to drive to Nelson, the nearest city, or Wellington or Christchurch. But most of us know that these consumer items are elective add-ons, not necessities of life.

I wrote about the reasons I moved to Motueka here. Those reasons are based on concepts of community, physical size, and healthy sustainability. The news of yet another humanitarian tragedy in Port-au-Prince, which has been made far worse than many other earthquakes because it was centred near a large, populous, overcrowded and already-stressed city, reinforces for me the unsustainable nature of living cheek-by-jowl in large cities.

I’m not saying that therefore all large cities should be broken up and the population moved to smaller towns and communities, but by encouraging the growth of larger cities – by centralising markets in order to build further material wealth – we are making ever bigger problems for ourselves into the future (as well as enlarging the potential for natural disasters to lead to greater humanitarian tragedies).

I may be wrong but . . . . I believe we should stop fostering ever-larger cities and population centres by encouraging decentralised economies, and by de-emphasising market-driven consumer economics.

12 Comments | Community living, Environment | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

New life within a sustainable community – my move to Motueka

October 6, 2009

This blog site has been on idle for a few weeks because we’ve moved house and town and there have been more pressing domestic tasks to attend to than typing out my rambling thoughts. But I’m taking time out to mark the relocation from city to town with some early impressions about life in smaller communities.

I’ve lived for several decades in Christchurch (population about 400,000) but have now moved to Motueka (pop said to be around 7000). Apart from the obvious attractions of a milder and softer climate, a more vibrant, greener landscape, proximity to the sea, and the ability to walk or bike safely to most local destinations, plus the desire to pre-retire in a more laid-back setting, it was the philosophy of community that led my wife and me here.

I may be wrong but …… as Western society’s blinkered march to an unsustainable future – in both economic and environmental terms – steadily becomes the reality this country faces, I have become more convinced than ever that the only sensible answer is living within communities.

I don’t mean communes or small, isolated groups of dropouts.  I mean communities which are:

  • large enough to provide all the basics for a good standard of living and entertainment and a productive future for coming generations,
  • but small enough for its participants to be able to exist without dependency on large amounts of resources outside the community,
  • and small enough for the whole of the area to be available and reachable by members without the absolute need for cars (or gumboots),
  • and (crucially important to me) small enough that willing individuals can make a difference to the well-being of the whole community, rather than being just a tiny tadpole in a vast lake.

So with this idea at the back of our mind, my wife and I chose Motueka as our new home. Wonderful climate and environment, friendly people and, crucially, everything we’ll really need within a few square kilometres, to share with the other 6998 residents.

The fourth factor in the list – being able to make a real difference – was reinforced to me a few days ago when exploring some of the parks and walking areas of our new home town. We came upon a wetland park near the estuary, a lovely tranquil setting with pukekos, ducks and tuis enjoying natural-looking ponds and large native trees.

A visitor information board within the park told of its history – how it remained a swamp while the town grew, but a resident named Mr Bensemann (doubtless with a bit of money, but more importantly with a generous community spirit) gradually reclaimed and fashioned it, planted it out, and left it for public use (along with some adjacent sports fields).

And I considered how this is made possible within a town this size, and how such gestures make thriving communities what they are. Within real communities, people value other people’s contributions.

In Christchurch there are some much appreciated reserve areas gifted for public use by early owners, but the bulk of the amenities that I used and was aware of were council owned and maintained; nice but anonymous. They were small parts of the city, which some residents knew about but most never frequented. When a community gets to that size (I suggest perhaps bigger than about 50,000 people) then much of what is contributed by members is lost in the urban spread and the busy commerce that makes up city living.

This verbal ramble is not meant to belittle cities and the work of people who live within them. I did my best while I was a city dweller for all those years, but I doubt that many people noticed or benefited. It will be interesting to see if living in a smaller integrated community will provide more ultimate satisfaction and worthwhile participation. At least it should provide a more sustainable way of life.

4 Comments | Community living | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong