For twenty-some years I lived in Crawley in south-east England.
For twenty-some years I lived in Crawley in south-east England. It is one of several areas expanded by the UK Government to resettle inhabitants of London, many of whom were bombed out during the Second World War. The feeder town for London's 3249 Gatwick Airport, Crawley is not a place of great or immediate beauty. Much of the architecture is tediously uniform but the 'original' Crawley gave many residents their first taste of such modern take-for-granteds as indoor plumbing, central heating and space.
A tour of those parts built in the 1950s and 60s is enlightening. It is a lesson in what centralised planning can get right. The housing, though utilitarian, is built to last and arranged logically to reduce segregation. Larger family homes were intermingled with smaller dwellings - apartments for the younger generation, ground-level dwellings for the older and infirm. Green areas break up the bricks and mortar. Each of the original neighbourhoods has a parade of shops and what was once a mix of the essentials: a post office, a grocery store, hardware store, Laundromat and so on. Usually, there is a pub at one end and, often, a church for the (un)repentant at the other. In short, a concerted effort was made to create nuclear communities. Significantly, you have to be on foot to see just how considered an approach was taken in the days before mass car ownership.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and the wheels begin to come off. In 1987, construction began of Maidenbower, Crawley's latest neighbourhood. Maidenbower sprawls; it has one small, rather desultory parade of shops; its high school didn't open until 2004. It forces dependency on the car and is a good example of how planning when left to the private sector doesn't always give us what we need.
Skip across The Pond, to the US, and we have a new buzz-phrase: Liveable Communities. It is much-maligned but the truth is that transportation is a prime cause of the problem that Liveable Communities is intended to address. The US Interstate system and an obsession with the car have allowed communities to sprout up where once there was no logical reason for them to be. 'Suburbs' are often tens of miles from the towns and cities they serve - towns and cities whose old suburbs and inner areas are then denuded of life and wealth.
Critics complain that the concept of liveable communities is fine in theory but too difficult to put into practice. Too difficult? Many of these are the same people who complain that not enough is invested in transportation, and that transportation is a great job and wealth generator if only politicians would put their weight behind it. They then cry foul when asked to do something which doesn't simply perpetuate history.
So, move to embrace command economy-style thinking? Not necessarily. But let's have some acceptance and some radical thought, please. Much of life is less than ideal. Many of our lives would be hugely different had we been born to different parents, at a different time, in a different place. Real life isn't like that and we should be wary of writing things off
as 'too difficult'.
We're talking sustainability here, so I'll recycle a quote I've used previously from Martin Luther King, Jr: "The time is always right to do what is right." Look at that another way: it's never too late to do the right thing. More importantly, the longer you leave it to do the right thing, the more complex and expensive it often becomes.
Some people out there should consider that.
A tour of those parts built in the 1950s and 60s is enlightening. It is a lesson in what centralised planning can get right. The housing, though utilitarian, is built to last and arranged logically to reduce segregation. Larger family homes were intermingled with smaller dwellings - apartments for the younger generation, ground-level dwellings for the older and infirm. Green areas break up the bricks and mortar. Each of the original neighbourhoods has a parade of shops and what was once a mix of the essentials: a post office, a grocery store, hardware store, Laundromat and so on. Usually, there is a pub at one end and, often, a church for the (un)repentant at the other. In short, a concerted effort was made to create nuclear communities. Significantly, you have to be on foot to see just how considered an approach was taken in the days before mass car ownership.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and the wheels begin to come off. In 1987, construction began of Maidenbower, Crawley's latest neighbourhood. Maidenbower sprawls; it has one small, rather desultory parade of shops; its high school didn't open until 2004. It forces dependency on the car and is a good example of how planning when left to the private sector doesn't always give us what we need.
Skip across The Pond, to the US, and we have a new buzz-phrase: Liveable Communities. It is much-maligned but the truth is that transportation is a prime cause of the problem that Liveable Communities is intended to address. The US Interstate system and an obsession with the car have allowed communities to sprout up where once there was no logical reason for them to be. 'Suburbs' are often tens of miles from the towns and cities they serve - towns and cities whose old suburbs and inner areas are then denuded of life and wealth.
Critics complain that the concept of liveable communities is fine in theory but too difficult to put into practice. Too difficult? Many of these are the same people who complain that not enough is invested in transportation, and that transportation is a great job and wealth generator if only politicians would put their weight behind it. They then cry foul when asked to do something which doesn't simply perpetuate history.
So, move to embrace command economy-style thinking? Not necessarily. But let's have some acceptance and some radical thought, please. Much of life is less than ideal. Many of our lives would be hugely different had we been born to different parents, at a different time, in a different place. Real life isn't like that and we should be wary of writing things off
as 'too difficult'.
We're talking sustainability here, so I'll recycle a quote I've used previously from Martin Luther King, Jr: "The time is always right to do what is right." Look at that another way: it's never too late to do the right thing. More importantly, the longer you leave it to do the right thing, the more complex and expensive it often becomes.
Some people out there should consider that.
