Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary

219 Pages·2019·2.65 MB·English

by  Samuel Alexander

DEGROWTH
IN THE
SUBURBS
A RADICAL URBAN IMAGINARY
Samuel Alexander and Brendan Gleeson
Degrowth in the Suburbs
Samuel Alexander · Brendan Gleeson
Degrowth in the
Suburbs
A Radical Urban Imaginary
Samuel Alexander Brendan Gleeson
Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute
University of Melbourne University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC, Australia Parkville, VIC, Australia
ISBN 978-981-13-2130-6 ISBN 978-981-13-2131-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2131-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951554
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Foreword
Historians charting the trajectory of industrial civilisation will note
the remarkable disconnection between the status accorded to ‘evi-
dence-based decision-making’ in our culture and the relentless pursuit
of perpetual growth on a finite planet. While the contradiction has
always been clear to the simplest of folks, the publication of the Limits
to Growth report nearly half a century ago gave us the means to bet-
ter understand the complex system dynamics that would characterise
humanity’s overshoot of global limits.
Because these understandings coincided with the oil crises and result-
ant recessions, in affluent Western countries there was some public dis-
course, and even early action, to consider the possibility of futures other
than ones of continuous growth. On the fringes of society a flourish-
ing counterculture gave birth to lifestyles and concepts (including per-
maculture) that have been the source of a continuous lineage of creative
change. Some of these fringe ideas—such as the internet—have con-
tributed to powerful creative action that has transformed society, whilst
others—such as renewable energy and regenerative agriculture—provide
pathways promising to manifest transformation now.
v
vi Foreword
But the full potential of these and other creative bottom-up responses
to the Limits to Growth were stymied for decades by the neoliberal top-
down revolution initiated by Thatcher (UK in 1979) and Reagan (USA
in 1981) and emulated in Australia by the Hawke/Keating governments
from 1983. While many of the aspects of Keynesian economics and
politics that were swept away were hopelessly maladapted to the emerg-
ing world of limits, the neoliberal solutions only intensified society’s
disconnect from non-negotiable realities. While the neoliberal agenda
may have capitalised on creativity, the growth it orchestrated was mostly
driven by new forms of corporate colonialism, widening wealth dispar-
ity in long-affluent countries and doubling down on resource depletion
and environmental impact.
The late 1980s scientific consensus on climate change, and endless
talk and grand plans since, have done little or nothing to slow the tra-
jectory of industrial civilisation into overshoot beyond planetary limits.
But the Global Financial Crisis was a turning point when the limits of
resources, signified by the global peak of conventional oil production,
converged with the limits to the neoliberal revolution’s capacity to sus-
tain supercharged global capitalism. Endlessly expanding global debt
was exposed as the secret weapon of the neoliberal revolution that since
the GFC has massively inflated assets of all kinds, including land that
has underpinned the housing crisis. The global economy is a Ponzi
scheme of fake wealth that will inevitably follow the trajectory of previ-
ous bubbles in the history of capitalism—but this time, the tightening
grip of resource depletion and other limits will make this boom cycle
the final one for global capitalism. The potential diversity of energy
descent futures is manifold but has been little investigated until recent
years. When I began to do so in the early 2000s, I found Mad Max, a
1970s road rage movie, was the primary intellectual reference point for
consideration of energy descent futures!
While heroic efforts to steer the ship of state and capitalism in new
directions have consumed the energy of generations of idealists, activists
and entrepreneurs, others have chosen to put their energy into living in
ways that model the world we need beyond growth. Affluence and the
hubris of the dominant ideology has allowed those with the capacity to
create their own ‘new normal’ in the shadows of, and from the surplus
Foreword vii
wasted wealth created by, the mainstream economy. Inevitably, a lot of
that action has been at the geographic fringes in rural localities but in
recent years an increasing number of people are pursuing DIY enlight-
ened self-interest in suburbia, where the majority of Australians live.
Over the years since Limits to Growth, suburbia has been seen by cul-
tural critics, planners and environmentalist as the epitome of all that is
wrong with society. Perhaps this was best encapsulated by American cat-
astrophist James Howard Kunstler when he said: ‘America took all its
post war wealth and invested it in a way of life that has no future.’
While I agree with Kunstler in principle, I also believe suburbia rep-
resents a potential sweet point between the connection with nature and
capacity for household self-reliance we associate with the rural, and
the density and diversity of social and economic connection that cities
make possible. The fact that the current infrastructure, houses and land-
scapes of suburbia are hopelessly maladapted to the coming world of
energy descent is not a cause for inaction or depression. Low-density
detached housing with gardens is the ideal place for beginning a bot-
tom-up revolution to recreate the household and community non-mon-
etary economies that our recent forebears took for granted as the basis
for an adequate, even comfortable, life.
Athough, as this book makes clear, there are limits to the degree to
which this household level can replace all the important functions of
a sustainable and just society, the chances for success look a lot better
than through further heroic efforts to reform global capitalism from the
top down.
In any case, those pioneering a downshift to radically reduce their
ecological footprint, regardless of whether society follows suit, are find-
ing they can live a better life now while building resilience to chal-
lenging futures. A combination of permaculture-designed productivity
and voluntary simplicity is rebuilding the culture and skill base for the
transitions demanded by energy descent futures. In the process, these
pioneers are finding surprising synergies with migrants, working class
battlers and other fringe folks who may not be are not motivated by
environmental ethics or even necessarily believers in climate change.
Mutual respect and learning across the widening identity politics
divide is one of the by-products of this broadly based household- and
viii Foreword
community-led movement. This enlightened self-interest has the poten-
tial to grow by viral replication. The most fertile ground for its rapid
growth is suburbia, especially the open sunlit suburbs of Australia,
which is still the lucky country with surplus capacity to sustain such a
bottom-up revolution. While the dysfunction and denial in the polit-
ical, corporate and media elites rivals anywhere else in the world,
Australia has many of the seeds and settings for global leadership.
While I have always acknowledged and articulated the non-negotiability
of the limits to growth and the need for consciously designed ‘degrowth’ or
‘powerdown’, the populist in me has always called for citizens to vote with
their feet and increase the ‘participation rate’ in the non-monetary house-
hold and community economies that will sustain us through the necessary
transition as we move deeper into crisis. In the process, we have found that
we can live well with a small fraction of the resources that are claimed to
be normal and necessary for a comfortable life. In projecting this populist
message and supporting the pioneers, it is good to have scholars of subur-
bia and degrowth providing the conceptual framework for why degrowth
in suburbia is becoming a self-organising reality.
Brendan Gleeson is one of the minority of Australian scholars and
commentators on urban affairs who has defended suburbia and subur-
banites. His previous writing has acknowledged the non-negotiable cli-
mate, resource and other constraints threatening to deepen the crisis in
suburbia created by neoliberal policies over recent decades.
Likewise, Samuel Alexander is one of the very few Australian schol-
ars to explore the potential for degrowth, considering the historical and
contemporary expressions of voluntary simplicity as a cultural response
to the limits to growth crisis. In many ways, he inherits the mantle
of Ted Trainer who for four decades has been an almost lone voice in
Australian academia documenting the need for a radical response to the
limits to growth.
Degrowth in the Suburbs brings together these important perspectives
to challenge the most powerful and persistent cultural, economic and
political orthodoxies in Australia and other affluent countries.
Hepburn Springs, Australia David Holmgren Melliodora
June 2018
Acknowledgements
This book benefited greatly from the close reading and detailed feed-
back shared by Josh Floyd. His technical understanding of the issues
was our primary reason for seeking his critical feedback. His clarity of
thought and skill as a writer were added bonuses.
Josh, thank you for your dedicated assistance, including your help
creating the graph in Chapter Two. We are much indebted to you and
gratefully acknowledge your input and influence.
David Holmgren’s influence will also be seen throughout the follow-
ing pages. Sometimes that influence is explicit; sometimes it is simmer-
ing quietly between the sentences. In fact, we wrote this book in part
with the intention of it being seen as a ‘companion volume’ to David’s
masterful new practical manual, Retrosuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide
to a Resilient Future (2018: Melliodora Publishing). We trust that read-
ers will find in the following pages much evidential, theoretical, and
political support for a similar vision of suburbia, approached from dif-
ferent but complementary angles. We highly recommend David’s new
book as a deep and inspiring instruction manual for how to create a
thriving and resilient suburbia as the energy descent future takes hold.
ix
x Acknowledgements
David, we are grateful for your astute feedback on the penultimate
draft of this book. Your comments helped refine various key issues, and
we’re honoured to have your words open our book.
We would also like to thank Sangeetha Chandra-Shekeran for many
very helpful comments on the first three chapters, and two anonymous
reviewers who shared excellent feedback on our book proposal.
Finally, we would like to thank Dennis Horton for some last minute
editorial advice and assistance.