Suburbs partnering microrhyzal networking
Gold Coast
What was on here
Mosman Park tennis club
Partnering – nodes
A lot of the focus as local state and federal government now is on intense growth and development at hubs – primarily the CBD but they recognise the problems it causes having everyone trying to get into the city so they also go for hubs scattered more widely: Chermside Indooroopilly Redcliffe Mitchelton Strathpine Caboolture…
It tends to be an either or choice: if you like the hub lifestyle you’re unlikely to ‘get’ suburbs. If you’re a suburb-backyard person you’re probably at least a little in touch with what it is that makes suburbs special places.
There’s an urban planner called Peter Newman who I had quite a bit to do with in the past. Peter is passionate about hubs like Fremantle in Western Australia and phobic about suburbia. He’s widely consulted as a leading authority but he recommends urban design concepts that won’t work in suburbs and they channel funding into central nodes.
He and I crossed swords so to speak over planning for regional rail transport. Being Fremantle-centric he was championing a proposal for light rail out of Fremantle. Living out in a suburb gave me a different angle. The end result was my proposal for a railway line between Mandurah and Perth up the Kwinana Freeway through a huge area of proposed suburban development was given the go-ahead and has been a terrific success.
Put simply I think that urban planners who dismiss suburbs are really missing something of critical value in our cities.
Suburbs like the ones we live in here are deceptively simple. Missing are the theatres the plethora of restaurants and nightlife the grand shops. There is a fractal sameness – the houses the streets the gardens and lawns mostly nothing to speak about. The little shopping centres are clones of each other – some sort of supermarket a chemist a real estate agent some sort of takeaway food shop a newsagents a bakery a hairdressers a doctor’s surgery a money machine and parking.
It is easy to dismiss suburbs as having nothing to offer except transport design problems and land allocation that is now seen as excess as population pressures keep growing.
At the same time they are fairly easy for planners to ignore and crime rates are low compared to places like the Valley and the big nodes which take a lot of security and policing.
So why don’t I think they are right? Why not just dismiss suburbs as a boring anachronism unsuitable for 21st century life. Why not all move to an apartment in a highrise in New Farm?
Well firstly there is the backyard. There are the lawns and trees. Birds do sing outside. We first bought into this area because of the trees because it is so close to deep country because driving out here there is a sense of increasingly peace as the traffic pressure reduces the visual clutter of buildings and garish lights. The exhaust fumes in the air fall away the noise level reduces to very little. Unseen the microwave radiation levels fall off dramatically. Nighttime is dark enough to see the stars and to sleep well.
The size of the space you can purchase for what you can afford increases exponentially moving out into the suburbs. The cost of a one-bedroom unit in the CBD buys a four-bedroom high-set home with a garden and pool in the suburbs.
At the same time cost of living falls. The unit in West End barely has a kitchen but it is amply surrounded by cafes and restaurants – the experience is designed to be a lifestyle of dining out. It needs the clothes to go with it. Unlike the suburbs which are a place to come home to CBD units are a place to go out from to clubs and pubs and the office.
Back in suburbia the family calls. There is space to start acquiring toys like a boat or trailer cars caravans workbenches chooks a shed a trampoline for the kids a vege garden.
You may meet the neighbours especially if you buy into a new street development around the same time. Or you may make your friends through work. Maybe you’re one of the types who has an interest like cycling or cars that takes you away on weekends with a group.
This still doesn’t come close to ‘getting’ what it is that makes suburbs what they are.
To understand suburbs you need a total change of scale you need to hone right in on the fine detail and look under the soil at the deep connections going on invisibly. Life in suburbs is what happens behind closed doors between people.
Let’s start by thinking about how people come to be living in a particular suburb and this can help us start to see some of the connections. Imagine someone buying a house in a suburb around here. Why might they be doing it? Where might they come from?
Well one of the reasons is that they grew up here or very close by. We have quite a few families locally who are living around here multi-generationally. The young adults buying into their own home already have roots here. They went to the local school. There parents live here. When they have children their mum will be just around the corner. They have some sort of connection with local clubs or churches even if they have been away for some years. They’ll reestablish quickly.
Some people buying a place are moving within the same area. They already know the area well and like it and they are consolidating: they know why one street or spot is a key place to live. They are waiting till a house there falls vacant and then making their move. Knowing exactly which are the plumb spots to live is something few people will achieve but those who do tap into a seam of gold.
Some people come from elsewhere – elsewhere in Brisbane elsewhere in Queensland elsewhere in Australia elsewhere in the world. Some come to settle some will always be more transient. Some rent some buy.
Around here we have quite a few Defence families – most will move on as Defence moves them to different bases around Australia.
Australians do move pretty often on average. Many people don’t commit to one place. Yet our area is stable. Why do people choose here and how do they decide if they are going to stay? And then once here how do they settle down and make a home around here? We are told that in some places it is thirty years before you’re regarded as a local. What’s the story around here?
Do newcomers here see where they are living as a house a temporary place a home or being part of a whole community? What about the people who have lived here a long time?
What connections with this place have they established? Is this a dormitory suburb that they are living in while working in an office in the CBD within easy commute because of the Ferny Grove line? Will they up and leave for the Sunshine Coast as soon as they retire? Will they buy into a retirement community?
Having a family will cause most people to put down roots in a community. Their children will bring them into connection with others through local mums and bubs groups childcare centres kindergartens primary schools P&Cs high schools sports dance and drama classes Sunday school scouts.
For many people this will be the first time they have done something truly local. It is qualitatively different than going off with the cycling club who is a group of people from all over the city who share a common interest.
They will start to get the experience of meeting people at the local shopping centre who they know from another local connection. They’ll start to make friends locally. They’ll come under pressure to volunteer to help out on a stall at the school fete and it will turn out to be a good experience. Impromptu friendship groups will form.
None of this is visible to the newcomer and there is no-where to go that most of it can be easily found. But it is alive and very well.
I had reason to speak to someone in Geoff Wilson’s office quite early on here when I was struggling to find any way to connect in this area (we came here after our children were grown up) and I was surprised by the comment that there are hundreds of clubs and groups meeting around here. You could have bowled me over with a feather. I couldn’t identify any of them except maybe the local bowls club. Interestingly no further information was offered either. It wasn’t going to be made easy for me. For politicians these networks of local groups are their bread-and-butter. They work them systematically and they are very valuable. They don’t make information about them easily accessible to others.
Anyway with determination to become involved locally a newcomer can find places to start. Mind you it is a big step to even realise that becoming involved locally is something one might do. It doesn’t jump out and grab you. There are lots and lots of things attracting you elsewhere. All the cinemas are elsewhere the big festivals the main shopping centres most of the employment the beaches and rivers overseas travel holiday parks. What catalyst can bring you home to your local community?
There is an even earlier question: What is your local communty? In cities our suburbs are very unbounded unlike a small country town. Our local papers barely merit the descriptor ‘local’. When we think of local we include a whole raft of places that we drive to in all directions that actually turn out to be quite a long way away if we pay attention to distance. What is ‘local’? How far away from our home still counts as local?
A lot of places like the houses in the next cul-de-sac we might never walk past but we might know the shops in the centre 10 kms away well. One person said: The biggest journey is over the front doorstep of a neighbour’s home. We may know how to negotiate our way through an airport in Paris but not know the people in our own street.
Yet suburbs do work. Do dismiss them as faceless places where people live next door to each other and never say hello fails to have a clue about the massive amount of community life and structure that exists in our suburbs.