permaculture

[PacificEdge <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

The first instance I came across the idea of an 'agrarian suburb' with 
houses surrounded by agricultural land - one acre (2.5ha) in this case - 
was in an early book by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I recall that 
it was written in the 1930s and was part of an idea Wright had for a new 
form of city. Wright's idea was that every resident in the US would have 
access to such land and that it would integrate city and rural.

Looking at the illustration, though, the impression I got was - sprawl. 
It was based on everyone having private vehicular transport and 
necessitated a comprehensive road system. That, of course, was 
progressive to modernist minds in that decade.

The scenario described below on 1 -2 acres of land sounds idyllic, but I 
wonder who has the time to tend this amount of land today? I agree with 
Robyn that it is too much land and suggest that less than a hectare 
would be more than enough for most. Some, of course, would welcome that 
extra space and given the fact that gardening is one of Australia's most 
popular hobbies, you would think that a large block would have 
widespread appeal. Consider, though, that most of those avid gardeners 
are tenders of ornamental plants managed by non-organic means, rather 
than food producers and orchard planters.

Yes, as Robyn says it has been done at Crystal Waters and Jalanbah, but 
I still think the idea of the team I was involved in of a compact, 
medium density development surrounded by agricultural land (the Italian 
hill village model) allows more choice in living arrangements. Not 
everyone who moves to the country wants to farm or wants heaps of land. 
And, given that we're an urban civilisation in Australia, the 
portability of such models to the cities is important. The nearest I 
have seen of our model being replicated in the city was the Urban 
Ecology proposal for Halifax urban village on the edge of the Adelaide 
CBD. That, unfortunately, never came off but it pointed to the type of 
mixed usage, sustainable development our cities need.

As Robyn says, Village Homes in California has a lot to teach us. But we 
have to be careful of applying any single model universally. I 
understand that Village Homes is based on the Radburn model of urban 
design that allows for large expanses of public open space and in which 
homes address that open space rather than the street. Clearly, the model 
works. In some cases at least.

The model was employed in estates built near Campbelltown, two hours 
drive south-west of Sydney. There, it was a disaster with the open space 
becoming a stripping and burning ground for stolen cars and the scene of 
police car pursuits of car thieves and falling under the control of 
gangs made up of the youth of residential families. A couple of the 
estates have started a process of 'deRadburnisation', with houses being 
altered to address the street, where life takes place, and residents of 
one estate taking action to oust the gang from the open space and turn 
it into a hugh community food garden. Maybe the model works with middle 
class people and is potentially less successful with poorer residents.
...Russ Grayson


On Thursday, September 5, 2002, at 05:27  PM, <permed@nor.com.au> wrote:

> > > Could it be possible to design essentially an agrarian suburb? The 
> > > cities
> > > need food (although rooftops can help, they probably need more). Give 
> > > each
> > > home 1 or 2 acres of land, have some communal waterfront ponds with 
> > > fish,
> > > let the kids go fishing out their back door, grow fruit trees along 
> > > the
> > > paths, garden it...and allow folks to make a bit of a living on the 
> > > food
> > > they harvest/produce.
> This description fits the vision of most intentional communities from 
> the
> early 70's and sounds a bit like Crystal Waters and Jarlanbah - it's 
> been
> done and around in a rural context for 3 decades and there's many 
> lessons
> to be learnt. Note that for most families 1-2 acres is far too much land
> to try and manage, on Jarlanbah we reduced this to a half acre (the
> minimum allowed for rural residential) and folks share 33 acres of
> community land.
> The term Agrarian Suburb to me conjours a more urban picture rather than
> the rural residential estate described above. Village Homes is a great
> example of a truly productive 'agrarian suburb'.
> Robyn
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
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Russ Grayson, Australian Community Gardens Network.

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