IS anyone interested in disclosing their bioregion, so we (I) can see
where we are all from, and how that might open some discussion.
Been interesting reading people's entries on where they live. Here's
mine...
I live in Sydney, Australia, a city of nearly four million - getting on
for a quarter of the Australian population of 19 million. Monterey is
the suburb, just 200 metres from the beaches of Botany Bay where the
first Europeans landed in Australia around 210 years ago (that was Cook,
closely followed by the French) and 20 minutes from Cronulla and Wanda's
surfing beaches. We have a detached house with three people and three
isobrowns (chooks) with a small garden on nutrient-poor sandstone soils
that need plenty of organic matter to support fruit and vegetables. The
linear parkland 100 metres on the other side of our land was earmarked
as a freeway but the state government has decided that it will instead
remain a strip of sportsfields and remnant bushland with only a smaller
strip to be used for public transport - light rail and new forms of
public transport are being discussed, such as the rail/ road vehicles as
are in use in, I think, Adelaide, South Australia.
Sydney occupies the Cumberland Plain with its clay-derived soils and is
surrounded by national parks occupying the sandstone uplands to north
and south and the Blue Mountains to the west - an uplifted, dissected
sandstone plateau home to a string of small towns and villages along the
Great Western Highway that links to the lands west of the Great Dividing
Range, as well as national parks and wilderness areas. You can imagine
the city as a bowl shelving to the Pacific Ocean in the east and bounded
by the mountains to the west and the national park uplands to north and
south... like a sprawling cluster of urbanisation with market gardens
and small farms linking it to the Blue Mountains.
Facing the Tasman Sea (the Pacific between Australia and New Zealand
which is 2000 km away on the other side), Sydney is Australia's global
gateway in both the economic sense and as its major point of entry.
We're climatically fortunate here, with a warm temperate climate
allowing us to grow some tropical and subtropical plants as well as
those of the cool temperate zone to the south of the continent
(Australia is about the physical size of the USA). Winter storms spiral
in from the south to west sector, bringing cold wind and rain; the cool
afternoon sea breezes of summer relieve the heat and humidity of the
afternoon and summer's dry north-westerlies bring the winds and
dessicating conditions that lead to the sometimes destructive bushfires
that speed up out of the eucalypt gullies of the urban bushland to
destroy houses.
The Sydney Basin produces 80% of the fresh vegetables and fruit of the
state of New South Wales, mainly on small, family-owned farms. The city
supports two organic farmer's markets and a number of other markets
where organic and non-organic fresh foods can be bought from growers.
There are a growing number of organic food retail shops and restaurants,
four or so food coops and a CSA obtaining its produce from organic
farmer Nicholas Pook at Primrose Farm less than an hour's drive north of
the city, as well as a growing number of community food gardens.
Challenges to the bioregion include a growing urban population (partly
made up of migrants) that local and state government are hard pressed to
provide services for, urbanisation of the productive farmland in the
north-west to south-west urban fringe, access to urban open space for
medium density residents and road congestion. There is air and water
pollution which are being tackled by the state government to some extent.
The socioeconomic profile reveals the most affluent occupy the city's
global sector spanning an area covering part of the northern suburbs to
Sydney airport and includiing the CBD and inner suburbs (undergoing
redevelopment and an increase in apartment dwellers) - it is here the
newer industries are located, such as IT/ communications/ education/
financial services/ media/ entertainment etc; a concentration of people
with young families on the cheaper land of the expanding urban fringe
who have a mixed economic status; and a ring of older suburbs in
between, home to a large segment of the immigrant population, some
poverty and low-income households and older-economy industries some of
which are in decline.
It's not a bad city to live in - vibrant, multicultural, plenty of urban
cultural life - but is less communal than Melbourne (probably because
Melbourne is colder and wetter so people have to stay indoors and under
shelter!) so getting community-based stuff running is harder.