{"id":58482,"date":"2021-07-04T07:07:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T12:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58482"},"modified":"2021-07-04T07:07:55","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T12:07:55","slug":"the-suburbs-are-the-spiritual-home-of-overconsumption-but-they-also-hold-the-key-to-a-better-future-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58482","title":{"rendered":"The suburbs are the spiritual home of overconsumption. But they also hold the key to a better future"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"magazine\">\n<div class=\"wrapper\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<div class=\"grid-twelve large-grid-eleven\">\n<div class=\"top\">\n<aside class=\"grid-two content-social-distribution\">\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-suburbs-are-the-spiritual-home-of-overconsumption-but-they-also-hold-the-key-to-a-better-future-108496?fbclid=IwAR2D-mRd3MaABNCtIKVIOmv96zIvENvUqR8V0F58TfefehxNglqmQrNID5Y\">The suburbs are the spiritual home of overconsumption. But they also hold the key to a better future<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid-ten large-grid-nine grid-last content-body content entry-content instapaper_body inline-promos\">\n<p>Suburban affluence is the defining image of the good life under capitalism, commonly held up as a model to which all humanity should aspire.<\/p>\n<p>More than half of the world\u2019s population now lives in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/development\/desa\/news\/population\/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html\">cities<\/a>. Yet with the global economy already in gross\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.footprintnetwork.org\/our-work\/ecological-footprint\/\">ecological overshoot<\/a>, and a world population heading for more than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/development\/desa\/en\/news\/population\/world-population-prospects-2017.html\">11 billion<\/a>, this way of living is neither\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jasonhickel.org\/the-divide\/\">fair<\/a>\u00a0nor sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>To live within our environmental means, the richest nations will need to embrace a planned process of economic \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224\">degrowth<\/a>\u201d. This is not an unplanned recession, but a deliberate downscaling of economic activity and the closely correlated consumption of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/beyondthisbriefanomaly.org\/2018\/10\/18\/carbon-civlisation-and-the-energy-descent-future-life-beyond-this-brief-anomaly\/\">fossil energy<\/a>. We don\u2019t argue this is likely, only that it is necessary.<\/p>\n<p>You might naturally assume this will involve pain and sacrifice, but we argue that a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/griffithreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/GR52_Alexander_Adcock-Ebook.FINAL_.pdf\">prosperous descent<\/a>\u201d is possible. Our new book,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.palgrave.com\/us\/book\/9789811321306\">Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary<\/a>, envisions how this might unfold in the suburban landscapes that are currently emblematic of overconsumption.<\/p>\n<p>The well-known documentary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0446320\/\">The End of Suburbia<\/a>\u00a0presented a coherent narrative of a post-petroleum future, but got at least one thing wrong. There is not a single end to suburbia; there are many ends of suburbia (as we know it).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reimagining the suburbs beyond fossil fuels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Suburban catastrophists such as James Kunstler argue that fossil fuel depletion will turn our suburbs into urban wastelands. But we see the suburbs as an ideal place to begin retrofitting our cities.<\/p>\n<p>This won\u2019t involve tearing them down and starting again. Typically, Australia\u2019s built environment is turned over at less than 5% per year. The challenge is to reinhabit, not rebuild, the suburban landscape. Here are some of the key features of this reinvigorated landscape:<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The suburbs are the spiritual home of overconsumption. But they also hold the key to a better future Suburban affluence is the defining image of the good life under capitalism, commonly held up as a model to which all humanity should aspire. More than half of the world\u2019s population now lives in\u00a0cities. Yet with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[22565,203,7213,31404,14711,8487],"class_list":["post-58482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-brendan-gleeson","tag-degrowth","tag-overconsumption","tag-samual-alexander","tag-suburbs","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58483,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58482\/revisions\/58483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}