THERE ARE PEOPLE whose ideas, words and deeds come to symbolise a time. They rise above the average and take a practice in new directions. They, intentionally or not, become leaders. Now, one of those icons of an age has passed. Paolo Soleri was an architect who, led by a far reaching imagination, pioneered new […]
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HAVING SUBSTANTIALLY SHRUNK the working class (and, therefore, the membership and influence of trade unions), industrial technology and software are now shrinking the working prospects of the middle class. This is a software-driven revolution and it has been more deeply investigated in the book, Rage Against the Machine. There is little point in raging against […]
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IT’S BEEN DECADES, I thought as the driver throttled back the engines to approach the jetty. Decades… and there was no jetty, no fast catamaran then… just an old wooden launch captained by a man in late middle age. Not the roar of powerful outboards then, just the putt-putt-putt of an old diesel. Today’s catamaran […]
Read MoreIT WAS A BIG ANIMAL, ALRIGHT, though some distance off and, fortunately those new to the forward scouting unit thought, headed in a different direction. It was a quadruped covered in grey fur, in a mottled sort of pattern. It was not a creature new to the colony, however, and a few had encountered it […]
Read MoreALL THAT REMAINS is a bit of stone work where the house once was. And a few pieces of iron rusted by the decades since the fires of ’67 devoured the building and the rest of the farm — one of them looks like it was once part of a pot-bellied stove. The others — […]
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The mission: Establish a food forest at the Permaculture Interpretive Garden, one of the components that make up the Randwick Sustainability Hub. The difficulty: Hard work (though maybe not all that hard) in the warm Spring sunshine. The process: Identify needs > produce a plan for the forest garden > implement the plan over time.
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ON BEHALF of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network, I prepared this submission to the City of Sydney’s public exhibition of the Sustainable Communities Plan for Chippendale prepared, by Chippendale resident, Michael Mobbs.
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SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT happened on Thursday 27 September 2012. How it unfolds over the next few years will determine whether it will be a good idea stillborn or the start of an authentically new economy.
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What could happen if councils made the change from managerialism to platform? From doing things for people to doing things with them? It might be a move away from vending machine government...
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A reflection on my recent role working in local government and a validation for my approach to the work...
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