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Implementing a new human settlement theory: Strategic planning for a network of regenerative villages

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Purpose Whilst the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables offers significant environmental benefits, the other transition – from a centralised to a distributed energy system – underpins a disruptive model for planning cities, towns and villages. A local energy micro-grid can power a local water micro-grid, which in turn can irrigate a local food system, offering a community the opportunity to harvest, store and distribute food, water and energy within their immediate catchment. A distributed network of regenerative villages, connected virtually and with shared electric vehicles is offered as an alternative vision for future cities. The paper aims to justify this as a preferred model for human settlements and develop an implementation process. Design/methodology/approach This paper asks: Is it inevitable that large cities will keep growing, while rural communities will continue to be deprived of resources and opportunities? Is the flow of people into cities inevitable? To answer this question, the adopted methodology is to take a systems approach, observing town planning processes from a range of different disciplines and perspectives. Findings By contrasting the current centralising city model with a distributed network of villages, this paper offers ten reasons why the distributed network is preferable to centralisation. Research limitations/implications It is argued that in this time of dramatic technological upheaval, environmental destruction and social inequality, business-as-usual is unacceptable in any field of human endeavour. This paper presents a sketch outlining a new human settlement theory, a different way of living on the land. It is an invitation to academics and practitioners to participate in a debate. Originality/value The information and energy revolutions, both distributed systems, are reshaping cities.
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Citation
Liaros, S. (2019), "Implementing a new human settlement theory:
Strategic planning for a network of regenerative villages", Smart and
Sustainable Built Environment, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 258-271 https://
doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-01-2019-0004
© 2019 Emerald Group Publishing Inc
Notice: Changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such
as copy-editing and formatting may not be reflected in this
document. For a definitive version of this work, please refer to the
published source:
https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-01-2019-0004
Implementing a new human settlement theory
Strategic planning for a network of regenerative villages
Steven Liaros
PolisPlan, Sydney, Australia and
Department of Political Economy, The University of Sydney, Sydney,
Australia
Abstract
Purpose: Whilst the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables offers significant
environmental benefits, the other transition – from a centralised to a distributed energy system –
underpins a disruptive model for planning cities, towns and villages. A local energy micro-grid can
power a local water micro-grid, which in turn can irrigate a local food system, offering a
community the opportunity to harvest, store and distribute food, water and energy within their
immediate catchment. A distributed network of regenerative villages, connected virtually and with
shared electric vehicles is offered as an alternative vision for future cities. The paper aims to justify
this as a preferred model for human settlements and develop an implementation process.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper asks: Is it inevitable that large cities will keep growing,
while rural communities will continue to be deprived of resources and opportunities? Is the flow of
people into cities inevitable? To answer this question, the adopted methodology is to take a systems
approach, observing town planning processes from a range of different disciplines and perspectives.
Findings: By contrasting the current centralising city model with a distributed network of villages,
this paper offers ten reasons why the distributed network is preferable to centralisation.
Research limitations/implications: It is argued that in this time of dramatic technological
upheaval, environmental destruction and social inequality, business-as-usual is unacceptable in any
field of human endeavour. This paper presents a sketch outlining a new human settlement theory, a
different way of living on the land. It is an invitation to academics and practitioners to participate in
a debate. Originality/value – The information and energy revolutions, both distributed systems, are
reshaping cities.
Keywords: Circular economy, Energy transition, Healthy built environment, Information
revolution, One planet living, Regenerative development
Paper type: Viewpoint
1. Introduction
Smart Cities, Livable Cities, Green Cities, Biophilic Cities, EcoCities and Regenerative Cities add
to the mix Transition Towns, Eco-Villages, Intentional Communities and Place-Making, and it
seems everyone is talking about cities and what cities of the future could, or should, be like. Yet, in
all this conversation, there is little to no discussion about what a city actually is. Before adding an
adjective, let us try to understand the thing we are trying to describe and change. What is a City?
Most commonly, the “city” refers to “urban settlements”, where urban implies non-rural. However,
while the United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs (2014) was widely quoted,
reporting that 54 per cent of the world’s population now lives in urban areas, the same report
acknowledged that “there is no common global definition of what constitutes an urban settlement”
and indeed “the urban definition employed by national statistical offices varies widely”. In this
paper – prepared as contribution from a land development practitioner – it is argued that given the
availability of affordable clean energy technologies as well as the need to reconnect humans with
the environment on which we live, the fundamental separation between urban and rural areas is
inappropriate and that food systems can and should be integrated with the built environment.
For the purposes of this paper, the original Greek and Roman concept of the city as simply “a
community of citizens” will be adopted. Taking this as a starting point, we ought to ask: what do all
citizens need? The natural needs are a good place to begin; water, food, energy and shelter. Then,
given advances in technology and knowledge more generally, as well as awareness of human
impacts on ecosystems, how would we design a new city to provide these basic needs? How big
would it be and how many citizens would it support? Recognising various options for tele-
commuting, the future of electric vehicles (EV ) and car sharing, how would this city connect with
other cities? How might we design an energy system using renewable energy to generate, store and
distribute energy in a micro-grid? Significant research in water sensitive urban design and cities as
water supply catchments, suggests that it is also possible to reimagine our systems for harvesting,
storing and distributing water. Then, of course, water can generate energy and also store both
potential energy and heat energy. There are substantial opportunities to increase efficiency by
integrating the energy and water systems. What if we then include a food system – an expanded
form of diverse urban agriculture – also using it to clean water, while saving the energy used for
packaging and transport?
Can we therefore create places where citizens can collaborate to efficiently provide each other with
their basic needs and so form a solid platform from which to engage in the broader economy and
society? Rather than connecting detached houses to the energy and water grids, how do we integrate
food, water and energy into the built system? Can a local energy micro-grid power a local water
micro-grid to irrigate a local food system, offering a community the opportunity to harvest, store
and distribute food, water and energy within their immediate catchment?
A key aspect of the development approach is that it is applicable in rural areas, offering significant
opportunities for rural and regional Councils who are seeking to attract people and investment to
their localities. Land is less expensive, large parcels are available and farming communities are
looking for options not only to attract investment and people but also to regenerate the land that has
been so degraded by the chemical-based, industrial-scale monoculture practices that have been
imposed on them over the past 50 or so years.
The proposed new human settlement theory has previously been proposed by the author in
“Rethinking the City” (Liaros, 2014) and described for general audiences in a number of online
articles (most recently Liaros, 2019a,b,c). The proposed “Regenerative Villages Network” model is
described by reference to a range of different bodies of literature that inform the development of
cities. The purpose of this is to illustrate the need to broaden the town planning debate about
decentralisation and base it on the feasibility and acceptability of a particular development model.
Section 2 provides a general overview of the development model, developing various aspects of the
approach by reference to academic literature, emerging land development practices including new
business models and technological developments across a range of industries.
Central to the development of this model is the question: What would cities look like if our societies
transitioned from a “take, make, use dispose” linear economy, with its many consequent
externalities, to a zero waste Circular Economy? It is argued that the consequent shift to systems
thinking and life cycle planning would require the integration of town planning policy with policies
related to energy, food, transport, health and economics.
Other areas of research, public debate and emerging practice that are discussed include:
decentralisation in town planning;
regenerative development and regenerative agriculture;
life cycle planning;
characteristics of healthy urban design as developed by public health experts exploring the
impacts of the built environment on health outcomes;
one planet living and striving to live within the limits of our ecological systems;
the future of work due to technological change and the consequent demand from a
social justice perspective for a universal basic income (UBI);
population flows and how the internet is creating opportunities for remote work, sometimes
referred to as the e-change;
affordability of housing and cost of living pressures; and
efficiency of economic agglomeration in cities.
The question that this paper poses is: Is it inevitable that large cities will keep growing, while rural
communities will continue to be deprived of resources and opportunities? Is the flow of people into
cities inevitable?
Accordingly, to answer this question, the adopted methodology takes a systems approach, observing
town planning processes from a range of different perspectives. By contrasting the current
centralising city model with a distributed network of villages, it is possible to provide ten good
reasons why the distributed network is preferable to centralisation.
Having set out the reasons why this form of development is necessary and appropriate, an outline of
how the model may be practically implemented is offered in Section 3. The planning framework of
NSW (Australia) is used, identifying the specific strategies, policies and development plans that
would need to be created or amended to enable this form of development. This is essential to
provide certainty for investors and future residents.
The purpose of this paper is therefore to describe why the proposed distributed network of villages
should be, and how it could be, implemented given revolutions in information and energy and
potential transformations in transport and agriculture. It is hoped that this will open a debate and
ultimately broaden the range of approaches to strategic planning and land development.
2. Literature review
2.1 Efficiency of economic agglomeration in cities
Paul Krugman won a Nobel Prize for developing the field of New Economic Geography by asking
the question: “Why and when does manufacturing become concentrated in a few regions, leaving
others relatively undeveloped?” (Krugman, 1991, p. 484). The centrepiece of New Economic
Geography was the so-called core-periphery model. This model illustrates that agglomeration, the
clustering of businesses together yields pecuniary benefits for all the businesses in the cluster. By
focussing on these pecuniary or financial interests, Krugman was able to develop a mathematical
model and find equilibrium conditions. Examining the relationships between, amongst other things,
economies of scale and transportation costs, the model illustrated that equilibrium can occur either
through concentration or decentralisation of communities. The two-region model suggests that if the
production and costs in the regions are the same, then nothing much happens but if there is a slight
difference “population will start to concentrate and regions [...] diverge; once started, this process
will feed on itself”(Krugman, 1991, p. 487).
The unanswered question in this field is: under what circumstances might settlement patterns tend
towards the other equilibrium condition of decentralisation or the even distribution of settlements?
As a society, we measure success in terms of monetary wealth and calculate the success of the
economy in terms of gross production. Accordingly, economies of scale lead to productive
efficiency but there is no measure of the efficiency of distribution. Indeed, fossil fuels are subsidised
and the more resources and goods are moved around, the higher the value added to gross domestic
production. Distributive efficiency is not properly accounted for. Whereas it would be more energy
efficient to minimise the distance between producer and consumer, global supply chains are now the
norm. To maximise distributive efficiency the spatial arrangement of human settlements would be
such that commuting distances were minimised, preferably walkable, while the transport of goods,
especially foods, would also be kept to a minimum.
Increases in the efficiency of distribution can also be achieved by transporting information via the
internet rather than transporting material resources, goods and people. Rather than an economy
based on fossil fuel extraction, mass production, warehousing, distribution and retail, the internet
enables an altogether more efficient supply chain. Local 3D printers could create any product or part
on demand. The sale would occur online, with the blueprints then securely transferred directly to
the consumer’s nearest 3D printer. Examples of this strategy already exist, including the disruption
by Amazon of the book publishing industry. What would cities look like if our mega-factories,
warehouses and transport logistics infrastructure were significantly reduced in scale or became
redundant?
Krugman’s core-periphery model attempts to explain why industries and people must “naturally”
agglomerate in cities. Yet industry after industry is being disrupted by online platforms and more
efficient business models that use new technologies, internet sales and renewable energy. Highly
centralised mass production is being disrupted by production on demand.
If economics is indeed about optimising the production and distribution of goods and services, then
any economic model must acknowledge the spatial dimension by reference to the efficiency of
distribution.
2.2 Decentralisation in town planning
There has been extensive debate in town planning regarding decentralisation, with a number of
models for new cities proposed. The Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) proposed by Le Corbusier in
1930 proposed tower buildings that disconnected people from the land and natural systems, also
creating a wasteland between the buildings. The immense scale of the buildings and population
housed within it reflects the mechanistic thinking prevalent at the time that saw man as separate
from nature. The Broadacre City proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932, essentially represents
the automobile dependent suburban sprawl, which is standard practice in the planning of greenfield
subdivisions. The proposed model aims to create walkable environments, perhaps also with electric
carts within the precinct, surrounded by large areas of food and natural systems. Figure 1 provides
a schematic illustration of the layout.
Each village would be the scale of a small community of no more than 200 people. This figure
emerges from anthropological research by Robin Dunbar. Dunbar’s number “is a suggested
cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships –
relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every
other person”. This allows us to acknowledge that the community, not the nuclear family, is the
basic unit of society. The regenerative villages model is explicitly not about isolated villages but
must be conceived as a network with villages perceived as nodes in that network.
Each village should not be imagined as a gated community but would remain connected with, and a
part of, the broader society, complying with its laws and participating in the local, regional, and
global economy in an open and transparent manner. This model should essentially be viewed as an
alternative to greenfield subdivisions. Additionally, the aim is not just to build a single village but to
create a replicable process that can be implemented by other land developers to eventually create a
network of similar villages. Given that they are designed in accordance with the principles of the
Circular Economy, the regenerative villages are sometimes referred to as “Circular Economy
Innovation Hubs”. Figure 2 provides a schematic illustration of the network.
Figure 1.
Division of land into three
precincts, including rezoning
required for urban zone !
Figure 2. Schematic representation of network of regenerative villages !
One of the earliest and perhaps most influential town planning models for decentralisation is
Ebenezer Howard’s (1896) Garden Cities of Tomorrow. For Howard, the flow of people into cities
reflected the various attractions of city life and so he proposed the development of Garden Cities – a
blending of the best aspects of town and country life – which would act as an alternative attractor
outside the existing towns. These would draw people out and reverse the flow.
Yet the solution is not as simple as reversing the flow because the problem has now changed and the
total population of non-food producers in urban areas has grown dramatically. Although, Howard
sought to relieve congestion by redistributing populations in the landscape, his Garden Cities did
not address the relationship between people and food production. The reference to gardens was to
landscaped open space rather than to food production.
Regenerative villages aim to dispel the arbitrary separation of urban areas from food producing
rural areas and so reconnect people to food production and natural systems. This is not to suggest a
return to an agrarian lifestyle for all, as improved technologies related to energy and water
management and vastly improved understanding of ecosystem management would make food
production far more efficient than in the past. According to Grigg (1987, p. 93), the changes in
agricultural practices arising from industrialisation transformed the role of agriculture in the
economies of the Western world. “In the early eighteenth century farmers and farm workers made
up three-quarters or more of the labour force in nearly every country”. Yet by the late twentieth
century this had fallen to as low as two per cent of the workforce in Sweden, Switzerland, the UK
and the USA, while in Europe it employs about 8 per cent (Grigg, 1987, p. 95). It is argued that
perhaps 10–15 per cent of the population would need to be directly involved in food production as a
result of a shift from industrial to regenerative agriculture.
2.3 Regenerative development and regenerative agriculture
The urban environment as we know it and the growth of large-scale cities was made possible by the
industrialisation of the agricultural system. The production of the food needed to sustain urban
populations is entirely missing from the planning of cities. A systems approach would require the
incorporation of food as an essential part of the planning system.
Yet industrial agriculture in Australia is under severe stress. The effects of a warming climate on
agriculture are clear, with increased incidences of extreme weather conditions including droughts,
floods and bushfires. These extreme conditions are further compounded by excessive extraction of
water from creek and river systems and consequent damage of water systems. Deforestation has
resulted in soil depletion and increased salinity. Industrial farming practices over the past 100 years
have decreased biodiversity in landscapes and soils (where topsoil has not been lost altogether).
This has resulted in falling productivity and increasing risks to food production.
Forward thinking farmers like Charles Massy in “Call of the Reed Warbler” are advocating for a
revolution in farming practices, calling the new approach “regenerative agriculture”. Massy (2017,
p. 9) identifies the principles of regenerative agriculture as follows:
maximising the capture of solar energy by fixing as many plant sugars as possible via
photosynthesis;
improving the water cycle, maximising water infiltration, storage and recycling in the soil;
improving the soil-mineral cycle by creating healthy soils that contain and recycle a
rich lode of diverse minerals and chemicals; and
maximising biodiversity and health of integrated, dynamic ecosystems at all levels.
Massy argues that a fifth principle is needed – a change in human attitudes. Only human agency can
trigger landscape regeneration by working in harmony with natural systems. The necessary shift in
attitude is from an extractive to a regenerative mindset. Instead of just taking from the land, we take
and give back in equal measure. This concept of regeneration is equivalent to the “closing the loop”
Figure 3. Trajectory of ecological design (image used with permission Source: © All rights reserved
Regenesis – Bill Reed, bill@regenesisgroup.com
negative impacts. Underpinned by a transition to renewable energy sources, the circular
model builds economic, natural and social capital.
From the above definition, we can extract some of the key design principles of our proposed land
development model, such as life cycle planning, systems thinking and striving for zero waste. The
Circular Economy is underpinned by renewable energy, therefore, taking a systems approach, an
energy micro-grid will generate, store, monitor and distribute renewable energy on-site. The energy
system will power a water system that will be cycled through the site, providing for residents,
irrigating crops and watering animals. The living and work spaces will be passively designed to
minimise energy demand and more generally, the energy, water, food and built systems will be
integrated to maximise efficiency.
The development is not a dormitory suburb but will integrate living spaces with work spaces,
incorporating a work hub that supports the transition from the work commute to tele- commuting.
There will also be a significant amount of work available in the management and maintenance of
the water, food and energy systems and the shared spaces and facilities. All these elimate the
extensive waste in time and energy involved in the daily commute to work.
It is also proposed to incorporate innovative product development and business models to advance
the notion of the Circular Economy. This primarily involves the inclusion of waste to resource
micro-factories as currently being developed by the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and
Technology (SMaRT) at the University of New South Wales. The SMaRT Centre refers to green
materials as those that “are made entirely, or primarily, from the rubbish we throw away”.
The idea of developing a network of villages that provide residents and visitors with water, food,
energy and shelter aligns with the indigenous view of the landscape as a network of waterholes
connected by songlines. Watson (2015), in describing indigenous law, refers to a distributed system,
with obligations for people in each place to renew the land. The relationship with the natural world
involves a way of being that is cyclical – aligning with natural cycles – rather than our current linear
worldview. This is discussed in more detail in the article “Becoming Indigenous: Future cities as a
network of waterholes connected by songlines” (Liaros, 2019c).
2.5 Life cycle planning
Designing at a village scale also enables more efficient delivery of living and work spaces, allowing
shared spaces to be used for multiple purposes and enabling residents to move to different parts of
the village as their housing needs change through different life stages. Current failure to plan for
different household sizes, coupled with significant transaction costs involved in moving houses,
have resulted in a significant misalignment between dwelling structures and household occupancy
rates as illustrated in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Comparison of household occupancy rates with dwelling types in NSW. Source: ABS Census of
Population and Housing, 2016, tables G31 and G32. !
This has been exacerbated by demographic changes in the Australian population over the last half
century – an aging population, later marriages and increasing divorce rates. These have all
contributed to a falling number of occupants per household. Currently in NSW, 56 per cent of
households have only one or two occupants, while 67 per cent of houses are detached dwellings,
essentially designed for families.
The proposed regenerative villages would design for a microcosm of the NSW age demographic
and household size demographic, providing spaces appropriate to different household structures,
with access to a wide range of shared spaces. These ideas are already being developed through
flexible house designs and in co-housing and co-living development forms. Indeed, this approach of
designing for a range of household structures is particularly suited to build-to-rent managed estates,
which have witnessed significant uptake in recent years by the development industry.
2.6 Healthy urban design
According to research by public health professionals, the built environment has an important role to
play in supporting human health. In a review of the literature in the field of Healthy Urban Design
by Kent et al. (2011), three key interventions were identified that could support human health. These
are: getting people active, connecting and strengthening communities and providing healthy food
options.
The design of Regenerative Villages integrates a food system of significant scale into the built
environment, providing not just healthy food options but the opportunity to collaborate with others
in the community to provide that food. Participation in food production and a walkable environment
that connects a wide range of daily activities also allows people to get more active. This
development model therefore has the potential to significantly improve health outcomes for the
resident community.
2.7 One planet living
The health of individuals is intimately connected to the health of the natural systems in which they
live. Kate Raworth (2017) argues that “wellbeing depends on enabling every person to lead a life of
dignity and opportunity, while safeguarding the integrity of Earth’s life-supporting systems”.
Raworth argues for a new approach to economics that operates between an ecological ceiling and a
social platform. Raworth calls this living within the doughnut.
To achieve both these goals it is necessary to create an economic system that provides people with
their basic necessities, thus creating the required social platform, while at the same time living
within the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems.
The best way to achieve both these goals is to create a living environment that allows people to
have a positive impact on the land by increasing biodiversity, improving water systems and soil
health as the means by which food is produced on a daily basis. A key design approach for the
development of regenerative villages is to aim for one planet living, that is, to match the population
to the capacity of the land and supporting infrastructure. The approach is to design for a maximum
of 200 people but the final design size may be reduced to ensure capacity is not exceeded. The land
footprint required to feed 200 people will significantly influence total land requirements, so a
research project is currently being developed to determine land and water requirements for different
nutrition plans.
2.8 The future of work and the universal basic income
Modelling included in a 2015 report by the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia
(CEDA) suggested that “around 40 per cent of the [Australian] workforce face the high probability
of being replaced by computers in the next 10 to 15 years”. It is difficult to comprehend the
transformative effect that the Information Revolution might ultimately have on our society. The
closest comparison is the massive changes caused by the Industrial Revolution described above
when the proportion working in agriculture reduced from over 75 per cent of the population to as
low as 2 per cent in some countries.
The study of city planning over the last century or so has evolved to address the problems of
congestion and pollution caused by the agglomeration of manufacturing and factory workers in
cities. It is no longer appropriate for the planning of cities and towns to be based on the
consequences of agglomeration and centralisation, ignoring food production and the possibilities for
decentralisation offered by the internet. Planning should extrapolate the future from the world as it
is today, rather than from the world of the Industrial Revolution. As technology continues to
advance, making many traditional jobs obsolete, it is important to start creating resilient places
where people can work to directly satisfy their basic needs, relying less on jobs that provide an
income to satisfy these same basic needs.
There is growing interest in the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a means of
addressing the likelihood of future job losses as well as a means of addressing inequality in wealth
distribution. Rather than debating how to fund a basic income in monetary terms, a far more
effective and efficient strategy would be to create places that provide people’s basic needs directly.
This also addresses a significant gap in the UBI debate, which aims to address the inequality in the
distribution of wealth but does not address how that wealth is created. Regenerative land
development complements the UBI debate as it aims to increase our natural capital through
restoration and maintenance of land and water, and also plant and animal life, while minimising
waste and other negative impacts.
2.9 Population flows and the e-change
Over recent decades, much of the migration from the cities to rural and regional areas has been
attributed to individuals seeking a more relaxed lifestyle, that is, a sea-change (to coastal towns) or
a tree change (to rural or farming areas). In a Media Release 2016 for NBNCo, Australia’s National
Broadband Network provider, demographer and business analyst Bernard Salt is quoted as follows:
We are witnessing a quiet lifestyle revolution in suburban Australia. The fusion of a relaxed
lifestyle in tree-change and sea-change locations combined with super connectivity provided
by the NBN network, is giving people even greater scope to take greater control of where
they live and how they work.
I predict a cultural shift or “e-change movement” which could see the rise of new silicon
suburbs or beaches in regional hubs as universal access to fast broadband drives a culture
of entrepreneurialism and innovation outside our capital cities.
Embracing this e-change represents an important economic development strategy for rural and
regional councils, targeting e-changers, digital nomads, grey nomads and those who can no longer
afford housing in the cities. The Regenerative Villages development model, with internet co-
working spaces and waste to resource micro-factories, can be imagined as a resilient, low-cost
platform for innovators and entrepreneurs willing to relocate to a rural or regional area as part of an
e-change movement.
2.10 Housing affordability
The housing affordability crisis is a symptom of much broader structural issues. Housing
affordability is not just about house prices, it is also about access to and availability of work,
transport costs and other costs of living. These issues can no longer be addressed in isolation but
need to be tackled holistically.
With regards to the cost of living, the village would be designed to provide food, water and energy
for a discrete population. Having a known and fixed population allows the design process to provide
for an abundance of these basic necessities. An over-supply of food, water and energy – the demand
for which does not vary significantly with price – drives their price towards zero. Whilst work is
still necessary and so a fair system for allocating responsibility for this work will be required, food,
water and energy – having zero marginal cost – would not be market exchange commodities. The
passive architectural design of the built environment also reduces energy demand and therefore
cost.
The design of a village as a live and work hub also substantially reduces transport costs by having
work opportunities within walking distance of living environments. A compact design with up to
200 people makes vehicle sharing more feasible as access to the shared vehicles will be within
walking distance. Quality internet connection at the co-working spaces enhances the option of tele-
commuting. Meanwhile, the local energy micro-grid would be designed to incorporate an Electric
Vehicles (EV) charging station – a shift to EVs drives fuel costs towards zero.
In addition to these cost of living and transport factors, tackling housing affordability requires that
the various components of house prices be addressed. The first component is land value, which can
be minimised by purchasing rural land and capturing the land value uplift when it is rezoned from
rural to urban purposes, as illustrated in Figure 1. There is a substantial history of suggestions for
how to capture land value uplift in the literature of political economy, perhaps beginning with
Henry George’s (1879) Progress and Poverty. Much of this literature points to the need for a broad-
based land tax. Rather than taxing the land owner and requiring government to then provide
appropriate infrastructure and services, the approach here is to ensure that the development process
ensures that appropriate infrastructure is provided on-site.
Housing construction costs would also be reduced by creating smaller private spaces. Unlike a tiny
house village, the reduction in house sizes is compensated by access to a wide range of shared
community spaces, such as for work, cooking and eating areas, entertainment facilities, swimming
pools and the like. Such regenerative villages, built through a single integrated construction process
for 200 people, would be far more cost effective to build than the current approach to greenfield
subdivision and subsequent construction of the 75 dwellings needed to house the same number of
people. Infrastructure costs are kept to a minimum by the compact design, which is more like a
resort or campus than like current residential subdivisions.
Further work is now being undertaken with respect to land tenure and investment structures to
minimise property transfer costs and land speculation. Given that residents would have access to
various shared spaces and assets provided in different parts of the site, a collective ownership
arrangement would be preferred. The Community Land Trust (CLT) model developed for the
Australian context by Crabtree et al. (2013) would be an appropriate structure. CLTs provide for
collective ownership of the land, which is held in trust in perpetuity to avoid land speculation.
Platforms enabling the fractional ownership of real estate are now also available enabling collective
ownership of a regenerative village.
3. Implementation through the NSW planning system
3.1 Strategic planning
In order for Regenerative Villages to be financed, developed and replicated, the development model
must be clearly articulated in local government strategies as a desired form of development.
In accordance with Section 3.9 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP & A
Act, NSW), all Councils must prepare a Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS). This will set
out a 20-year vision for land use in the local government area. This is a recent amendment to the EP
& A Act and regional councils must have their first statement in place by 1 July 2020.
The LSPS provides an ideal opportunity for Councils – in consultation with their community – to
introduce this development model into their local planning framework. The LSPS should explicitly
refer to Regenerative Villages (or equivalent terminology) and should include objectives such as for
future land development to be regenerative in character, that development integrates regenerative
agriculture and that it provides for all the energy and water needs plus a specified proportion of food
for a discrete population. The LSPS should also:
identify the general localities (not the specific sites) where this development would be
permitted; and
refer to a policy document or chapter in the Development Control Plan (DCP) for more
information.
3.2 Policy document or chapter in DCP
The policy or plan should clearly describe the development form and the process through which this
development outcome could be achieved. As a minimum, the following should be included:
requirements to prepare Concept Development Application in accordance with Division 4.4 of
the EP & A Act together with a Planning Instrument Amendment in accordance with Division
3.5 of the EP & A Act;
requirements at different stages prior to the rezoning of land (e.g. what must be done on land
that is not to be rezoned, what must be done before Council resolves to refer to the
Department of Planning, prior to advertisement, prior to final resolution, prior to referral to
Minister for signing and publication);
the minimum total land area and the proportions of the site area for the three precincts (i.e.
conservation/rehabilitation area, agriculture and live/work hub);
minimum requirements for harvesting, management, storage and distribution of water, food
and energy;
design principles for buildings; and
preparation of a transport plan for the site as well as impacts on the surrounding
road network.
A useful approach would be to first identify one site for a pilot project, the development of which
would assist in refining the development controls and wording in the strategy.
3.3 Voluntary planning agreement policy
The proposed development will include various facilities, assets and open spaces to service the
population within the development site. Some of these will also be available to the proximate
township and other communities in the broader area. It would therefore be appropriate to prepare a
Voluntary Planning Agreement (VPA) policy, including a standard template VPA that provides a
framework for the delivery and management of infrastructure, both on the subject site and the
surrounding area. This should address:
effect on any development contributions required pursuant to Sections 7.11 or 7.12 of the
EP&A Act;
effect on any charges for water supply, sewerage and storm-water drainage facilities under s64
of the Local Government Act 1993;
requirement for the VPA to run with the land pursuant to Section 7.6 of the EP&A Act;
effect on waste levies; and
effect on ordinary rates or requirement for any special rates.
4. Conclusion
It is relatively easy to be dismissive of new visions for the future, describing them as utopian,
impractical or idealistic or perhaps suggesting there is nothing new here, ecovillages have been tried
and failed, so we continue with business-as-usual. Yet we are living in a time of dramatic
technological change with the threat of the collapse of ecosystems due to climate change, land
degradation and plastic pollution. In many countries, inequality is extreme with significant
populations feeling politically disenfranchised and economically excluded.
This is not a time to continue with business-as-usual in any field of human endeavour.
This paper presents a sketch outlining a new human settlement theory. A different way of living on
the land. It is an invitation to academics and practitioners to participate in a debate.
How do you imagine a future that is equitably distributed, where people everywhere can work with
their neighbours to ensure all in the community have access to basic necessities? How might these
necessities be provided as efficiently as possible to create the time and space for freedom from
meaningless and unnecessary work – and freedom to pursue our own individual passions? How
might human settlements be designed to be in alignment with cyclical ecological systems and so
create no waste and other externalities? How do we rehabilitate, reinvent and regenerate ourselves,
our societies and natural systems? How do we start thinking, planning, designing and living in
systems rather than in the silo of our own worldview?
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Change is consummated in many cases after much argument and agitation, and men do not observe that almost everything has been silently effected by causes to which few people paid any heed. In one generation an institution is unassailable, in the next bold men may assail it, and in the third bold men defend it. At one time the most conclusive arguments are advanced against it in vain, if indeed they are allowed utterance at all. At another time the most childish sophistry is enough to secure its condemnation. In the first place, the institution, though probably indefensible by pure reason, was congruous with the conscious habits and modes of thought of the community. In the second, these had changed from influences which the acutest analysis would probably fail to explain, and a breath sufficed to topple over the sapped structure.
Closing the loop - new circular economy package
  • European Parliament Briefing
European Parliament Briefing (2016), "Closing the loop -new circular economy package", available at: www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS-Briefing-573936-Circular-economy-package-FINAL.pdf (accessed 4 September 2018).
The industrial revolution and land transformation
  • D Grigg
Grigg, D. (1987), "The industrial revolution and land transformation", in Wolman, M.G. and Fournier, F.G.A. (Eds), Land Transformation in Agriculture, SCOPE, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, West Sussex, pp. 79-109.
Becoming indigenous: future cities as a network of waterholes connected by songlines”, The Fifth Estate, 22 May, available at: www.thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/becoming-indigenous-future-cities-as-a-network-of-waterholes-connected-by-songlines
  • S Liaros
Liaros, S. (2019c), "Becoming indigenous: future cities as a network of waterholes connected by songlines", The Fifth Estate, 22 May, available at: www.thefifthestate.com.au/columns/ spinifex/becomingindigenous-future-cities-as-a-network-of-waterholes-connected-by-songlines/ (accessed 1 September 2019).
Australia’s future workforce?
  • Committee for Economic Development of Australia