CHANGE AND DISRUPTION

In the context of handed down wisdom, the talk is about politics always being the art of the possible. Nevertheless, all too often politics is about the maintenance of the status quo and the probable. Likewise, future gazing leads to tinkering around the edges without insightful vision, without a sense of optimism, and without imagination but always imagining that nothing will really change.

Outside the box thinkers, divergent thinkers, typically get to be called out for being some kind discordant irrational and destructive activists. Divergent thought processes are used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions, rather than seeking a single, supposedly correct answer. So, in order to be 'correct', and assuming that what exists is correct, the imperative to change gives way to the status quo.

On occasions like currently, where fundamental change is an imperative, it is worth remembering the words of the conservative American President, Ronald Reagan, who said that, the status quo you know is Latin for the mess we are in. Yes, he was was speaking in a different context. Nonetheless, the words fit the contemporaneous circumstance where too little is being done to mitigate the consequences of CLIMATEchange, URBANsprawl and the ongoing degradation of humanity's CULTURALlandscapes.

Since ancient times THEgrid has dominated city planning and it is not for nothing that THEgrid offers administrative utility with a military purposefulness of a kind that has become subliminally implanted in urban planning mindsets.

Cities are centres for human activity, trade, commerce, productivity, and innovation. They offer their inhabitants diverse opportunities for employment, education, healthcare, and cultural experiences. Overall they exist to improve the quality of life for their inhabitants albeit that the resources needed to do so, and are depended upon, are beyond their boundaries and somehow imagined as unbounded.

Cities are also epicentres of a kind for colonialism that includes economic exploitation for the benefit of the 'Empire'. An Empire's people and natural resources are exploited. The creation of new markets for the colonisers. By extension, the coloniser's ways of living extend beyond the Empire's borders.

Also, city planning and military planning come together given that seats of Empire are typically 'forts'. Given this, concepts such as the "military crest" come into play. This tactical concept is crucial for planning defensive positions and projecting POWERcentres – Town Halls, Cathedrals etc. – importance. Cities are places where political power generates wealth.

However, since the Industrial Revolution, cities' ancient purposefulness has been, and is being, increasingly eroded. Alongside this the global onward march of industrialisation, burgeoning technologies and sprawling urban landscapes means that ecological sustainability is increasingly being compromised. Thus, a point in time has been arrived at where it is clear that the status quo is unsustainable and when fundamental changed needs to be brokered.

Importantly, cultures founded upon colonial exploitation are needing to be more environmentally cum ecologically sustainable and indeed more self-sustaining with it.

Mahatma Gandhi was right when he said ‘The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed’. He spoke with the first hand authority of colonised person reimagining a post-colonial existence. Gandhi is also is often quoted for saying "Be the change that you want to see in the world" and "Action expresses priorities." 

Considering that people in developed, Westernised countries are not only the highest consumers of all resources, but also the largest producers of waste. It is already past the time to take a long critical look at cities', their consumption patterns, their ecological sustainability, and consider what part they can play in ensuring a healthy future not only for THEplanet, but everyone on it. Cities' placedness needs to be reimagined and somewhat beyond the post-colonial circumstance

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Jorn Utzon in the late 1950s and 1960s challenged the assumed utility of the THEgrid. Utzon advocated incremental change but

he pushed boundaries nonetheless.  Perhaps Utzon's most famous quote is, "I like to be on the edge of the possible". He also emphasised the importance of creating a "humane and friendly world" by design. He has left us two housing estates in Denmark that challenge THEgrid's precedence three generations on.

If car ownership is mandatory, then a city is not urban. In a sustaining city, people should be able to live a quality life without a car, and not feel deprived. A good sustainability and quality of life indicator: The average amount of time spent in a car.

When ineffective placemaking is written into trivial plans, the 'placemaking' it is blighted strategically. Here, effectively, the 'plans' are lists of decisions that have already been taken. Moreover, the planners' professional turf is defended and invented jargon and esoteric language is used to maintain the status quo all too often. 

The energy invested in developing arcane and difficult to interpret planning methodologies is misspent. Planning processes that typically avoid complex choices are bewildering given the quantities of data that goes toward not having to face the need to make choices.

Invented names and functions for planning often exist to protect themselves by the 'professionalisation' and systemising of planning processes. Planning becomes bureaucratic, data is collected, its analysis takes place routinely, and typically well away the PUBLICglaze. Typically, nobody seems to have much to say about the usefulness of these planning processes except those who carry them out.

It is not uncommon for 'planners' to overemphasise the professional sanctity of their calling. Strangely enough in the handed down wisdom of the world it is said that humility is ennobling, and that there is something in pride which debases any of that.

When it comes to 'GREENING' and placemaking in the context of the status quo planned greening is a contestable process given the implied boundaries that come with THEgrid and all that is invested in it.

The cross-disciplinary nature of 'GREENING' research and strategic policy development poses challenges because practitioners from a various of fields such as, planners, designer, engineers, horticulturalist, anthropologists, and others need to coordinate their efforts and collaborate in order to create effective greening strategies that.

When strategically theGREENING is a TOPdown process by design in 21st C context almost inevitably the change mechanisms are inhibited and indeed when change the administrators are fundamentally diffident about change.

Relative to understanding bamboo in a Tasmanian context there is a range of expertise that come into play such as in fields of urban planning, water management, landscape architecture, horticulture, ecology, urban forestry, psychology, engineering and policy development.

Planners and placemakers need to jointly and collaboratively address cross-cutting problems, identify challenges and opportunities, and prioritise the GREENING issues.

In reality, the GREENING of places and CULTURALlandscapes is not anything that can be achieved 'authoritatively', premised on the evidence to hand. Therefore, despite the current administrative mindsets that strategically preferences common denominator TOPdown 'solutions' needs to be replaced by inclusive and rhizomatic cooperative and collaborative strategies. The difficulty here is in the need to disrupt the status quo.