What is Town Planning Rebellion?

Town Planning Rebellion is currently an Australia wide organisation that was set-up to highlight the critical role that land – use planning must play in combatting the climate and ecological emergency. We share the same three demands as Extinction Rebellion (XR).

Why have a Town Planning Rebellion?

“The global construction and real estate industry is often referred to as the 40 Percent Industry – as they are responsible for roughly 40 percent of emissions, 40 percent of waste, and 40 percent of energy, materials and water expenditure.”

This does not factor in the environmental impact of building on farmland and natural habitat. It also does not factor in the short lifespan of many of the buildings that are currently under construction and that will not be fit for purpose in a few decades time. Moving our focus away from ‘development’ ( and an economy that is reliant upon pouring endless concrete) must therefore be a central part of our urgent transition to a low carbon society.

Urban and regional planning must play a critical role in mitigating the climate and ecological emergency and TPR intersects beautifully with movements around green energy, regenerative farming, reducing car usage and biodiversity preservation.

For example, food miles are increasing due to development on the food bowls of our urban fringes.  Urban development is also encroaching into habitats of iconic native animals such as the koala. Sustainable planning will play a crucial role in mitigating many of these issues in combination with reducing food miles and ending old growth logging.

Our organisation is dedicated to ensuring that changes to the way we approach urban and regional planning is placed as a matter of priority and that Citizens Assemblies or other similar forms of direct democracy are put in place to ensure that there are fundamental changes to the way we approach planning.

We have a list of ten focus points that we will take into these assemblies (and beyond).  These come with the understanding that any outcome will be much more nuanced and far reaching than the focus points we are putting forward. We understand that we are one part of a much larger conversation.

Holistic Activism, Extinction Rebellion and a Movement of Movements

Town Planning Rebellion recognises that a  holistic approach to activism is required – one that understands we will not reverse the climate emergency with the same behaviour that led us into it.

We also recognise the importance of systemic change and that as long as we continue to operate under an economic system that is driven by development, we can only ever make cosmetic changes with negligible long term results.

Town Planning Rebellion therefore follows the Holistic Activism approach and this includes being part of a wider movement of movements that has behavioural and systemic change needs at it’s core (feel free to check out the rest of the Holistic Activism website to find out more).

Our role in a broader global movement

Our response to the climate emergency must involve working both at the local level and at the international level.  Of course, radical town planning policies will need to be a central component of that approach.

What is important is that we share our knowledge with the rest of the world as part of a wider program of mutual aid where ideas, resources and knowledge are shared freely across borders. This will enable communities across the world to be best equipped to create resilient, regenerative communities that draws down carbon and enables the re-wilding that is required to help reverse the sixth great mass extinction.

We will share our ideas on sustainable town planning as part of an ongoing conversation on the global stage. It is essential that the world works together by sharing ideas and resources but it needs to be very different to the way it was done in the past.

In other words we need to de-colonise aid and instead approach it as a sharing of ideas that will lead to the creation of ecologically resilient communities across the world that can fully embrace everything from regenerative farming, First Nations approaches to re-wilding, and permaculture through cooperation and not coercion.

How TPR will intersect with other movements

TPR’s ten focus points intersects with many other movements in the broader movement that is required to create a degrowth based post-carbon society. This is why town planning is such an important component of reversing the climate and ecological emergency and why we hope to connect with many other campaigns as part of a broader movement for change.

For example, our focus on ending sprawl and its encroachment onto wildlife habitat feeds into the movement for preserving biodiversity and it therefore fits nicely with campaigns to end old growth logging.

Ending sprawl together with embracing David Holmgren’s retrosuburbia movement will also help to ensure that we reduce food miles by preserving the food bowls on the fringes of our cities as well as growing more fresh easily perishable food items in the long established gardens across the suburbs.

We also intersect with the green energy movement with the knowledge that green energy can only have net benefits if it underpinned by sound town planning and design and that solar panels are not a cosmetic afterthought in a growth based development driven society.

Our ten Points of Focus

We firmly believe the role that sustainable town planning should play in mitigating the environmental emergency has been understated and that this needs to change as a matter of urgency.

It is critical that we return to localised decision making processes while ensuring that those processes are non-discriminatory. Importantly, the mantra of think globally, act locally (as well as sharing knowledge and resources through mutual aid) is essential.

There are ten points of focus that we are carrying forward. These points are general summaries. The finer details will need to be determined through citizens assemblies and other points of focus will likely emerge in those assemblies.

Our ten points of focus attempt to accommodate a number of different approaches to urban living within the context of reaching net zero missions in the fastest time possible. Importantly, they cover a number of different housing needs to suit different demographics. This, combined with a strong emphasis on low-cost housing, coupled with a wider strategy of de-growth (and beyond) will ensure that we properly tackle homelessness as well as any fluctuations in population. We need to work towards an outcome where nobody is left behind.

Town Planning Rebellion’s Ten Points of Focus

We firmly believe the role that sustainable town planning should play in mitigating the environmental emergency has been understated and that this needs to change as a matter of urgency.

There are ten points of focus that we are carrying forward. These points are general summaries. The finer details will need to be determined through citizens assemblies and other ongoing forms of direct democracy.

These points of focus accommodate a number of different approaches to urban living within the context of reaching net zero missions in the fastest possible time. Importantly, they cover a number of different housing needs that suit a range of demographics (including the homeless). We need to work towards an outcome where nobody is left behind.

Our principal focus is to give priority to inhabiting the many thousands of houses and units that lie vacant within our conurbations. In Melbourne alone, there are currently up to 82,000 empty homes. Maintaining, retrofitting and converting existing buildings is our underlying approach.

This connects with our second focus, which is to embrace the retrosuburbia model as a means of increasing food security in the existing built form. Retrosuburbia is a growing and established movement and we strongly recommend that you connect with it (details at the end).

Our third focus is to end all housing development on or beyond the urban fringes of our towns and cities. Exceptions should be made for developments that are part and parcel of a wider project to draw-down carbon into the soil, either through regenerative farming practices, rewilding (in cooperation with First Nations people), biomass planting projects or bush regeneration.

Any such housing projects would endeavour to use recycled materials as well as carbon neutral and/or carbon negative building materials (such as hempcrete) as part of the wider carbon drawdown project of which it is a part.

Our fourth focus is a new approach to the construction of higher density housing within residential areas our cities and towns. This is known as urban consolidation and it does have benefits if it is done right. In other words, if it is not used as a green light to raze entire neighbourhoods to the ground or to build sub-standard developments for the investment market.

Therefore, future developments must not be at the expense of existing robust and retrofittable buildings (see the third focus). Housing stock that is not deemed to be salvageable can be replaced, but only with higher density public housing/cooperative housing style developments.

This is very different from the current model where entire neighbourhoods are zoned for higher density development. This forces up land prices, pricing people out of neighbourhoods while enabling robust housing to be demolished.

By removing the policy of zoning and replacing it with selective, well designed densification projects across all areas, for the purposes of affordable housing, we can prevent the gentrification that comes with up-zoning. Additionally, we will avoid the environmental expense of losing housing stock (including heritage buildings) that could be retrofitted and/or better utilised.

Existing gardens would (as much as possible) be incorporated into any new developments and those gardens could be a resource for the new communities that are created.

Our fifth focus is regarding transport. All proposed new road building projects would not proceed unless there is a very good reason. Our focus from hereon will be almost entirely on improving and interconnecting walkability, public transport networks and bicycle pathways.

Our sixth focus is to look at retrofitting the existing built spaces that are currently not used for housing such as converting disused office space. This will help to increase densities if required, without the need for additional development.

Our seventh focus is to embrace the growing demand for alternative types of living such as granny flats and tiny houses. These can be slotted into existing communities with minimal impact on the land and on surrounding flora and fauna… and a growing number of people are choosing this lifestyle choice.

Our eighth focus is to put more emphasis on redeveloping ex-industrial land (and land that was once utilised for other purposes). This is known as brownfield site redevelopment. It is a slow process but it can have positive net benefits if it is done well.

We will ensure that this kind of development will be approached in such a way that nature is reintroduced into urban areas and that carbon neutral building techniques are employed throughout (see the ninth focus below).

Our ninth focus is to ensure that passive solar and energy efficient design as well as the utilisation of carbon neutral or carbon negative building materials is intrinsic to all future developments.

Our tenth focus is to reduce future development in high bushfire risk areas by compensating people who own vacant lots with a plot of land in a what will be a small number of newly built eco-townships. These townships will be built to be easily defended in bushfire scenarios and will be built around permaculture principles.

This will protect large areas of bushland from future development while providing security to people who would otherwise live in high bushfire risk areas. The offer will also be extended to people who have lost their house in a bushfire.

First Nations Sovereignty

Town Planning Rebellion recognises the sovereignty that First Nations people have over the lands that we call Australia and we recognise that those lands were never ceded.

We strongly recognise the need for treaties to be signed with First Nations people, not only to start to heal the immense traumas perpetuated through colonisation but also to ensure that First Nations culture is central to the path that we collectively take forward.

TPR recognises that indigenous culture and knowledge is crucial to healing the decades of damage caused by colonisation. We also understand that what we have to say is one part of a wider conversation that must include the representation of First Nations people and for it to be on their terms.

Population

It is important that we discuss the demand issue of town planning as well as the supply issue. This means that we must be willing to have nuanced, rational conversation on the issue of population. In Australia, around 40% of population growth comes from births minus deaths and the remainder is from migration.

While migration has many positive benefits, it is the least equitable and proactive way of dealing with global issues around poverty and high fertility as there are far more people left behind when people are forced to leave their homeland in search of a better life.

This is not to criticise migration, only that it needs to be treated as one component of a much more holistic approach to the population issue in general. The post-growth approach that TPR advocates is underpinned by international collaboration through proactive/mutual aid that creates resilient, empowered communities across the world.

In our current neoliberal society, the driving force behind migration is primarily to grow the development-based economy and any progress towards a population naturally stabilising or declining is portrayed as being a bad thing. This attitude needs to change.

What is required is a shift in paradigm towards a degrowth model that can comfortably accommodate the inevitable decline in fertility rates that occur when important social parameters are met. Also, helping to create socially and environmentally resilient local communities across the globe through mutual aid will over time, reduce the need for people to migrate.

Of course, migration will continue to happen and this is a good thing but combined with taking a proactive global approach, we expect that future migration policy positively discriminate in favour of refugees, family reunions and people who feel that their role in healing the earth can be better served in Australia.

Due to the nature of the multiple crises that we are facing, we can expect populations to fluctuate in the short to medium term as more people become displaced. This can be accommodated for without pouring too much more concrete by focussing on retrofitting/converting empty and under-utilised buildings. There are 82,000 empty homes in Melbourne alone (and potentially hundreds of thousands of empty bedrooms).

At the same time, we need to keep challenging the neo-liberal line that populations must keep increasing in order to cater to our ageing population. In order for any population to stabilise we must expect to have a larger demographic of older people for a while. To deliberately grow the population in order to cater to an ageing one, only kicks the can further down the road. An ageing population is very manageable in a post-growth society as our economy will be a caring one and many growth-based activities such as construction (especially for new builds) will make way for roles that can better accommodate an older demographic.

In conclusion, migration policy should not be tied in with a ‘development’ driven agenda as it is now. Instead, it must be tied in with an approach that embraces the stabilisation and decline in populations that occur when important social parameters are met. In the meantime, populations will fluctuate as the carbon and ecological emergency intensifies. This can be accommodated through TPR’s ten points of focus. In the medium to long term, populations across the board will naturally decline as the impact of a degrowth based, caring economy supersedes the current pro-growth, pro natalist economic system.

As populations start to stabilise across the world, the need to construct new dwellings to accommodate more people will reduce and the emphasis will transition to which buildings we should preserve. Sadly, many contemporary homes are so poorly constructed that they will have to be demolished with the space returned to non-human nature. Migration therefore will become less a catalyst for new construction and more an opportunity to renovate the most robust of our existing houses and communities.

By helping to create a world that is comfortable with non-coercive population decline, we can better remove the engines that drive all kinds of growth, whether it be in population or per capita consumption.

Mutual Aid

Our response to the climate emergency must involve working both at the local level and at the international level. Of course, radical town planning policies will need to be a central component of that approach.

What is important is that we share our knowledge with the rest of the world as part of a wider program of mutual aid where ideas, resources and knowledge are shared freely across borders. This will enable communities across the world to be best equipped to create resilient, regenerative communities that draw down carbon while enabling the rewilding that is required to help reverse the sixth great mass extinction.

We will share our ideas on sustainable town planning as part of an ongoing conversation on the global stage. It is essential that the world works together by sharing ideas and resources but it needs to be very different to the way it was done in the past.

In other words we need to decolonise aid and instead approach it as a sharing of ideas that will lead to the creation of ecologically resilient communities across the world that can fully embrace everything from regenerative farming, First Nations approaches to re-wilding, and permaculture through cooperation and not coercion.

Joining Town Planning Rebellion

If you connect with what we have to say, we warmly invite you to join us and to play as large or as small a role as you see fit. We really want to grow this movement and we are at the very beginning… and time is short. If you strongly connect to this movement, feel free to embrace a larger role.

We are an ongoing conversation and there are many ways that it can be carried forward. We have no time to lose. If we do not change the way we approach planning and development we will not stand any chance of overcoming the ecological emergency.

The role of TPR is to share our ten points of focus with as many people and groups as possible, so that we can add to the ongoing conversation. This includes our approach to Mutual Aid and the need for treaties with First Nations people as well as our adherence to Holistic Activism principles.

There are three ways of connecting with us:

The first is for people who connect with all of our approaches and who wish to set-up their own branch of TPR. Existing branches provide assistance and ongoing support and collaboration in order to make that happen.

The second is for existing activist groups who wish to discuss and/or incorporate some or all of our ideas with the intention of broadening their scope.

The third is for individuals. This is for anyone who would like to help TPR spread the word about some or all of its ten points of focus and to help work towards ensuring that sustainable planning is integral to the developing movements around degrowth and creating low carbon societies.

Individuals may also want to join because they would like to set-up their own group that would incorporate some or all of TPR’s ten points of focus.
TPR’s services to members:

We provide one-on-one support, give talks and run interactive workshops on a semi-regular basis and travel around the country to do so. We also work with all of our members to set-up and participate in workshops and other avenues of collaboration.

As a holistic activist-based organisation, we recognise that it is a movement of movements that is required and not a single movement as that would be susceptible to division, so our work is involved in building on areas of intersection.

We can also provide support to individuals and groups in countries other than Australia to set-up a Town Planning Rebellion based movement.

Our Service to Members

We provide one-on-one support, give talks and run interactive workshops on a semi regular basis and travel around the country to do so. We also work with all of our members to set-up and participate in Citizens Assemblies, workshops and other avenues of collaboration.

As a holistic activist based organisation, we recognise that it is a movement of movements that is required and not a single movement as that would be susceptible to division, so our work is involved in building on areas of intersection.

We can also provide support to individuals and groups in countries other than Australia to set-up a Town Planning Rebellion movements.

To join us please go to https://holisticactivism.net/contact and put TPR at the top of the message.

We also have a Facebook group: Town Planning Rebellion (TPR)

We look forward to hearing from you and we value your feedback 🙂

To join us, please go to https://holisticactivism.net/contact and put TPR at the top of the message.

We also have a Facebook group called Town Planning Rebellion (TPR) and would love you to join.

We look forward to hearing from you and we value your feedback.

For more information on the Retrosuburbia Movement go to: https://retrosuburbia.com

Articles related to TPR:

Urban and Regional Planning for the Climate Emergency by Mark Allen, Green Left Weekly, Sept 2017:

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/urban-and-regional-planning-climate-emergency

https://holisticactivism.net/activism-for-the-decade-ahead

https://redlands2030.net/climate-emergency-town-planning-approach