Are You #REDE? Sharing ethics with the big wig.
Image by suphakit73 at freedigitalphotos.net
Not many of us have true power when it comes to shaping the future. It is something that the very powerful and financially affluent have a monopoly on, despite the illusion of choice we like to hold onto. When people make choices they are arguably based on all their life experiences and the words of their mentors, and for powerful people that often means their vision of the future is influenced by other powerful people, and people with financial influence, protecting the existing status quo.
Of course it’s easy to see why poor decisions can be made with such forces to navigate from the safety of an armchair. There are so many powerful others to keep happy and amiable though, for those in the thick of it, that it would be more like juggling knives. Power and money is very persuasive, but rarely given without expected future influence, under threat of retraction at the benefactor’s whim. The Clare designed extension to Newcastle Art Gallery that was unnecessarily squashed comes to mind. Such a blow to the city, for no believable, good reason at all. From a distance we can see greed, status, notoriety and lobbying in play. Politicking at its finest. But navigating that, and finding who to trust once in the middle of it, would be a veritable mine field.
Image by Clare Design, formerly available through the NAG website.
I’ve also marvelled at some of the impact studies I’ve read about for West Connex where expert opinion resoundingly shows it is not particularly a good solution and will create more problems, yet the force with which the project is still pushed without reconsideration or extensive modification to circulate traffic around the Sydney city centre, rather than dumping it in a large congested glut, and stalling all inner west city movement, is baffling. There seems to be a bit of an “act now think later” approach going on, with promises to work it out if we just break soil; which is death to a functional city. Major infrastructure projects are not the place to ‘fly by the seat of your pants’. Decisions must be meticulous and rigorous, as ‘do overs’ are expensive and sometimes not possible. The damage of mistakes can sometimes never be adequately recompensed. The decision to relocate the Power House museum because residential development investors wish to turn it into apartments seems a little like putting the cart before the horse or throwing the baby out with the bathwater too. I do not deny Sydney’s west could use such a development of their own, but not at the expense of what is a major and historic, revenue raising attraction, in our City Centre's heart, intergenerationally loved and frequented by the entire community of NSW as well as international guests.
Image by Cambodia4kids.org Beth Kanter on Flickr.
Watching decision after decision being made not only in Sydney but in regional centres in NSW, I have been very interested in planning and urban development in our state for several years now. It seems almost based on whim rather than logic at times, and frequently the advice of expert planners and public servants is ignored. It seems also that if people or communities suggest bad projects should be reconsidered for genuine reasons, and are open to development, but only beneficial development, they are vilified and labelled "anti-progress" by those with vested interests, rather than recognising the fact that development is only progressive if it has a positive effect on the community not negative effects; that is actually regressive. It is an ugly practice that we see people with money and influence able to publically ridicule and bully community groups with every right to give feedback. This name calling and bullying simply shuts down dialogues and results in mistrust and increased resistance, when feedback and listening to community concerns is something good planners and MP’s should do regardless of investor's opinions. And those engaging in such disdainful tactics against communities should be regarded with increased scrutiny before allowing them any access to public works projects. It must be incredibly frustrating to planners trying to get reasonable community feedback, when rudeness is escalating tension and polarising responses. It causes communication gridlock and is not healthy. But insult is often thrown around so liberally, with no clear distinction between progress and destructive development, as rubber stamping proceeds, often against expert advice.
Image of Newcastle Railway station by JROBBO, available on Wikipedia.
Excessive influence is to the benefit of no one when it occurs, not even the influencers who are left with poor developments in their name. Of course there are many good decisions made too, but when the planners are ignored for those jingling pockets and promises, the state is actually scarred and bruised a little. It may get patched up in time, but it’s a risky process, and those with increasing influence that trumps that of planning advisors and experts (and even at times the decisions the MPs themselves garnered from this expert advice), should be purged from NSW politics, policy making and planning, if we are to realise a truly great and functional state. Private "advisory groups" with picuniary interests in property development are damaging good practice in planning and growth.
Having studied a little psychology in my time I’m well aware of the influence what we observe and read has on our subconscious. Even if we push it aside in gest, each little bit of information we input has the potential to plant seeds of thought and open new ideas and ways of thinking in our minds. I decided that perhaps I should give Premier Mike Baird the benefit of the doubt that he is a good guy, and decided how our world views differ may simply be due to a difference in data input, rather than anything fundamental like ethics. Since I understand politicians are pressed for time and get many many messages I decided to keep it light and tweet short videos, which quickly and time efficiently make a point. My rule was that any introductory course was a 101 course, so I was going to give him 101 days of things that resonate with my sense of development and planning ethics (Unfortunately I accidentally deleted Day68 (I think) unpinning it). It was a short course "Introduction to Responsible Development", cousre code REDE101. Everything had to pack a punch for the time poor and reinforce the previous topic. My other task was to show how various elements influence and connect with all society, from urban planning, transport, energy, agriculture, industry, gender, employment, education, and affordable housing planning/policy; and to show they are interconnected, they had to come full circle. The side-effect for me was that over this process I started seeing the "body of the state", which I will diagram and share with you at a later date.
You can check out this one sided conversation with the State Premier here:
@ArchiTryst tweets to @mikebairdMP
He never responded, but I’d like to think he was mildly amused at least, and had the occasional look at these short, sweet, messages. I’d also like to think they were useful and had ideas he could take with him if he hadn’t already heard them. It would be nice to think they cut through the white noise and politicking he faces each day, even just a little, and gave the insights of experts and professionals, with no direct involvement to any NSW proposal, as they have freely given their knowledge to us all online.
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