After the Rains – thinking about Urban Planning in a future of havoc weather
Dorothea Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ is best known for its second verse – “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains”. As vast tracts of Australia again face the prospect of massive floods I wonder if our Urban Planners ever consider the significance of the observation of Mackellar’s poem? And if they haven’t in the past, should they do so now? One thing we know is happening is the greater focus on weather related phenomenon by the Insurance sector who right now, must be wondering when they can catch a break. As our population grows and demand for land for housing is increasing, it becomes a bit too simple for local governments of all types to open what could arguably stated as ‘precarious development sites’ whilst ignoring the prescience of Mackellar’s words.
We’ve seen around the world the human push for settlements in perhaps the most unlikely of places – at the feet of volcanoes; floating on the oceans; in ‘forever dry’ flood plains and on land below sea level. Let’s not forget the ACT’s past decision to build a housing development in among a pine plantation, London’s great fire enabled through tinder box housing design within arms reach of the next house; and now a days we have the increasing encroachment of suburban development in Australia’s fire friendly eucalypt forests.
After these rains subside and the floods ease, will thought be given to the Urban Planning decisions being made around the country? It may well be a case of ‘Caveat Emptor’ (let the buyer beware) and surely responsibility for development must finally rest on those who are deemed to have the knowledge and forethought to enable housing construction in areas blatantly exposed to events that not only should have been foreseen, but increasingly that we have recent history of experiencing. The Insurance industry are paying attention and premiums of housing insurance are climbing as that Indusry factors in the higher probabilities of weather related damage.
So after these rains are over – what changes if any, will Urban Planners take?
Old normal, new normal, normal normal. As some businesses aim to rush back to ‘old normal’ they’re likely missing a key opportunity to define, perhaps for the first time, what a new normal should look like for themselves. This Workforce Planning framework should help As a CEO or senior manager, here’s questions I’d want…
Read More >As Covid19 variants continue to emerge, the cause of which can be fairly placed at a lack of social distancing and slow vaccine rates that allow ‘mixing’ of viral strains in social settings, India is on the brink of a healthcare collapse and the implications for Australian companies, especially in the tech sector, are huge.…
Read More >What does the future hold for Australia in the next 3 months, to 3 years? Travel, work, living… Recording to the one hour session inc a Q&A Here’s the Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/pBJqFvN_yZVrktNsN2xWRE7heUTpr226GtyjJpiChG8yZA2D3qEHpACjm8TpMfxd.67Jj1DNSPserOvpZ Passcode: 1DPi*.$Z
Read More >Sometimes the words come to you readily and this small piece has me thinking about what I’d like to say at a time when maybe I’ve lost the cognitive ability to do so Before I was Me Before I was Me I used to be fit, and even quite smart; We’d chat about love,…
Read More >I was doing it well before then and there’s clips of me online going back as far as 2010 or so, railing against the idea of human resources as a label and the insistence by HR managers or CEOs that only people who work ‘in the office’ are going to be productive. It Is A…
Read More >Like lab grown meats, Vertical Farming is going to be part of the future of food. For now it might be best to compare them to small scale battery storage on the electrical grid that can help balance out spikes of demand in the system and provide an output directly where needed. Eventually (like…
Read More >In rental and lease markets it’s fair to say that for the best part of three decades, the landlords have been the price setters. The rules around negative gearing in domestic supply enable sizeable portfolios. Demand in office spaces in central suburbs has been consistently tight. And now, finally, CFO’s have become aware of the…
Read More >With Australia having just about wrestled Covid19 to the ground (NSW remains a bit of an issue) there’s now surging demand for PPE in the USA. The Covid19 virus is tracking toward an exponential increase and PPE Manufacturers should start looking for supply opportunities Sadly in the USA over the past week, they are adding…
Read More >The Mechanical, Psychological, and Biological Interventions of a Pandemic With Johnson and Johnson also pausing it’s #Covid19 #vaccine trial, it is becoming clearer to more of the public, that the long steady path to a vaccine is not something that can be rushed for anyone’s political agenda or preferred view of the world. We’re learning…
Read More >It seems that one way or another, Victoria is going to pop out of #Lockdown. Probably not in the way we would have hoped. And so for everyone pushing for #AfterLockdown in Victoria and for the wider society, there are two questions you must confront: One – ‘What do you feel is an acceptable level…
Read More >