Towards compact communities that are awesome: part 1
Home » Blog » Craig Neilson » Towards compact communities that are awesome: part 1An introduction to Craig's blog mini-series looking at bringing Auckland's apartment buildings closer to nature.
Photo by JSMJR via Flickr
Apartment buildings seem pretty far removed from nature.
But compact communities are incomparably green in some really life-enhancing ways. Walking or cycling to your regular destinations (work, education, markets) is an exercise in travel-independance and time-saving. City dwelling means there's more to do close by, and there's easy access the lion's share of public transport options when you do choose to travel across town.
A dense population lends itself to all sorts of good things being within reach: hospitals, universities, libraries, art galleries and big parties. Freedom is knowing you're walking home tonight.
Without getting too deep into it, one might even argue that the whole cause of suburban sprawl is that everybody seems to want ground-floor entry, off-street parking and a backyard of their own. But apartment-dwellers have backyards too: New Zealand cities are ripe with welcoming central parks, charming old trees, council-serviced lawns and playgrounds.
Just imagine … and stop imagining when you realise that you can't plant strawberries and pear trees in Albert Park. There has to be a better way!
Over the next few weeks I'll be running a blog mini-series looking at bringing apartment buildings closer to nature, and the visions some bright central Aucklanders have for apartments in the City of Sails. These visions are part of a much larger movement towards a bright green city—an epic refurbishing of our buildings and systems.
Stay tuned.
Sat March 13, 2010 @ 06:32 PM
