Cities might be our lifeboats, but we need to be villagers again

M

any argue that our cities will be our “lifeboats” during the unfolding dilemmas of climate change.

As humanity wrestles with the changes settling upon it from our disrupted climate we will, they argue, retreat to our cities.

Elizabeth Farrelly has written in the Sydney Morning Herald about our need to again be living in villages in her story: “Why we need to become village people again”.

Those who advocate the idea of “lifeboat cities do, I think, see a city as little more than a series of interconnected villages that live happily within their specific confines, but then cooperate with all those around.

“We can't all have it all. The attempt just brings sprawl, congestion, unhealth and suburbia's deathly boredom. But perhaps there's another way.

“What if we leave the what of dwelling, and start with the where. For many of us, now, the ideal "where" is small, local, walkable, pretty and sustainable. In short, the village,” she writes.