The suburbs are the spiritual home of overconsumption. But they also hold the key to a better future.

Suburban affluence is the defining image of the good life under capitalism, commonly held up as a model to which all humanity should aspire.

The typical suburban backyard of the future?

More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities. Yet with the global economy already in gross ecological overshoot, and a world population heading for more than 11 billion, this way of living is neither fair nor sustainable.

To live within our environmental means, the richest nations will need to embrace a planned process of economic “degrowth”. This is not an unplanned recession, but a deliberate downscaling of economic activity and the closely correlated consumption of fossil energy. We don’t argue this is likely, only that it is necessary.

Read the story from The Conversation by Dr Samuel Alexander and Professor Brendan Gleeson  - “The suburbs are the spiritual home of overconsumption. But they also hold the key to a better future.”