Backgrounding
Changes in the style of human habitat, social order and material wellbeing are
part of the development and conservancy inheritance. And because the dynam-
ics of knowledge-power, fiscal-power, resource-power and labour-power are all
at work, this is perceived to be a ‘process’. The challenge has always been to
understand and manoeuvre that process over time to achieve
progress. It is all teleological; relating causation and ends to final
causes. The important perception to fix upon is one of ‘qualita-
tive improvement to the human condition over time’. This will
usually be planned. Change which has previously resulted in
economic decline, and/ordegradation of the habitat, and/orsocial
disorder, is of course ‘regressive’, spectacularly catalogued for the
North American suburban and exurban context by Campoli,
Humstone and MacLean in their photo-montages (Above and
Beyond, 2002).
Whether or not a nation achieves economic and social progress can always be
evaluated subjectively. Belief can, however, imbue a specious illusion of progress
during periods of exploitation-led economic growth, with the eventual outcome,
social discord and environmental degradation.
Our body of knowledge about the essentially transatlantic pro-
cedural arrangements for development and conservation is not
compact, embracing the disparate writing of reports and in pub-
lications by thousands of ardent practitioners.^1 The present objec-
tive is to enlighten the teleological process (not merely to account
for step-by-step volumetric growth); to provide a development
critique, and then outline the practice of sustainability with par-
ticular reference to the middle-incomed urban majority.Adam Smith is the obvious luminary to begin with simply
because he was of the early industrial era, and was the first to
write authoritatively in English on political economy.^2 In his
lifetime he witnessed the technological advances of canal build-
ing, spinning (Hargreaves), weaving (Crompton) and steam engi-
neering (Watt), then followed the technological advances gained
from the colonization experience throughout North America – the
invention of barbed wire, sawmilling, long-distance railways, the
telegraph. In all, a major technological and social changeover
took place; from an Old World ‘Age of Enlightenment’ to a New
World ‘Era of Capitalism’.
The eighteenth-century upsurge of industrialism and ‘free trade’ throughout
Western Europe gave rise to an imperialist mercantile axis English-Dutch-French,
with a colonial periphery. From these beginnings, and the earlier Spanish-
Portuguese conquest of Latin America, that industrial ethic expanded to include
a dominantly ‘northern’ far-flung club; spanning from Europe westwards to74 Practice
One example of the
Campoli, Humstone,
MacLean findings relates
to a situation where the
39 species of animal life
in a wilderness tract
were reduced to ten
remaining species after
resizing the landscape
into generous ‘acreage’
(lifestyle) blocks.‘It is easy to have
equality where land is
abundant and where the
population is small. This
protected position, is
sure to pass away. What
will hasten the day when
our [US 1890s] present
advantage will wear out
and when we shall come
down to the condition
of the older and densely
populated nations? The
answer is: debt, taxation,
diplomacy, a grand
government system,
pomp, glory, a big army
and navy, lavish
expenditures, political
jobbery.’
William Graham
Somner, 1898. Quoted
inWar and Other Essays,
Albert Keller, 1971