Launceston like everywhere else in Australia is seeing increasing numbers of people suffering housing stress. To think about these people generically as 'THE HOMELESS' is one dimensional and misleading. Bureaucratic 'planners' shrug their shoulders telling all prone to listen to them – investors, fellow managerials, the political class and the purveyors of lowest common denominator McBurbia – that the solution is not their problem.
Well in one sense it is very much 'their problem' given that they are relaxed and comfortable in their homes in McBurbia. Most have never made or 'built' all that much – if anything at all. Many would struggle to know which end of a hammer to hold. Yet they proffer their opinions about what can be built where, how and why it should be. Sweet music to investors looking to make a FASTbuck ... AND ... bugger those who are actually looking make a place for themselves to call home.
These bureaucratic 'planners' can only imagine a home as an 'investment' and are typically antithetic to the fact that a 'home' is a human right. It turns out that as humans we are driven by just 4 imperatives:
1... To have access to oxygen, food and water in sufficient quantities to sustain life; and
2 ... To identify within the group/tribe/community; and
3 ... To procreate genetically and ideologically; and
4 ... To secure safe shelter ... a home where we are welcomed and feel safe.
In every way these things should underpin underpin civic decision making but the system has become rathe warped by a 5th imperative ... Investor's want to make increasing amounts of money at the expense of 'the under class and the nobodies'.
To quote Robert Fuller "Who are the nobodies? Those with less power. At the moment. .... "Who are the somebodies? Those with more power. At the moment. ... Power is signified by rank. Rank in a particular setting. ... Somebodies hold higher rank than nobodies. In that setting. For that moment. ... "A somebody in one setting can be a nobody in another, and vice versa. A somebody now might be a nobody a moment later, and vice versa. ... "Abuse of power inherent in rank is rankism. When somebodies use the power of their position in one setting to exercise power in another, that's rankism. When somebodies use the power of their position to put a permanent hold on their power, that, too, is rankism.
So what has any of this to do with Launceston needing a City Architect?
Well 'managerialism' all too often comes with self-assessed flawlessness that makes them 'somebodies' who deem all functionaries as 'nobodies' despite their total lack of expertise in this or that. If one is an 'architect' you are as likely as not to find yourself way, way, down the food chain unless of course you need the income and have nowhere else to go. Such 'architects' a very hard to find. Currently, Tasmania has 330 qualified practicing architects.
Simply put, a professionally competent architect has five years professional education, a minimum of two years practical experience, has successfully completed the Architectural practice Examination and is included on a Register of Architects.
Importantly, architects are conduits of creativity who allow themselves to think big, while working within, and sometimes pushing the boundaries of, the construction industry, planning departments and governments' political aspirations. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a manager who would have the wherewithal to say design and oversight the building of say Sydney's Opera House but there is a conga line of 'managers' standing and waiting to be the 'somebody' that pulls a 'nobody architect' into line at their will.
It is said that the 'proper way', the managerial way, is that straight and narrow pathway from wherever you happen to be, all the way to the open and waiting gate to the world of the lowest common denominator and abject mediocrity.
- Mediocrity is a disease.and it knows nothing of more value than itself. However, talent instantly recognises genius wherever, and whenever it exhibits itself.
Architects are professional problem solvers as well as being designers and makers. All too often the 'managerial class' make/generate problems on the side of their self-service. Thus, problem solvers are their least favourite people. The 'managerial class' also make the claim that if you can manage, say a sewerage farm, well enough you can manage anything. However, consider the risks in appointing such a 'manager' and then the prospect of their making a mistake and then finding yourself wading around in sewerage. Domain knowledge is domain knowledge.
By-and-large 'an architect' is disinclined to be a 'ranked underling' to a problem generator. Collaborating with all kinds of 'problem solvers' is no stretch at all as being in a team there will always be compromises. Provided that the balance is good, what is lost in compromise is gained manyfold by collaboration and politeness is always the poison that kills great collaborative innovation.
As Steve Jobs knew full well that his methodology to develop integrated products, actually meant that the 'development process' had to be integrated and collaborative in order to deliver the innovative outcomes that he was famously associated with.... Apple, Pixar, NeXT. Jobs is a champion in that 'think different paradigm'.
Architects are highly educated critical thinkers and then trained to think cooperatively and collaboratively. Typically they are quite antithetic to the upper echelons of a hierarchical system. Thus, bureaucracies and bureaucratic planners are similarly antithetic towards architects in a 'civic placemaking role' since, as credentialed professionals, architects typically expect the acknowledgement of their backgrounding and experience. Bureaucratic 'rankism' is not good at that sort of thing.
IN CONCLUSION
Local governance in the City of Launceston's civic foundations are failing its constituency. Town Hall has evolved into a revenue collection agency that, on the available evidence, exists for the benefit of the unelected bureaucracy and those in the community who are inclined to curry favour with them.
When it comes to 'planning' ratepayers and citizens lack a professional voice willing to work with them on the project of 'placemaking'. An architect would be welcomed by them but conversely roundly spurned by the managerial apparatchiks as they are ever likely to be challenged and held to account in their company.
A City Architect needs to be appointed by the city's 'elected 12' and she/he needs to report directly to them given that it they who are entrusted to give effect to the city's placemaking. It's an idea that the 'ranked management' would/will scream blue bloody murder about but as some brave person once said in a like situation ... 'I'm holding two fingers up, is that allowed?
All jokes aside, in order to find a sense of balance in 'the city's' placemaking and cultural landscaping, the city needs to appoint a City Architect just as soon as the Councillors find the wherewithal do so. Managerialism is the tail that is wagging the dog at Town Hall and a truely independent professionally qualified architect would be equipped to call out ineptitude and shonky self-service for what it is.
Indeed, as an early task a City Architect might well be commissioned to explore appropriate 'design solutions' for the housing of people in housing distress. A subtext to that might well be 'please let's avoid the McBurbia the Tasmanian State Govt appears to favour'.
We might all join with Junot Diaz when he says,“What I am trying to cultivate is not blind optimism… but radical hope.
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