land

The problem of access to land is fundamental and acute. The self-reliant localities of the future will need land; including in the less industrialised nations , whose small farmers have lost their land to the large-scale agriculture of the global market . Land is in many ways the hardest problem of all. Depending of course on the size of the population , the demand for land can be expected to exceed supply. Most wars, including civil wars, are about land. The land problem is a wicked problem .L1 One interesting person to chew these things over with is Ebenezer Howard, the man behind Social Cities at the beginning of the last century. He relished the unlikely. He had to face up to the improbability of reorganising a landscape whose essential structure had already been laid down. With their drainage and sewerage systems unalterably settled, and their physical structure and railways already built, existing cities could not be adapted to the latticed pattern he proposed. He was no incrementalist ; his solution was simple and outrageous: the only thing to do is start again “on a bold plan on comparatively virgin soil . . . ; and when that simple fact is well grasped, the social revolution will speedily commence”.L2 The population of England and Wales was smaller too—about 600 people per square mile compared with 900 today—living in larger households , with minimal land devoted to roads and no land at all given over to airports and out-of-town shopping centres: this was a landscape with space. There were even patches of common land which had escaped the Enclosures, which local people could use as a basis for subsistence. And the First World War brought the land of families with no surviving heirs onto the market. In those days, H.G. Wells’ Mr. Polly could walk and cycle for days in the empty roads of Kent, crossing misty meadows by moonlight, meeting almost nobody.L4 But that all changed with the road building, the smaller households, the higher population and the industrialised agriculture which started tentatively in the second quarter of the century, and became established in the third. And yet, despite several centuries in which open land in cities—such as the Marais of Paris and the canalside kitchen gardens of Amsterdam—have been buried under streets, some remains for lean production. There is a remnant of gardens, allotments and parklands; and almost any land can be used as the hard standing for intensive raised beds, glasshouses and renewable energy systems. Flat roofs have potential, as do the top floors of multi-storey car parks. Earth-filled tubs can make use of hard surfaces in gardens and on fire escapes. Demolished office buildings in the cities will yield unused space ready for partial reclamation; the deep rafts of poured reinforced concrete on which they stand will be hard to reclaim, but there are solutions even for this, such as building up the level with mixtures of prepared demolition waste and organic matter, after which it is possible to begin to restore the land with trees.L5 Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and the unique and enduring 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online community, devel