image courtesy of Lucius Kwok

This is a guest post from Marianne Luhrs, an Urban Planner and Disaster Preparedness Specialist currently working as a research assistant at John Jay College. She can be found online at LinkedIn and at her Google page.

Recently, there has been a “new” movement sweeping the nation and Europe. Well, maybe sweeping is too strong a word. “Popping up” might be more appropriate. The Transition Towns movement emerged four years ago with Rob Hopkins, a British ecologist. An April 19, 2009 New York Times article held that the movement, while it shares certain principles with environmentalism, actually regards itself as “deeper” and “more radical.”

The thrust of the Transition sales pitch is that escalating oil prices and worsening climate change impacts will eventually result in industrial society’s catastrophic collapse. To sidestep this “eventuality”, the group says we must foster community resiliency by embracing sustainability. Transition claims to be a new way to react to the problems of our time, but if you read a history of urban planning, you would find that there have been many such movements over the years.

Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928), with his Garden Cities Movement, promoted the idea of a self-contained community. Separated from the industrial centers by a greenbelt, residents (ideal number 30,000) would live, work, go to school, and conduct business all within the community.  Three garden cities were constructed in England: Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, and Wythenshawe.  Unfortunately, the British apparently love their suburbs as much as Americans do: the three towns never evolved into the self-sustaining communities Howard envisioned. They mostly functioned as “Garden Suburbs” with residents commuting to the central cities for work. 

The Garden Cities Movement migrated to the United States as the New Towns Movement.  Again, the movement retained several of the failsafe basics, e.g., “returning to our roots”, “going back to the old ways” “recreating the medieval village” etc. And again it all sounded good. The one development constructed in the U.S. was Radburn, New Jersey (today in Fairlawn, New Jersey). Like the British towns, Radburn never established itself as a self-sustaining community, and matured into a suburb. 

More recently, there have been the New Urbanism developments (aka Traditional Neighborhood Development or TNDs), most famously, Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland and Seaside, Florida designed by New Urbanism founders, Duany Plater-Zyberk.

Although these communities are regarded as highly desirable, they are not affordable to most middle-class households and are critiqued for their employment/housing mismatch—commercial centers primarily house retail shops whose employees cannot afford to live in the community, while those who can afford homes in the community commute to work. 

Like the Transition Towns initiative, the Garden City, New Town and New Urbanism movements promoted the idea of restructuring our lives and livelihoods to mirror the community patterns dominant during a past era. While many of the principles of “sustainability” (local business centers, locally grown food, walkability, achieving a solid jobs/housing match, etc) are laudable and make sense, they are often difficult to achieve in practice. And some ideas do not make sense. Presumably, Transition Town residents will continue to work and carry on their lives. If someone lives in a Transition Town but commutes 40 miles to a job a few towns over, is it reasonable to think they’re going to quit their job and find one closer to home to allow them to more fully embrace their commitment to their community? And, while in theory the idea of relocalizing and reskilling may sound good, not everyone has time—or even wants to make the time—to grow community gardens, learn how to sew and mend clothing, and formulate Energy Descent Plans.

First and foremost, we are a global society. And there is no turning back the clock.  As attractive as the concept of “relocalizing” may be, it is incredibly naïve to think that it is possible to manufacture a new, old way of life so far removed from present day America. Especially when one considers the rugged individualism and independence that America was founded on.  Beyond the most strident believers waiting for society’s downfall, it is hard to envision mainstream, working class America embracing this movement. 

Second, I would point out a major inconsistency in the Transition Towns argument: their dismissive attitude towards technology.  The industrial and technological eras of the past two centuries are just as integral a part of our shared history as the medieval/agrarian eras the Transition Towns want to replicate.  Harkening to the characteristics of a preferred past era while denying the considerable benefits of another era smacks of sentimentality over reason. And that’s no way to win a war.   

Last, despite my criticisms, I hope that the Transitions movement does succeed in promoting awareness of real problems (e.g., peak oil, climate change, overdependence on foreign oil, etc.)  and does generate discussion regarding potential solutions. However, “the media is the message.”  Given the vast number of media outlets, how the message is packaged is more important today than ever before. Packaging for the fringe is not the most expedient way to reach the masses. And this is a debate that must reach the masses if anything at all is to change.