2017-09-02
Rob Delves
As a teacher, it annoys me intensely when people say things like “stop wasting time on all this fringe feel-good extra stuff – just concentrate on the 3Rs.” As if experiencing healthy physical activity, science, history, geography, environmental awareness, health, gardening, art and music arent of great value in themselves – as well as wonderful opportunities to improve students 3R skills.
And as a Fremantle resident, I get equally annoyed when people attack our local government for straying beyond the 3Rs of Rubbish, Roads, Rates. Such critics also have a particularly narrow interpretation of these 3Rs: stop all the education stuff about reducing and recycling and just collect all my extravagant waste quickly and often; make sure the roads are smooth-fast-wide-pedestrian-and-bike-free (while were at it, throw in ample free parking); and of course keep rates ultra-low. The conservative dream-trifecta.
Any council attempt to address a 4th R – Reconciliation – produces passionate rage from conservatives, who seem to believe that January 26th was delivered as our national day at about the same time and with the same authority as Moses when he received the Ten Commandments. My own opinion, for what its worth, is that there are 365 days in most years and any 364 of them would be a more appropriate choice than January 26th. In a Leap Year, we could let February 29th slug it out with 26/01 for the award of least deserving.
So, while I applaud Fremantle (with hopefully many more councils to follow) for venturing into 4th R terrain, it is actually Rs five and six that go to the heart of why local government is so important to me.
The 5th R is Riding, as in my belief theres a direct correlation between the livability, the quality of life, of a city and the percentage of its citizens who get around on bicycles. And local government can make a huge contribution to upping the percentage. BikeFreo, our Fremantle Bicycle User Group, is fortunate to be able to work closely with several council staff and councillors who are committed to more and better and safer cycling.
The active support of Mayor Brad Pettitt, along with Councillors Sam Wainwright and Rachel Pemberton, has been crucial in helping us achieve some impressive increases in cycling infrastructure. As someone who derives a ludicrously exaggerated amount of pleasure from wheeling around town, Id work my bike-sore butt off to ensure these three remain on council.
Id also claim that if the 5th R was all that Fremantle delivered, then my annual rates are worth every cent. The trouble with this claim is that its contradicted by the 6th R – Reading – because Id make exactly the same claim about the rates-value I receive from the Fremantle Library.
The Greens are passionate supporters of well-funded public services for all in a wide range of areas such health, education, disability support, pensions and much more. We believe a commitment to quality public services is what defines a civilised society. Like all of us, Ive benefited enormously from these services. For example, my own free university education opened my eyes to the world. My sons early childhood free hospital treatments saved his life.
However, Id probably rate the various humble local libraries of my life as right up there with university education and great hospitals at the very top of the public service tree. Freo Library is certainly humble enough – Im told nearby Cockburn boasts bigger and better. Well then, that only proves that humble can be great, because for nearly every month of my 24 years in this city, Ive been able to unearth gems from this library. And these gems – these wonderful free gems ‒ have enabled me to embrace lifelong learning: access to “the best thats been thought and said,” which is precisely what quality education is all about.
And here is the best part: you dont have to rush out and buy anything. Leave your wallet at home and enjoy life-enriching experiences thanks to our own humble-wonderful public service – free to all, courtesy of local government.
Good local government is worth fighting for ‒ which for me translates into fighting to get people with Greens values onto councils. Riding and Reading are almost reasons enough in themselves – except that I regard Diversity as a prime Greens value. So local government matters because all 6Rs matter – plus many more that arent so easy to squeeze into the R-frame, for example parks and street trees just for starters. Hey – theres a whole alphabet of reasons why local government is so important.
Finally, as Exhibit A for my case, heres a short review of just one among many Fremantle Library books that have enriched my life.
A CLASSIC GREEN GEM: Walkable Cities by Jeff Speck
Jeff Speck is an urban planner who advises city mayors on how to make their cities thrive. Over many years observing successes and failures, he has become convinced that WALKABILITY is the key to creating a city that people want to live in. This is an inspiring, visionary book about how to create a great city, but its expressed in wonderfully jargon-free prose and grounded in practical experience – his lived experience of how to get from where we currently are to where wed like to be.
One important theme is that planners need to be generalists, not dominated by any one specialist interest group. And thats exactly whats been going wrong for the last 60 years: the auto interests have dominated to the detriment of everything else. I well recall a slogan that confronted me when I first arrived in our fair city: “Perth – where your car is as welcome as you are!” At least theyve now buried the stupid slogan, but unfortunately the reality endures. So, in Jeff Specks lively prose, “city engineers – worshipping the twin gods of Smooth Traffic and Ample Parking – have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.”
Everything he proposes and has helped enact in many American cities is familiar to us thanks to Scott Ludlams presentations – for example, priority to walking-cycling-public transport before more cars-roads-parking lots and a focus on medium and high density mixed-use development. However, one little twist I loved was the tree-hugging piece: Step 8 in promoting Walkability is Plant Trees and its a fulsome praise of urban trees – to the extent that he admits that although every one of his ten steps is important “the street tree might win my vote …(because)… street trees are key to pedestrian comfort and urban liveability in so many ways.”
So, Greens wont learn any new over-arching principles from this book, but they will learn heaps about what policies work, what dont and why – with examples from dozens of cities, especially some of the most car-damaged American cities that are being nudged in the walkability direction ONE STEP AT A TIME. This gem of a book gives the lie to the tired defeatist argument “it wont work here, because we are too addicted to our cars.”
Photo: Rob Delves visiting the library, again.