SCALING DOWN

Riding the bus home from Cinema Politica’s screening of The End of the Line, I found myself fixated on the potent image of West African subsistence fishers in their traditional boats (motorised as they may be) up against their gigantic foe, the industrial-sized fishing vessel in from Europe, free to strip more than the lion’s share of seafood from those once teeming waters. It is one story of many, unfolding all around the world that spells the utter demise of the planet’s oceans as a viable source of nourishment over the long term.

And it hit me then that the underlying theme of this film about fish is pretty much the same as what lies at the root of the urban design challenge: Industrial scale operations are at odds with human-scaled living practices. By human-scale I mean something that one or a few individuals can face without having the shit scared out of them. Stand in the middle of traffic on any given city street, and you have an artificial environment characterised by the mass and speed of cars and trucks, as well as the possible impatience of drivers – you have a hostile environment. It seems to me that it’s not just a coincidence that this activity is also a huge contributor to the macro problems of global warming and petroleum dependence/ depletion.

Ever since humans started to harness energy from fossil fuels, we have developed ways to have machines do work for us. As this process became more sophisticated, the mechanics of industrialism ushered unprecedented, seemingly perpetual economic growth. Now that we have pushed it to the global scale we can see it for the ever-consuming monster that it is. Whether you consider the demise of global fish stocks, the loss of rain-forests to agriculture and forestry, the erosion of topsoil, or the impending scarcity of water (not to mention the fossil fuel issues mentioned above), economic expansion at all costs is proving to be counter-productive, and inhumane.

Incessant, ubiquitous driving is just another manifestation of the global industrial growth paradigm. Now, at this historical crossroads (which I will assume is a given), the question is, have we forgotten what a human-scaled street might look like? There are so few examples in our local environment that it’s hard to have a working vocabulary as to how or why go car-free. Luckily there are many models that exist , thanks to progressive urban planning; and there are fantastic examples throughout the world, including ones in other northern cities similar to ours. In short, it turns out there are a number of ways to put vehicular traffic in its place, keeping it slow, or simply excluding it from the activity of a neighbourhood’s centre.

With the imperative of addressing the “big issues” we must consider what sustainable development might look like: What does the transition culture of the future entail? And, how would an alternative approach shape our immediate, local surroundings? Obviously, I would like to suggest that one possibility is the car-free initiative for Mile-End that is CFME. Not only can we create a human-scaled milieu for ourselves in our own back yard, but we can develop a blueprint for other neighbourhoods throughout Montréal, and in other cities across the country and around the world.