The Weekend Read: Elizabeth Farrelly on the city of the future
Apr 20, 2024
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Columnist Elizabeth Farrelly explores the concept of utopia in modern cities, challenges in urban planning, and visions of utopian cities on Earth, the moon, and Mars. She discusses the adversarial nature of city-making consultations, human desires versus collective good, and the impact of greed on future cities and space colonization.
Farrelly explores the history of utopian ideals in modern cities and challenges their impact on urban planning.
Farrelly advocates for inclusive decision-making in urban planning, emphasizing the need for collective good over individual interests.
Deep dives
The Concept of Utopia in Cities
The podcast discusses the idea of utopia in modern cities as explored by writer Elizabeth Farrelly. Farrelly delves into the history of utopian ideals and how they influence our urban environments. She questions whether our dreams of utopia hinder our ability to create an ideal modern city and explores the complexities of balancing human desires with practical urban planning.
Challenges in Urban Planning
Farrelly highlights the challenges in urban planning and the need for inclusive decision-making processes. She criticizes the current consultation methods that lead to conflicts between different groups and hinder genuine community engagement. Farrelly advocates for broader-scale thinking and decision-making that considers the collective good rather than individual self-interest.
Contrasting Utopian Visions
The podcast compares historical utopian visions with contemporary urban developments. It sheds light on the rise of new cities around the world, emphasizing issues such as overplanning, empty developments, and reliance on commercial interests. The discussion touches on the failures of past utopian societies and the importance of creating cities that balance order and chaos, safety and freedom, to truly engage residents and foster genuine communities.
Today, columnist Elizabeth Farrelly will read her piece about our modern cities and how they relate to the history of how humanity has imagined the perfect city.
Farrelly is one of Australia’s foremost writers on urban development and the communities of our cities – having earned devoted readers at the Sydney Morning Herald and now at Schwartz Media, inThe Saturday Paper.