Eating at a banquet table

10 person circular tables are the default at weddings because, the story goes, it’s the optimal size and shape to maximise the number of people in the room, while also having enough space to serve people food.

And so we sit at awkwardly too-large-to-talk-across table talking to (either) the person on our right or left.

No wonder people head to the bar for a real chat.

What other things in life have a negative impact on our ability or opportunity to connect that we take for granted as ‘just how it is done’?

Here’s a few you might find on your street:

• Six foot fences.

• Internal access garages

• Cars

• Retirement villages

How much do you see, let alone know your neighbours? Would you recognise them at the supermarket?

What’s getting in the way of connection?

Get down to your local

Local park, that is.

Our shared spaces give so much to our communities. Mostly, they give space.

Space to meet.

Space to exercise.

Space to sit.

Space to walk.

Space to bump into each other.

Space to connect.

We all need to connect.

We all need spaces to connect.

We all need a local.

Where would you rather be?

Over the next ten years, would you rather live alone in a house you own yourself, or live with others in a house you all own?

It seems simple and fairly obvious on the face of it, and most of us will have an instinctive response. But we move on, I’d suggest there’s more layers to this than just property.

Here’s some things to potentially consider:

• What kind of house are you imagining in both cases? If you’ve spent ten years living with people, you’ve probably figured out a few things, and the house probably isn’t quite the ‘normal’ kind of building. What could it look like?

• What long-term financial assumptions are you making? In terms of your income, the cost of living, the cost of finance. And remember capital gains aren’t guaranteed, especially when continuous growth isn’t necessarily a good goal.

• If you’ve been able to co-own property for 10 years, you’ve probably been able to do more than just share ownership. You’ve probably had more time and/or money to spend on things you want to do. You’ve probably had to experience significant personal growth in order to live the more than one other person for an extended period of time. You’ve probably shared a whole heap of life moments and memories with a small group of close friends. You’re probably more like (a functional) family than a bunch of mates (although the argument could be made that the most functional family is a bunch of mates).

• What is the benefit of stability? Because you’ve probably lived in the same place for ten years. How many people on your street do you know? How big is your vegetable garden now?

Would you rather…

Coffee over meetings

Why does catching up for a coffee sound so much more appealing than having a meeting? How come a long meeting is cause for disgruntlement and groans of pain, while an afternoon spent with friends doing nothing but talking is the sign of time well-spent?

Clearly it isn’t talking that’s the problem, it’s how we’re talking.

Making space to connect is important in all relationships, whether you’re together at a specific moment in time for a singular functional purpose, or you gather on a weekly basis. Take a little time to connect. A two hour meeting might achieve more than two one hour meetings if you spend the first hour connecting.

Next time you catch up for a coffee, make notes on how you prepare, how the catch-up felt, and what happened.

And the next time you run a meeting, treat it like a coffee date.

Connect.

Sensible housing 'aint what it used to be

Thirty years ago, the smart move would have been to buy as many houses as you could, as cheap as you can, and hang on to them for ten years.

But thirty years ago, the world wasn’t changing that fast, and 1998 wasn’t that different from 1988 (from a property finance point of view).

But 2028 could look significantly different to 2018. In fact, we can be reasonably sure it’ll be significantly different. So what’s the smart move now?

I suspect, it’s actually the same as it has always been:

• Connect with people.

• Learn to live with less.

So instead of maxing out the mortgage to get premium capital gains, how about staying small and staying put? What about building new, better, and smaller. Or bigger, with more people.

Craft a life where if it all goes pear shaped in the market, the prospect of having to stay in one place for the next ten years isn’t just exciting, it is genuinely preferable.

Local capital

A property market that shuts out most people, and delivers poor quality living environments for many isn’t necessarily evidence that capitalism doesn’t work.

The issue is scale. Distance. Connection. It turns out, location matters.

When the owners live in another community from where their wealth is located, they’re less likely to care about the social capital that comes about from being seen to be generous in their community. They become more focused on maximising returns on their wealth.

The most obvious example of this is publicly listed companies. Most shareholders are less concerned about the salary of the lowest paid staff member than they are on their quarterly returns and capital gains.

An owner who is part of the same community they use to generate the return on their capital (not much happens without people!), they are more inclined to share their gains with the community, Because, lets face it, who doesn’t want to be known as a generous, helpful person.

There’s two pieces to this picture: Proximity, and presence. The owner, the capital holder, needs to be close to their community, and have relationships with the people in their community in order to be generous, and be seen to be generous.

Have we amplified the commodification of property simply by seeking upward mobility and individualism?

The value of good chats

Good chats are a mark of a good relationship. Conversations that keep rolling on. Discussions punctuated by pauses for thought.

Our lives need spaces for good chats. And our cities do to.

Here's to the part-timers, the coffee shops, the long weekends and the gastropubs.

Here's to fresh bread from the local bakery on a Sunday, and hanging out in the fish and chips shop on a Friday night. 

Here's to stay-at-home parents, and coffee carts at primary schools.

Here's to working less and living more.

Here's to living well together.

Bring the outside in

I'm not much of an interior designer. And I'm not much of a botanist or garden either.

But I do really like the Arabica coffee pot plant sitting on my desk.

It makes a difference.

Firstly, it looks nice. It has nice glossy leaves, they're a nice deep green, and it sits in a white pot with a kind of broad ripple texture.

Secondly, it grows. Week to week, I can see the steady growth of new leaves. I can see the new green shoots, and the older brown branches (they're really twigs). The earlier leaves are small, but some of the new ones are much bigger, at least three times as long.

Thirdly, it responds. As I said, I'm not much of a gardener. So I forget to water it. And it tells me I've been negligent by becoming extremely limp and generally looking sad. And when I pour a cup of of water into it, it's back in shape by the end of the day.

Fourthly (if that's a word), it reminds me of the economics and people involved in bringing me my morning cup of coffee.

My coffee plant is a reminder of outside world. It's a world that is beautiful, both natural and created. It's a world that is constantly changing, constantly in flux, ever shifting. It's a world that is relational, that requires input from me, and who I can affect with both my action and inaction. And it's a world filled with other people, people who have dreams, families, work, favourite drinks and places they live.

We all live somewhere different. But all our different somewhere's are on the one same planet. So lets appreciate the beauty, flow with change, choose our actions wisely, and empower each other.

Pinpointing purpose

We can wrap home ownership up in all sorts of things, some good, some great, some of dubious value, but when comes down to it:

What's the main purpose of a home?

Pinpoint that, stay true to it, and build from there.

If our purpose as people is connection, the home gives us a place to connect to the land, a base to connect from, and a space to connect with others.

Running the residential gauntlet

When community is such a buzzword, why do we insist on building barriers?

I'm talking about our six-foot front fences again.

Driving down a quiet, pleasant, meandering residential street recently, I was struck again by the impression of impermeability that rows and rows of tall front fences give to a casual passer-by. It was all the more noticable because several houses had recently been rebuilt, renovated and/or sold and therefore had the obligatory six-foot timber-paling fence erected. And immediately adjacent were several older houses with no fence to speak of.

Connection requires openness. And yet we're closing off our properties to the world. 

Making room

We're all seeking connection. And the richest source of connection is each other.

But it doesn't just happen. We have to make space for people. 

On purpose.

But we're busy. Too busy. Doing great things, good things, and neccessary things.

So simplify it. Make it easier. Lower the bar to connection.

Make space at home.

We all need to eat: Make room at the table.

We all need to work: Make room weeding the garden.

We all need to sleep: Make room on the couch.

We all need to play: Make room in the back yard.

We all need to make room.

Disconnected conversations

How many unheard stories are out there in the world of how a broken capitalist approach to property has broken people, families and communities.

How many dreams, just like your, have gone unshared of how things could be better in your country.

How many conversations, just like ours, happen in your city every week.

How many people, just like us, living in your neighbourhood, wishing, willing and working a new way of living into being.

As always, its the connection between stories, dreams, conversations and people that matters and makes the difference.

Designing for impact

So you want to make a difference. You have a dream for a better future. You want to make an impact.

The next step is to try and make it happen within our sphere of control.

While positive personal, individual responses are necessary, it turns out that trying to convince others to "do what I did" isn't a particularly effective way to achieve a large-scale impact.

Attempting to control the situation based on your frame of reference isn't is not the determining factor in creating impact.

Collaboration might be.

This isn't to say that individual stories don't matter. They matter because they are all different. But listening and sharing is more important than convincing and justifying.

Collaboration, not co-opting.

Coordination and cooperation by communication, not command.

Imagine the solutions for housing we might arrive at if we wove our stories together:

• Simpler living in smaller spaces designed for neighbours, not purchasers.
• Coordinated, activated and populated public areas that are accessible to all.
• Households who know households. Neighbours who know neighbours.
• Cross-generational and cross-cultural living within a neighbourhood rather than demographic segregation.
• Shared facilities for making, fixing, growing, playing and being.
• Literal, and potentially common ownership of local commercial activities.
• Educational environments that extend outside the institution into our streets, parks, back yards, garages and kitchens.
• Urban design dominated by spaces for people, not cars.

Build smaller, live closer, share more

We don't really do high-rise around here. The ground's too shaky. So we tend to sprawl instead, building new commuter towns.

But we hate commuting, and like our rural landscape. So we're having a crack at densifying.

Urban densification to combat suburban sprawl.

We seem to be struggling to make it work though. 

Maybe it's because we're still trying to fit a quarter-acre 240 sqm house, lifestyle and expectations into a smaller footprint.

If we built smaller and lived closer, we'd share more.

Share more space, and connect more often.

A Good Home supports the Rhythms of life

Communities are made of people. And thriving communities have people with rhythms of Stillness, Reflection, Connection, and Giving.

Stillness

Irrespective of any religious or non-religious attitudes, meditative practices are beneficial for everyone.

A quiet space in our homes, or neighbourhood public spaces encourages us to practice.

Reflection

Increasing self-awareness through personal reflection is arguably the key to creating a diverse community by deconstructing our inherent biases, prejudices and negative habits and patterns of thought.

Proximity buys time that we can spend being, rather than doing.

Connection

Food is an anchor for fostering connection with each other.

Our kitchen tables, breakfast bars, bump spaces and front-yard BBQs bring us together.

Giving

Giving is good for us. For all of us. Maimonides postulated a hierarchy of charity. He theorised that the highest level of giving is where the gift ultimately enables the recipient to become self-sufficient, no longer in need of charity.

Hospitality is a simple gift that requires nothing of the recipient other than their presence, and can be given regardless of the financial position of the giver. Indeed, some of the most significant spaces of hospitality can be found in the homes of those with the lease significant wealth. 

Building bump spaces

Bump spaces have been around as a concept for a while, so if you're new to the idea, a quick google search should bring you up to speed. Or you can jump to this article I found written by a local public property genius.*

There's a general acceptance that micro-collisions between people and the connections that result are what makes up the 'net' in a community network.

Small, simple, spontaneous interactions are both a fruit of, and a creator of, connection. 

So in a community seeking to grow connection, we're caught in a catch-22: How to make bump spaces work without a culture of connection, while trying to use bump spaces to build the culture by creating connection.

The answer, as often happens with many organic people-systems, is to do it deliberately, intentionally, and with purpose, for a while. And eventually, it'll just be what we do around here.

Don't wait for the Council to redevelop the local park. Go and sit on the seat with a cup of tea every Sunday morning at 10am.

Don't wait for the local cafe to set up outdoor seating. Start buying fish and chips every Friday night at 6.30pm. And don't order over the phone.

We don't need to wait for the Council, the Urban Planners, or the Parks Department to make these spaces for use. We can use the ones that are there, and create our own on the dirt we can control.

Cut down a section of the front fence and make a bench seat. And sit on it sometimes.

Set up a book swap fridge next to the letterbox.

Set up a herb garden along the front fence. Or in front of the front fence.

Do any of these things at the local park. Or school.

And perhaps along the way we might figure out how to get bump spaces put into city planning public space design, or a requirement for new subdivisions.

*Disclaimer: This is my own definition based on judgements from a distance. I don't know the guy and I've never met him, although I'd like to.

The things that draw us together

Connection is what counts in life.

Our homes can help bring us together in meaningful ways.

• When we live small and so share more.
• We we share food.
• And prepare food.
• In celebration.
• When creating, making and crafting.
• And also working, building and labouring.
• Shared silence in the lounge with a good book.
• A smile and wave while walking past.
• A cup of tea sitting on the deck.
• Talking past midnight, then crashing on the couch.

Our homes should help to make more of this happen, more often, for more people.