Teddy Bloggie Blog Blogging

With the consumption that inevitably comes along during the Christmas season, I wanted to talk about the future of not having. Part of this idea came from a discussion I had with Tony Hebert, a research fellow with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

As I see it, the consciousness surrounding consumption is changing around the world, or better put, it's beginning to change. Tony, for his part, disagrees because he sees that consumerism is as strong as ever, especially as each market segments into infinitely smaller pieces. I think he's right that consumerism is as strong as ever before, but I believe the people are now paying more attention to the effects of consumerism and that consciousness extends to civic projects and civic planing. Tony also hopes I'm right. Me too.

I don't have all the facts to back up my claim, but here's a brief sketch of what I'm noticing...

In the past, a country's progress has been measured in what that country has developed in terms of its massive infrastructure. Those with it were considered developed, those without, were either underdeveloped or developing. When I think of industrialization in the antebellum years, I think about the massive industries associated with the robber barons of the time. The railroads, coal mines, steel factories. We built monsterous skyscrappers, dams, canals and saw those projects as signs of human progress. Then we had a period where durable goods signified social and economic evolution.

Today, we see the same things happening in China, India and to a lesser extent Brazil. But today, it's no longer a sign of progress as much as a necessity and a symbol of playing catch-up. Post-industrial countries will look back and see that the massive dams, sprawling freeway systems, and concrete trophies are signs of social adolescence.

Hopefully, we'll leave that behind. The evidence for this are the growing interest and development of low cost building techniques that are not material intensive and the interest in development that leaves local landscapes unadulterated. Also, more of our economic output are in services than in durable goods now. Problems resulting from development as we have known it such as environmental degredation and transportation congestion are not compatible with the more and bigger solutions of the past. Economic resources will have to be spent in solving today's and tomorrow's problems by figuring out ways to build smaller, smarter, and more efficient. The solutions may even be concentrated on getting rid of the causes of the problem instead of coming up with a solution. Wouldn't that be a hoot! That consiousness will also probably extend to a new form of consumerism.

Since it's almost Christmas time, maybe the vision of not needing and not wanting as gauge social and economic progress will prove timely.