MarketTowns NZ

The Industrial Revolution changed how and where people live. The Digital Revolution uses fibre and wireless not roads and rail. It redefines how and where people can live. But as with all change, people in large institutions who work in silos, lag behind, not understanding the implications of the emerging reality.

On 5 April 2024, a RNZ headline read “$1 trillion to bring NZ infrastructure up to standard” explaining “Public transport is integral to a nation’s infrastructure.” The report suggests a new approach to building and maintaining infrastructure is needed to boost the country’s economic performance over the long-term. But their approach is not new, it’s obsolete. It is silo thinking. Transport, be it public or private, presumes almost everyone must travel to accomplish the mundane chores of daily life. In the machine age, this was true, especially because NZ adopted US zoning laws separating daily destinations. In the digital age, this is not necessary, but it means changing how we design new communities. Move destinations not people.

If we are serious about the future, stop building transport-based developments

Why do we keep doing the same thing over and over when it is clearly not working?  We do so because there is some form of gain in doing so.  If we want to change to make civilisation work, we must place public interest over private agendas. But to do that, first understand what will work.

What is a MarketTown?

For 1,000 years, market towns were self-contained, self-supporting local economies that only died out with the rise of the Industrial Revolution as townsfolk moved to the gritty cities. Market towns worked then; they are  human-scaled communities right for the 21st century as fibre replaces transport.

A 21ˢᵗ Century MarketTown:

• Fibre-based not transport-based local economy
• 200 hectare site with 85 hectare urban core
• 10,000 people creates economic critical mass
• For all ages, stages, walks of life
• 20 side-by-side villages around a town centre
• No cars within, no in/outbound commuters
• 4,000 medium-density, attached townhouses
• Target $500,000 median, $200,000 lowest
• 20% parallel market affordable housing
• No infrastructure costs to host council
• No inbound/outbound pipes, all local waters
• No commuters, all work destinations are local
• Buildings manufactured in an onsite factory
• 3 years from start to finish

The answer to our present challenges can be found in a pre-industrial development model called the Market Town. Car free, carbon neutral, zero waste, socially supportive, culturally vibrant and affordable by everyone – a complete, not elite community that thrived for a thousand years until city planners and everyone associated with building communities lost the plot.

To quote Victor Papanek, in former times, planners understood that people built communities not for justice, peace, defence or traffic, but to enjoy what Aristotle called a good life: the social pursuits of conviviality, citizenship, and artistic, intellectual & spiritual growth. Commerce is the foundation of a good life, not an end it itself. We often forget this.

Now with the advent of the fibre-based civilisation, transport-based design from the Industrial Revolution is obsolete and potentially planet-threatening. Rather than reinvent the wheel, reinvent the foot. Look to timeless patterns that can be adapted to the digital age: the MarketTown.

Think of these market towns as Version 2.0, the fibre-based MarketTown.