Basic HTML Version
41
Resilient urban systems:
a socio-technical study of community scale climate change adaptation initiatives
Key points from this section:
1. Shared and learned knowledge, along with personal experience are essential in building community
resilience;
2. Community cohesion can facilitate knowledge sharing; and
3. Knowledge sharing is more effective when there is community diversity and bridging or linking
capital.
Social capital, community cohesion and ‘placemaking’ are widely recognised as ongoing needs for new
urban communities. Although beyond the scope of this study, the current literature and approaches to
placemaking can provide rich insights to inform the development of flourishing and vibrant communities with
in-built social resilience.
5.3.2
Context
The features of context that are important as potential enablers of resilience can also be called ‘response
shapers’. Based on the interviews, significant shapers of household practices, response options, and
potential enablers of resilience are:
• Priorities and finances
• House and system design
5.3.2.1
Priorities and finances
Priorities and finances reflect householders’ practical living situations and further refine and guide their
decisions within the range of available and known options.
Over half of the interviewees at Aurora are families with young and teenage children where one or both
parents work. Certain practices are described with reference to constraints, most notably regarding the
volume and timing of laundering which inform frequency, water temperature and use of dryers; heating and
cooling for young children; differences in preferences and times around heating and cooling; and lack of
time available for cooking and gardening (often linked to travel times to and from school, work, goods and
services):
“…as [child] gets older he obviously uses more, he’s more of a consumer as well. We kind
of are not as conscious now because he takes up a lot of my time… [my husband] works
long hours and it’s just me and [child] and sometimes you just don’t have the energy for
everything that you want to do.” (A9)
“There is a lot more work for me to be here and manage my children, and get them
to school and whatever. Whereas I had family over there that could pick them up from
school and do all that sort of stuff. But I don’t have that here.” (A5)
“A few times when he’s fallen asleep on the couch we put the fan on for him.” (A3)
One WestWyck householder further illustrates this point:
“I am possibly more efficient than what used be when I had three kids at home and
running a business and not giving as much thought perhaps to that, so yeah.” (W2)
Several Aurora interviewees also mention time as the main reason they have not read the Aurora home
manual, joined the ACA, participated in community events, or sought help or advice from neighbours,
Places Victoria or other stakeholders. It appears from interviewees’ accounts that expectations of living in a
master planned community are invariably high and inevitably unmet: