Retrosuburbia: The Downshifter's Guide To A Resilient Future

Retrosuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide To A Resilient Future

- David Holmgren

Retrofitting our homes, gardens and lifestyles to be more self-reliant and resilient promises both a more fulfilling life for us and multiple benefits for society and the environment.

Retrofitting also enables us to focus on what we can do at the household level, rather than community or government levels. We don’t need permission or government funding to start making our lives more productive and enjoyable. We don’t even need to own the place we call home. Although the scope for physical retrofits is greater for home-owners, renters can also make creative changes to their habits, diets and work patterns to create a more resilient and fulfilling life.

This retrofitting can be done wherever we are, but in my latest book, RetroSuburbia: The Downshifters’ Guide to a Resilient Future (Melliodora Publishing, 2018) I have focused on suburbs and country towns, which I believe can be transformed into productive and vibrant spaces where we can live within our global means. I use examples that are primarily applicable to my home territory in South Eastern Australia, but by extension the patterns of retrosuburbia can be adapted to other climates and cultures.

WHY RETROFITTING?

Retrofitting has never been exciting or sexy compared with novel technologies and grand schemes to save the world. Even in permaculture, there tends to be a strong focus on ‘clean slate’ design rather than retrofitting. While the purpose and assumptions behind ‘Retrosuburbia’ imply exciting, novel and challenging change, the basics of retrofitting are very safe, simple and pedestrian, starting with what already exists.