[Sdpg] Permaculture for Urban Sustainability A draft Dick Copeman

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Permaculture for Urban Sustainability A draft Dick Copeman

Dick Copeman coordinates the accredited 
permaculture internship program and the 
Permaculture Design Certificate courses at 
Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane 
(www.northeystreetcityfarm.org.au). As one of the 
developers of the city farm, Brisbane's main 
centre for sustainability education, Dick is also 
active with the Australian City Farms & Community 
Gardens Network. In a recent article on 
"Permaculture: Design Principles for Urban 
Sustainability", Dick wrote that "Permaculture is 
a design system that can help Australian cities 
become both environmentally sustainable and 
socially equitable. Permaculture ethics and 
principles can guide the work of planners, 
regulators and developers to produce sustainable 
solutions to current problems with water, waste 
and transport and to focus their attention on 
pending problems with energy and food supply. 
Permaculture is also a 'movement' of people who, 
in backyards, community gardens and elsewhere, 
are slowly but surely changing the face of our 
cities. The voice of permaculture needs to be 
heard in discussions about densification and 
decentralisation, about social equity and 
inclusion, and about how to involve citizens and 
communities in planning for sustainability in our cities."
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Permaculture for Urban Sustainability
Dick Copeman
Abstract
Permaculture is a design system that can help Australian cities become more
environmentally sustainable and more socially equitable. Permaculture is also a
‘movement’ of people who, in backyards, community gardens and elsewhere,
are slowly but surely changing the face of our cities. Permaculture ethics and
principles can guide the work of planners, 
regulators and developers to produce
sustainable solutions to current problems with 
water, waste and transport and to
focus their attention on pending problems with energy and food supply. The
voice of permaculture needs to be heard in discussions about densification and
decentralisation, about social equity and inclusion, and about how to involve
citizens and communities in planning for sustainability in our cities.
Introduction

Australian cities are unsustainable. Their water 
use exceeds available supplies, their
food systems are unsustainable, their energy use 
contributes to global warming, their
climates are warming and drying, and traffic jams 
are worsening, as are economic
inequality, family breakdown and social disruption.
Rather than piecemeal solutions to these problems, what we urgently need is a
design approach that offers an holistic program 
for sustainable living in cities.
Permaculture offers such an approach. While the philosophy and methods of
permaculture have been focussed on the 
grassroots, the permaculture design system
can also be applied to planning and policy making 
by governments, local authorities
and corporations. This chapter outlines a permaculture approach to sustainable
housing and urban design in Australia.

What is Permaculture?
Permaculture arose out of the growing awareness, in the 1960s and 70s, that the
environment was in crisis. At that time, ecology 
was coming of age as a separate
discipline. Bill Mollison and David Holmgren 
devised a system of applied ecology that
drew upon: ‘observation of natural systems, the wisdom contained in traditional
farming systems and modern scientific and 
technological knowledge’ (Mollison with
Slay 1991: 1).
The ‘permaculture’ they devised is, ‘a design 
system for creating sustainable human
environments’ (Mollison with Slay 1991: 1) or, as 
David Holmgren (2002) has put it in
more detail:
a system for creating consciously designed landscapes which mimic the
patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of
food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs. It is a vision of
permanent (sustainable) human culture based on permanent (sustainable)
agriculture.
Permaculture includes three ethics and twelve design principles that seek to
encapsulate the ways in which people can manage land and plan and construct
houses, gardens, farms and communities in a 
sustainable and equitable manner. The
ethics of permaculture are Care of the earth, Care of people and Share surplus
resources. The principles of permaculture, as 
originally formulated by Mollison (1991:
532), stressed design elements and their complementary interaction within
landscapes, reducing energy use and utilising biological resources.
More recently David Holmgren has re-visited the 
concepts, theories and practices of
permaculture and reformulated the principles of permaculture as:
•
Observe and interact
•
Catch and store energy
•
Obtain a yield
•
Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
•
Use and value renewable resources and services
•
Produce no waste
•
Design from patterns to details
•
Integrate, don’t segregate
•
Use small and slow solutions
•
Use and value diversity
•
Use edges and value the marginal
•
Creatively use and respond to change

Holmgren argues that permaculture offers the best 
hope of successful adjustment to
the low energy future that will follow the 
imminent peaking of global oil supplies.
Permaculture principles can guide us as we 
negotiate the ‘culture of energy descent’
that will be humanity’s main pre-occupation over the next century.
Applying Permaculture Principles to Urban Sustainability: Cities as Solutions
Moving cities towards sustainability will require 
substantial changes to many facets of
society and decision-making. Permaculture offers 
an integrated approach to how we
make these changes and how to involve all levels of society in the process.
The key players who decide and influence the 
directions in which our cities develop
and change are local and state government 
planning and regulatory authorities, the
development industry, and the planning and design 
professionals who work for these
groups. Below are policy applications of 
permaculture principles that these players
could implement to make cities more 
environmentally sustainable and more socially
equitable. These policies would complement changes at a neighbourhood and
community level and support individual activities 
towards sustainable practices.

Observe and interact

Creating an optimal design or plan requires a 
degree of familiarity with the place
that is being planned or designed. Each place has 
its own unique climate, landform,
vegetation and history. Observation of these 
specific local features and interaction
with local people before a planner or designer 
starts to create a design is important.
Permaculture design works with nature and 
utilises natural processes as much as
possible. The ability to ‘read the landscape’ is 
a key skill for permaculture designers.
Developing this skill requires that designers 
spend time out of doors, observing and
interacting with nature. There is no better way 
to understand the requirements for
handling water run-off, for example, than to stand on a site in the middle of
rainstorm. And there is not better way to find 
out whether the finished construction
is successful in handling water run-off than to 
re-visit it during another rainstorm.
Local communities often have detailed knowledge 
of the history and geography of a
site that can be invaluable for planners of 
buildings, developments and infrastructure
projects. Too frequently, however, that knowledge 
is not sought by the planners, or
is sought by social scientists, not planners, or 
is sought only at a late stage in the
planning when the main reactions that people have are negative ones. Early,
informal interaction with local people by 
planners would identify potential problems
and help achieve mutually acceptable and sustainable solutions.

Catch and store energy

Catching winter sun for natural warming and cool summer breezes for natural
cooling, while blocking out hot summer sun and 
cold winter wind, are the common-
sense features of so-called passive solar design. 
These are, unfortunately, honoured
in the breach more often than not in contemporary 
Australian housing developments.
Solar hot water heating, the most efficient of 
all energy saving technologies, is
installed in only a small minority of Australian 
buildings and almost all the rainwater
that falls onto city rooves runs off into storm 
water drains. The time has come to
require passive solar design, solar hot water 
heating and rainwater collection,
storage and use in all new houses and all houses undergoing major renovation.
Planning authorities can also work with design professionals, the construction
industry, ‘green’ plumbers networks, the hardware 
industry, environment centres
and community gardens to facilitate the 
dissemination of these sustainable design
methods and technologies as well as the advice 
and ‘know-how’ required to support
their adoption and installation.
Trees are very efficient at catching and storing 
energy. Local authorities should work
with community gardens, bush regeneration groups and individual land-holders to
plant urban land with trees that can be harvested 
for fuel and food, as well as
providing wildlife habitat and environmental improvement.

Obtain a yield

The potential yield of food, fibre, fuel and 
fodder from Australian cities is enormous.
They are mostly situated in the better-watered 
areas of the country and their low
density means that there is plenty of open space available.
Backyard production of vegetables, fruit, nuts, 
eggs and honey has a long tradition in
Australia and is currently going through a 
resurgence. Production of food on public
land, through community gardens and street plantings of food trees, is a newer
development that is gaining momentum. Future needs may also include urban
production of timber for construction and 
firewood and even fodder for animals.
Australian permaculturalist, Rosemary Morrow 
(2005), who has worked extensively in
Vietnam, has compared the typical quarter acre 
block in the suburbs of Sydney with
the typical Vietnamese small holding, also a 
quarter acre in size. The Vietnamese
block contains fruit trees, vegetables, medicinal 
herbs, firewood, a pig and some
chickens, a fishpond and a rainwater tank. This 
supplies most of their food needs and
even produces a surplus to trade in the local 
market. Sydney suburbs could quite
easily follow the Vietnamese example, Morrow (2005: 14-15) argues.
Urban agriculture has a long tradition in many of 
the world’s large cities. Shanghai
grew most of the food for its many millions of 
inhabitants within the city boundaries
until its recent rapid growth. Havana in Cuba 
responded to the food crisis brought
about by the cessation in 1989 of Soviet support, 
and the continuing US sanctions, by
rapidly developing the capacity to produce much 
of its food within the city. Ten
years after the crisis, average food consumption 
was almost back to what it was
before the crisis (Cruz & Medina 2001: 4). 
Australian permaculturalists played a
significant role in helping facilitate this transition.
Current planning policies aim to increase urban 
density in order to support greater
efficiency of services such as public transport but these policies can lead to
reduction in the amount of open space in cities. 
The challenge for planning policy is
to increase urban density in a moderate and 
environmentally and socially sustainable
way that ensures the continued availability of 
both public and private open space for
urban production and yield, without creating alienating, high-rise ghettos or
increasing road space for private transport.
Community groups are developing new ways of obtaining their ‘yield’ or income,
through ‘social’ enterprises such as food co-ops, 
farmers’ markets, plant nurseries,
gardening services, cafes and coffee shops. These 
‘third way’, i.e. neither ‘public’
nor ‘private’, enterprises often employ disadvantaged people and involve many
people on the margins of mainstream society in a 
socially inclusive approach. These
small enterprises can meet local needs and employ 
local people in a way that the
larger public and private employers often cannot. 
Policy makers and planners may
need to develop new forms of land tenure and 
support to assist these enterprises.

Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

As water and energy shortages become a fact of every day life, planners, policy
makers and authorities will increasingly have to 
set targets and impose restrictions
on consumption. If these are imposed in a top-down, heavy-handed way, they risk
alienating the people whose cooperation is required to achieve the targets.
Permaculturalists and other environmentalists 
have been working with and teaching
communities and individuals for many years how to 
monitor their own consumption
and how to reduce resource use and use resources 
more efficiently. The notion of
‘limits to growth’ is a central tenet of 
permaculture policy that is now entering
mainstream debate and policy.
Planners and policy makers could work with 
permaculturalists and environmentalists
to provide feedback to the public and to involve 
them in deciding how to reduce
their consumption.

Use and value renewable resources and services

Earth and straw bales are renewable house 
building materials and permaculturalists
were among those who pioneered the development of buildings made from these
materials. The use of earth and straw bales was 
not supported by early versions of
sustainable housing codes although this anomaly has been rectified after some
vigorous lobbying. Unfortunately, it appears that 
the same thing is happening now in
the area of grey water re-use.
Permaculturalists pioneered effective natural 
systems of grey water purification and
re-use, using reed beds, banana circles and mulch 
trenches. However, officially
sanctioned grey water re-use systems for urban 
situations now require plastic or
concrete surge tanks, valves for purging to the 
sewer, absorption trenches 40cm
beneath the surface and payment of an annual 
licence fee. Permaculturalists risk
being outside the law if they continue with their proven systems.
The lesson from these episodes is that planning 
codes and regulations that aim to
regulate renewable systems should be formulated in consultation with the people
who initiated and promoted them in the first place.

Produce no waste
It is a scandal that, in a country whose soils 
are infertile partly because they are very
low in organic matter, a huge source of organic 
matter, in the form of urban green
‘waste’, is dumped in landfill. The green waste 
from urban kitchens and gardens
should be composted and applied to our farmlands to improve fertility.
Adding compost to our soils could have another 
benefit. Tim Flannery (2005: 32) has
suggested that increasing the level of carbon in 
soil by incorporating organic matter
into our farmers’ fields would be one of the best 
ways to tackle the increase in
greenhouse gases that is causing climate change.
Some local councils are experimenting with kerb-side pickup of green waste and
large scale composting of it, while others are 
encouraging residents to compost at
home. Some community gardens compost green waste from local restaurants and
lawn-mowing contractors. These scattered and patchy efforts need to be
coordinated, expanded and replicated nationwide. 
Local governments, through their
state and national associations, are well placed 
to facilitate such efforts, which
could become at least partly self-supporting through sales to farmers.
Re-use of building materials and retro-fitting of 
older houses, office buildings and
warehouses have become quite fashionable in 
certain quarters, but as with ‘green’
power, it often costs more to use the recycled 
product than it does to use the freshly
milled alternative. Governments could help 
redress this imbalance by ensuring that
the full costs are charged for new building materials, including environmental
externalities and hidden subsidies such as diesel excise rebate.

Design from patterns to details

The patterns of geography and climate in the 
areas occupied by Australian cities are
quite different but there is a boring sameness 
about the outer suburbs, regardless of
which city they are situated in. The details of 
their design have not reflected the
particular patterns of their local climate, landscape and vegetation.
Early versions of sustainable housing codes, 
which were focussed mainly on winter
warming, not summer cooling, had the inadvertent 
effect of making houses hotter in
summer. To make matters worse, climate patterns are changing, with summer
heatwaves becoming hotter and more prolonged. So 
air-conditioner sales are soaring
as residents seek relief from the sweltering 
conditions in their suburban hot boxes.
Permaculture teaches the importance of assessing 
the flows of energy, including sun,
wind, water, fire, frost, people and animals, across a site, before designing
structures or gardens and placing them on the site. Permaculture designs aim to
harvest and use beneficial energy flows, such as 
cool summer breezes and winter
sun, while blocking or deflecting harmful flows, such as cold winds or fire.
Sustainable housing codes must require subdivision and housing designs to take
account of local patterns of climate, including 
the projected changes in the climate,
as well as pattens of landscape and vegetation. 
There can be no “one size fits all”
approach to housing development and design in a 
country as diverse as Australia.

Integrate, don’t segregate

In Australian cities, work is segregated from 
home life, people are segregated from
each other inside their individual houses or 
apartments, the poor are segregated
from the rich, the disabled from the able bodied, 
and the elderly from their younger
family members.
Mixed use redevelopments incorporating 
residential, retail and commercial uses are
beginning to break down this segregation but Permaculture would take this
integration much further. Urban ‘eco-villages’, 
co-housing, housing cooperatives,
social enterprises, community workshops and community gardens are just some of
the initiatives being developed to integrate 
people, including the disabled, the
disadvantaged and the elderly, into the larger 
society. Land use zoning will need to
change to allow these multiple uses for land and 
to reflect the smaller footprint of
private land and the larger footprint of common 
or public land that such initiatives
require.
This principle also incorporates Mollison’s maxim 
that, in a sustainable, integrated
system, Each important function is supported by 
many elements (Mollison with Slay
1991: 1). To ensure secure water supply for cities, for example, we would use
multiple sources, including domestic rainwater 
tanks, stormwater retention basins
and grey water re-use as well as efficiency 
measures such as flow reduction devices,
dual flush toilets and drip irrigation for gardens.
Similarly with energy, to ensure secure supply, 
we would use a combination of solar
hot water systems, photovoltaic cells and wind 
turbines as well as energy efficiency
measures. Food would be grown on balconies, in backyards, in community gardens
and city farms and in public parks and along streets.

Use small and slow solutions

Today’s ‘fast’ society not only leaves many 
people behind but also deprives us of the
richness and depth of experience of local 
culture, food and people. Contrast the
social interaction and the taste experience of 
buying food at a large supermarket
with shopping at a local organic farmers’ market, for example, or the sense of
belonging to a local neighbourhood gained from 
walking rather than driving through
it.
Visionary design for our cities needs to plan now 
for a future in which pedestrian,
bicycle, bus and rail will be the predominant 
modes of transport and where people
will be able to live their lives more fully in 
their local neighbourhood, rather than
needing to travel all over the city to shop or go to school or work. Page 7

Use and value diversity

The bio-diversity of the remaining natural areas 
in and around our cities has been
depleted by development, while at the same time, 
the diversity of human cultures is
being reduced by modernisation and globalisation.
In an effort to re-create pristine biodiversity, 
local governments and community
groups are involved in efforts to regenerate 
bushland in cities by planting species
that are native to the local area and by waging a 
‘war on weeds’. Permaculturalists,
and many conservationists, however, recognise 
that biodiversity is not a static reality
that can be re-created but a dynamic and evolving 
feature of sustainable natural
systems. Total eradication of weed species is 
impossible and many indigenous species
no longer thrive where soils and water flows have 
been irrevocably changed. Fruit
trees, bush foods and timber trees can be planted 
instead to utilise productively the
increased nutrients and water flows created by 
this soil disturbance and run-off.
In regard to human diversity, the policy of 
multiculturalism has been undoubtedly
successful in fostering acceptance and 
celebration of the diverse cultures within our
broader society. But, as David Holmgren (2002: 219) puts it:
Multiculturalism itself contains the same paradox as the permacultural use
of biological diversity, where the process of valuing and making use of
nature’s diversity contributes to changing it. Acknowledgement of the
value of differing traditions goes hand in hand with a promiscuous
hybridisation to create new local cultures of place.
Planners and local authorities thus need to be 
not only mindful of the different
cultural groups within a local community but also 
responsive to how that community
as a whole is evolving and creating its own local culture of place.
Use edges and value the marginal
In biological systems, edges, or boundaries between two different plant
communities, are often regions of greater 
diversity and productivity. Similarly in
cities, the boundaries between different 
neighbourhoods or between residential and
commercial areas are often lively and creative places.
Post war separation of residential from 
commercial and industrial zones in Australian
cities, plus the almost total exclusion of 
agricultural land, has created sterile, mono-
cultural cityscapes.
Permaculture planning would create mosaics of 
housing, industry, shops, offices,
farmland and bush right through and around cities 
and facilitate interesting and
productive interactions at the boundaries of 
different areas, not only in the inner
city but also in the suburbs and on the urban fringe.
The growing inequality in Australia has left many who are ‘marginal’ to the
mainstream economic and social systems, not least 
the indigenous inhabitants. We
can learn much from Aboriginal traditions about 
how to live sustainably on this dry
continent. Fire prevention and management is one 
area where Aboriginal knowledge
has already been found to be useful. We would do 
well to learn also from them about
the importance of a spiritual relationship to 
land, the social value of supportive,
extended families and their knowledge of 
sustainable utilisation and harvest of
bushland areas.
Planners and local authorities in cities could work with indigenous people to
facilitate planting and harvest of bushfoods as 
well as sustainable harvest of urban
wildlife such as possums and scrub turkeys that have increased dramatically in
numbers in some cities in recent years.

Creatively use and respond to change

Demographic and other changes create 
opportunities for planners and authorities to
support more sustainable housing, land use and 
lifestyles. The ‘gentrification’ of
older suburbs is an opportunity to encourage the retro-fitting of houses for
sustainability. Similarly the ‘empty nest’ change 
currently affecting many of the
‘baby boomer’ generation living in large family 
homes opens up possibilities for their
homes to be modified to allow them to take in boarders.
The advent of higher petrol prices creates an 
opportunity to develop improved public
transport and to reduce the space allocated for roads and parking. The looming
decline in the availability of both water and energy creates opportunities for
governments to work with community and 
environmental groups to help local people
adapt sustainably to these shortages.

Community Action for Urban Sustainability

Until recently, the impact of permaculture has 
been greatest in rural areas. It had
not been so visible in major cities but the rapid 
blossoming of community gardens is
changing this. There are now over two hundred community gardens, with more
starting each year. They grow food, provide training, build community, support
disadvantaged people, and demonstrate sustainable ways to design gardens, use
water and energy, keep animals and regenerated bush.
Some community gardens operate enterprises such 
as nurseries, gardening services,
market gardens, markets, cafés, training courses 
and bicycle renovation cooperatives
that allow people to make a modest income while meeting local needs.
The gardens can help make the transition to 
sustainability interesting and fun, not
difficult or threatening. By involving people socially, in gardening together,
attending a workshop, building a cob oven, 
shopping at a farmers’ market or planning
a community event, community gardens help bring people together to work
cooperatively on the sustainability project.
It’s Saturday morning at Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm.
Hundreds of people are milling through the 
organic farmers’ market buying local organic
produce from the farmers who grow it.
Under the mango trees, people are drinking coffee 
and chai, chatting and singing.
Others are wandering through the nursery, seeking 
advice about what to plant in their
home gardens.
In another corner, fifteen people are listening 
eagerly to a demonstration of how they
can re-use grey water on their gardens.
Across the road, three volunteers are putting 
finishing touches to a large mosaic mandala.
In Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs, farmers 
from the nearby CERES city farm are
weeding and tilling the broad beans and garlic 
growing on a fertile flat alongside Merri
Creek.
This creek flat has been cultivated continuously 
for over a century, first by Chinese
market gardeners, then by a post war immigrant 
family from Italy and now by CERES.

Motivation for change: the role of permaculture

Permaculture has motivated people to change their 
behaviour because they have felt
committed to a cause and involved personally and 
collectively in working towards
achieving a worthwhile goal. They have felt 
connected to something that is bigger
than their individual selves — a ‘movement’ with a clear vision and practical
strategies.
Permaculture has also motivated governments to 
change. By getting out and doing it,
implementing sustainable housing and land management solutions on the ground,
permaculture has had, and continues to have, influence on policy makers and
regulators.
Grey water re-use, for example, has been 
practiced by permaculturalists, in urban as
well as rural areas, for many years. Only now, 
faced with water shortages, are urban
authorities beginning to give their imprimatur to 
this sensible strategy. Composting
toilets (see Box), swales or contour ditches for stormwater retention, farmers’
markets and street plantings of fruit and nut 
trees are other examples of urban
permaculture strategies being taken up by local authorities.
Permaculture is just one of many similar 
‘movements’ that work together to develop
and promote sustainable living systems. Organic farming, community supported
agriculture, slow food, eco-villages, co-housing, 
housing cooperatives, alternative
finance, ethical investment, community recycling, 
community arts and sustainable
transport are some of the others. Together they 
form a powerful network of ‘people
power’ that is slowly but surely beginning to transform the way we live.
Decentralisation
Lack of water is likely to limit the size and 
density of Australian cities. Many of
Australia’s major cities are arguably 
approaching, or possibly already beyond, a size
and density that can be sustained by the 
available water. Permaculture strategies for
more decentralised human settlements, which harvest their own water and grow
much of their own food, will be vital for 
ensuring the sustainability of Australian
settlements in a future that is likely to be drier than it is now.
Energy use, on the other hand, could increase during the transition to a
decentralised pattern of settlements, as ‘sea 
changers’, ‘tree changers’ and rural
‘new settlers’ use their private vehicles (often 
4WD) to commute to and from cities
and regional centres for work, family visits, 
shopping, education, health care and
cultural experiences.
Policies to support decentralisation thus need to 
balance these potentially opposite
impacts on water and energy use.
Visitors who use the toilet at community gardens 
at Murdoch University in Perth, CERES
in Melbourne and Beelarong in Brisbane are taking 
the load off the city sewers and
contributing to the fertility of the gardens.
These gardens have all been at the forefront of 
trialling biological or composting toilets
with on-site re-use for urban situations

Conclusion

As an amalgam of science, philosophy, traditional 
agricultural and land management
systems with practical design techniques, 
permaculture provides a holistic approach
to re-ordering our living systems. It has much to 
offer Australian cities as they
grapple with the dramatic environmental and social changes that confront them.

References
Cruz MC & Medina RS (2001) Agriculture in the City: a key to sustainability in
Havana, Cuba. Ian Randle Publishers, Kingston (Jamaica).
Flannery T (2005) The Weather Makers Text, Melbourne.
Holmgren D (2002) Permaculture Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.
Holmgren Design Services (http://www.holmgren.com.au
Mollison B with Slay RM (1991) Introduction to Permaculture. Tagari, Tasmania.
Morrow R (2005) The blossoming of suburbia. The Planet — the Journal of
Permaculture International Ltd # 13.