Bioregional Urbanism, a frame for practicing environmental thought, not a utopian ideology
Hayden Vegh
Bioregional Urbanism aims to make the world a better place in numerous ways like encouraging
sustainable growth, decreasing the amount of energy and water required to produce our goods, all
while increasing overall standards of living across the globe. With those goals it certainly does start to
sound utopian, so what is the difference? How is Bioregional Urbanism not a utopian ideology?
The first proposed Utopia was in Plato's Republic. This was a society with four codependent
classes (bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold) with the leaders being the Gold class of “Philosopher-Kings” who
would have to complete a 50 year study program to attain this level. In the 2500 years since this
proposal, there has been hundreds of Utopias conceived with all different themes from religious, to
socialist, or even ecological.
What’s more is that many leaders have actually tried to reach the goal of a perfect society. Like
When John Calvin took over Geneva in 1536 and changed the city to a pious Theocracy, or when Thomas
Jefferson enacted the plans to turn the US into an Agrarian Utopia he called “the Yeoman’s Republic” in
the early 1800’s. There are more contemporary examples like Mao’s agrarian Utopianist model pushed
in the Great Leap Forward, or Nowa Huta, a city in Poland built as an urban socialist utopia starting in
1956. All these attempts have a few key components that are not found in Bioregional Urbanism.
The first and most fundamental difference is that Utopian Ideology almost always has a very
strict, top down organizational structure. Bioregional Urbanism on the other hand, is primarily to be
used by practitioners. This is no political ideology, although increasing the communication between
policy, science, and design is paramount for the methodology to be most effective, it is something that
can be used by an individual practitioner.
Bioregional Urbanism does not dictate decisions, but rather it provides tools and a tested
methodology that will help us move towards the goal of sustainable development. By putting these
tools and ideas in hands of practitioners, it will allow those who believe in these goals to be able to help.
An essential difference between Bioregional Urbanism and any utopian ideology is the iterative nature
of the method. It does not lay out specific things that must be done, but it encourages practitioners
constantly evaluating what they are trying to see if it is actually achieving the goal and changing what
they are doing if necessary. Bioregional Urbanism also encourages more voices to be brought to the
table. Designers and policy makers need to understand how the people in the community’s they are
influencing feel. This back and forth constantly evaluating structure is central.
There is a tendency in American society for anything that is critical of our current economy to be
labeled as Marxist and tossed out into the realm of crazy or dangerous. Bioregionalism is not proposing
to equalize all wealth or do away with money. However, there are problems with our current system
that need to be addressed if we want to leave behind a livable planet for the future. The largest of these
problems are overconsumption, and inequality.
The way our economy is structured it stresses consumption, and neglects to emphasize the
environmental cost of average products. Companies do not stress how polluted it caused the air and
water of some third world country to make the clothes you see in stores, or how far some of the
elements in your phones traveled before they made it into your pocket. More is better is the common
discourse in modern America. So how does Bioregional Urbanism aim to help this problem? Well it
stresses an economy not based on consumption, but based on efficiency. By creating more and more
efficient goods and placing increasing value on them there can still be economic growth without
increasing the amount of stuff that we consume. Also by creating stronger regional economies, areas
will become more resilient and secure with regards to their recourses.
Inequality and sustainability are diametrically opposed. As long as people are unable to feed
themselves and their families, it is unrealistic that people can live in a way that is not harmful to the
earth. This concept is called just sustainability and has been exported for over a decade. The poorest
people are often the most effected by environmental crises that the cause of often falls on the rich. This
links sustainability to human development, and proposes that a more sustainable world will be more
just, and a more just world will be easier to make sustainable.
Bioregional Urbanism is no utopian proposal or a Marxist plot. It has aims both on the small
scale and the global scale. From the architect who wants to make a difference by helping communities
move towards sustainability, to the policy maker who decides to actually form a dialogue with members
of the community, all the way to country wide systems like the Bioregional system in Australia, this
methodology has a place. Individual practitioners to national governments can benefit from this system
in the short term, and larger economic and social changes may ensue.
