Robin Harrison, Binna Burra
Oh dear, a nutjob in charge of the White House. How unusual, although there wasn’t much choice. The major difference between a professional politician and a real estate salesman, or in our case a merchant bankster, is the spelling.
Speaking of the rise of the real estate salesman, the highway is through and the developers are gathering for their real estate bonanza. We’ve been watching it happen for the last 30 years along this coastal corridor. Whatever we have learned about sustainable living in this area is in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of completely unsustainable variations on suburbia, the only development models available.
We hear of Council’s apparently sincere concern about affordable housing but in our current development models that will only happen in the less expensive western suburbs of our future conurbation, which then get more expensive and affordable housing will have to move again. It’s almost disappeared already here in the more expensive eastern suburbs.
Affordable housing is not possible without sustainable development models. Byron and neighbouring councils are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the knowledge resources available to them in this region and start creating.
Here’s another incentive. The sustainability movement has discovered that sustainable practice makes far better economic sense than anything we’ve done so far. For instance, check out what renewables are doing to coal.
That means there is the potential to economically outcompete our current development models. Not just here, globally.
Rather than being overwhelmed, this region could become a net exporter of the major growth industry of the 21st century: sustainable living.
Are there any visionary entrepreneurs with a concern for our future interested in this simple equation? We need sustainable development models and they are likely to be economically smarter than current models, particularly at scale.
Council would probably like to help.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
