ABSTRACT
This chapter comments on chapters by Jin Xue and Aaron Vansintjan in a book on housing for degrowth, in a part functioning as a discussion starter on urbanisation debates in the degrowth movement. The chapter criticises arguments opposing localist approaches to the spatial organisation of human settlements in ecological and degrowth thinking. A more differentiated vision is put – abandoning the tabula rasa approach of any universal model for the ideal spatial organisation of society for several reasons. First, due the material cost of rebuilding from scratch everything for an ideal city or an ideal village. Second, because risks of failure appear massive. Third, such a wholesale transition is incompatible with the short period available if degrowth is to address problems such as climate change. Fourth, and most importantly, such approaches are based on an ignorance of geography. Therefore, ‘What is the right solution, the city or the (eco)village?’ – ‘It depends!’ Place-dependent solutions need to consider context, start from the existing situation and take into account each place’s natural and human geography and the function(s) that each human settlement has and/or shall assume. ‘Nowtopias’, real anticipations of potential degrowth practices, are supported in both rural and in urban contexts.
