Judgement is irresponsible folly until you understand and accept the realities

It is both impossible and irresponsible to make a judgement about something until you understand the circumstances that gave rise to and sustain that “something”.

Shepparton's Maude St Mall.

Emotional responses to and judgements about anything are always suspect and “facts” are about as reliable as the question, who asked it and for what reason.

Beyond that, tip into the equation realities presently engulfing our world that left unattended will leave our built environment and social landscapes in disarray and unrecognisable, and the outcome is then decidedly uncertain.

Further, there are parochial contemporary troubles that appear resolvable with a quick fix that take no account of those overarching and unfolding changes.

Shepparton’s Maude St Mall has long been the heart of the city, at least in a business sense, but commercial development has, in the last decade or so, aided by compliant Local Government decisions made in a vacuum of an understanding or recognition of a changing world, leaked from the city centre.

Rather than attack the symptoms by re-opening the mall to road traffic, the city council should be looking beyond this finite issue and working to create a city that will be both viable and resilient in a world which will be different from what exists as a blink is to a wink.

When the mall was established in the ‘80s, most thought oil was plentiful and the intent was to spread out, using motor vehicles to cement communities.

Creation of Shepparton’s mall was part of a nation-wide trend that was in fact socially correct, but suffered because of powerful commercial drives and the largely unaccountable, but strangely predictable, behaviour or people

Oil and water shortages, aligned with the wild uncertainties of the world’s changing climate, say to us “Don’t re-open the mall to road traffic, rather restructure the city’s rating arrangements to allow for and encourage mixed used in areas such as the mall (that’s living and light commercial) along with a vastly better local public transit scheme linking to an enriched intra-town/city public transport system”.

Historical and contemporary evidence points to the vitality of closely settled towns and cities, producing communities that are “fine-grained”, multi-use and socially rich.

The emphasis should be on re-shaping and re-designing Shepparton to ensure that human energy, walking or cycling, is the principal method of movement, meaning that everything important on a day-to-day sense was within a 10-minute walk.

Should that be considered utopian or impracticable, consider for a moment the difficulties of maintaining the status quo with severe restrictions on oil, scant water supplies and wrestling with a damaged climate delivering both wild and unpredictable weather.

The solution is in the recognition and acceptance of the facts, and in leaving our pedestrian mall alone.