Community FOR SALE
The sale of our community buildings and the
loss of local community
by Lisa McAndrew
The Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™
Lapoinya, Tasmania
Memories of a community lost
Around the corner from our farm is the ex local school primary. After it was closed down it was used by the Girl Guides but sold when they couldn't afford to update the buildings to current government standards. Now it is privately owned and sits there empty as far as I can see, silent, a ghost of memories of what used to be. Across the road is the ex baptist church, now turned into a house. The church was the once the site for the the original primary school before they built the new school building. No-one sings to the glory of God now. Local community doesn't say hello to each other as they walk in. No-one shares a conversation and a cup of tea after the Sunday service, discussing weather, crops, family health and local issues.
The local post office, one of only two buildings in the “town” of our locality is now a house. I have met local people whose relatives used to run the post office. There is no local post office here now, our mail gets delivered into a box, but to post anything or to pick up a parcel we have to drive 20 minutes into town. In the last town I lived in the post office was a place that you picked up your mail, met local people and perused the local community notice board. No chance of that happening here. The large local town now houses the only post office.
The Declining Rural Population
It's true that rural areas lost much of their earlier population. The population shifted from the country to the city after World War Two. This was for a variety of reasons. Women who lost husbands and had no family to continue the family farm had to sell. Machines and chemicals where used to manage farms, this meant that less people than ever where needed on farms. In the 70's to 80's the government bought up the farms and tree plantations of pine and then blue gum were planted. This dropped population numbers even more. Country areas that once thrived with a strong local communities had been diminished. Local services such as post offices closed. General stores were out-competed by Woolworths and Coles. Cars made for easier travel to larger local towns. Small farms that supplied the shops originally with fruit and vegetables could not compete with the bigger farms and machines. Australia's economy shifted and we stopped supplying the UK with fruit which had been one of our largest markets. All of these factors led to the drop in rural population.
As road traffic increased there was less need for local railway. Our local railway (the one that runs through the little town near us) ran until 2004 when it was eventually closed. The railway was often the life blood of many of the towns in the area and once this closed it was like death sentence for the town.
Loss of services and political clout
Compounding the problem is the fact that with less numbers of people in the country there is less voting power. Rural problems are ignored, not enough votes in it for politicians, not enough people to justify investing in programs for rural areas. Even hospitals get closed. The hospital in our local town (20 minutes away by car) was not only closed down, with all patients to now travel 45 minutes to the regional hospital, but the local hospital itself was bulldozed. Not up to government standards apparently! Now a housing development sits on the land where the hospital used to be.
The argument, as far as the government goes, is that it can't afford to keep up the services - too costly. But the cost argument doesn't make sense. How could we (Australia) afford many small rural schools and hospitals in the earlier part of the 20th Century when Australia's population was so much smaller? We had much less people to get taxes from to pay for services and yet there where many local rural services such as schools, hospitals and post offices.
The movement is towards bigger and more centralised. The sale of our local community buildings and public buildings and the resulting loss of community and community services has resulted in the slow decay of our rural communities. Local issues cannot get discussed if there is nowhere for local people to discuss them. We cannot be aware of how our neighbours or other local community members are faring if no-one talks to each other because people do not meet at school, at church, at the local community hall. Our rural communities are slowly dying, along with the independence of spirit and community values that kept them together.
Aging populations and short sighted decision making
The aging population has also had a large part to play in this loss of community. The baby boomer generation has a lot more numbers than the younger generation .They have often been the ones making the decisions to close and sell off buildings. Because in rural, farming areas there is a bit of an age crisis with many older farmers being the ones on the land, there is not the younger generation in the same numbers that there was earlier on. The older members are looking at slowing down in life and don't want to take anything new on.
Unfortunately this lack of numbers of younger people has meant that before new blood and the younger generation move onto the land, community buildings have been sold off. So by the time the next generation gets there, the community has been decimated and all the long years of work that it took to build the local community has been lost.
Of social history and community investment
As a rule community buildings, especially churches but often town halls, recreation centres etc, were built on land donated to the local community, by a local community member. The labour in either building and/ or maintaining the building has been at the cost and effort of the local community. Regardless of whether these buildings are owned by the church or by the council, the true effort in getting them there and maintaining them has been at the local communities time and expense (their investment in the community they lived in). To sell these buildings off without thought or regard for the local community means that all the time and effort that previous generations of community members put into them as been destroyed and is not valued.
Once the building is held in private ownership, the person who owns it then reaps the reward for the labour and effort that went into it's construction and maintenance. The social history of that building is lost and the community loses another place where they can meet.
Centralisation and rural disadvantage
Our government of the day is conservative and is interested in the centralisation of many services and the selling off of public assets. Once our local councils and church bodies start colluding with this political agenda and sell off our community buildings the rural communities are hardest hit. They usually have access to much less in the way of services and infrastructure to begin with. But country people being country people, they will rarely complain and generally they will try to make do as best they can. And if this is not good enough, then they will have to sell and move into a town!!
What makes a rural person less deserving of services? Is their life worth less than a city dweller? I don't remember signing an agreement with the government when I moved to the country saying, you will have access to virtually no appropriate services, your health expectancy will be much less and your fuel costs will be more because you will have to drive further for everything!!?? But still I would rather live with clean air and trees rather than in town.
In our local area the council tried to sell of the football club building and grounds but the local community rallied and saved it. Now I do a weekly practice of Tai Chi in that same building. I have met many local people there. Where would I meet them if there was no building? Often the sports clubs have moved into towns. All this means is that local people have to drive further to sports activities. It also means that young people often miss out because parents don't necessarily have the time or money to drive them into town for sporting activities. And of course no sports ground, no sport, which is one of the ways in which rural Australia built it's strong local relationships.
What will we leave the children of this earth?
When the vote comes whether to save a building or not, it's social value and history are not considered. Furthermore the people of the future who will be the ones to benefit from having the these buildings, have no vote. What are we leaving the children of the earth? What have we bequeathed to them? What places have we left to them so that they may build and create community anew?
The land is our future. It is what feeds us, what provides us with trees to clear the air and clean water to drink . It is rural people who live on this land and care for it. It is rural people who often have the solutions to our problems because they are at the coal face of living in our rapidly changing world. Our rural communities are the hope for the future. They are the ones living close to nature to experience the effects of climate change induced droughts, floods and bush fires. It has been their resilience in the past that has ensured Australia's survival. But loss of rural community for all the reasons mentioned here threaten Australia as never before.
We are already facing global issues such as climate change and in the future we will face the end of oil. We need local community solutions to these problems. How do we do this? We meet in our local community buildings! All places that can facilitate local community should be held in high value. Local responses to local issues are the best ones. These can only happen if we have places where community can meet and talk with each other. This is what we can bequeath the future generations, the hope of our local community.
May our future communities be blessed with people of good heart and courage.
*If you would like to support her work, Lisa is establishing a Community Building Preservation Fund. Please contact Lisa if you would like to donate to this.*
Lisa McAndrew is the Good Heart Herbalist™. She is Australia's first community herbalist. She has worked professionally in community development, community arts and community cultural development for over 20 years. She is passionate about social justice and community health and well-being. Lisa McAndrew with her husband Gavin Edwards, run The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ , in Lapoinya, Tasmania, where they teach aspiring small farmers how to run a Self-Sufficient Smallholding™ and do Self-Sufficient Farming™.They were the founders of Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™.
© Lisa McAndrew 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.
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