‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

How do we find the causes of these resource transfers?
The linear transfer of the means of survival (from rural to urban, from nature to development, from 
poor to rich, and from public to private) tend to be the critical ones in terms of sustainability. They 
irreversibly close off future democratic and ecological options. To find direct and positive actions 
that can reverse the consequences of resources transfers, we can begin by looking at mechanisms by 
which they occur (ie ID analysis). Some mechanisms by which resource transfers result in vicious 
circles are technological and engineering conventions; institutional decision processes and regulations; 
economic valuation frameworks; and urban planning and design precepts. For example:
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Technological conventions
: Resource-intensive infrastructure and technologies often 
‘intervene’ in natural systems to reduce natural capital and natural life-support systems.
These create vicious circles. For example, dams produce energy but drown soil and
ecosystems. Roads disturb habitats and migration patterns. Air-conditioning systems have
caused many tropical houses to be insulated and made airtight. These, in turn, make cities
dependent on centralized energy production, and vulnerable to brown outs or black outs
– such that more dams or power stations are needed. Likewise, engineering conventions
such as storm water pipes (in lieu of water-sensitive urban design) reduce environmental
flows and increase urban floods. Centralized industrial systems that place the means of
survival in the control of a few create technological dependency and make urbanites
vulnerable to terrorism or extreme climate events.
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Institutional mechanisms
often ‘expropriate’ previously held rights or options. Laws, 
regulations or processes that reduce or transfer freedoms, property or resources from
the public domain to, say, corporations, individuals or government bureaucracies at below 
replacement cost are examples of this. Gated communities and private ocean fronts reduce 
public space physically, and deprive others of environmental health and amenity. Enclosure 
and privatization could be seen as forms of expropriation. Again, since power parallels 
resource control, inequitable wealth transfers lead to power imbalances that, in turn, affect 
future resource allocation decisions and even decision systems (eg trading systems in lieu of
regulations).
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