How to Create Abundant Cities

by Wolfgang Hoeschele

Is it enough for our lives, our economy, our cities to become “sustainable”? If being sustainable means no more than being able to maintain the status quo of strife and never having enough, of contests over who gets the most of the scarce resources available, then aiming for sustainability is not enough. We should instead aim for abundance.

What’s abundance? Abundance, by my definition, is the condition when all people, regardless of their backgrounds, now and in the future, are enabled to live life as art.

Art is self-expression to others – and just like a painting, a hand-made basket, a dance performance, a dinner, or a garden express something about their makers and take on added value when they are shared with others, so also life’s activities only become meaningful if they express something about the person’s self and values to others in that person’s life.

Life as art can only flourish in conditions of freedom, because it is based on exploring one’s own inner self, one’s own needs, wants and desires, and finding one’s own unique way of expressing oneself to others. Life as art supports social equity, both because expressing oneself to others does not depend on exploiting others, and because the more people around you are able to express themselves freely, the more you are enabled and encouraged to do the same. Finally, life as art is compatible with sustainability, both because most people’s values include the preservation of human and other life on earth, and because life as art helps overcome our addiction to an ever-increasing consumption of material commodities that do not satisfy our real needs.

The major obstacle to abundance is that our economy finds value only in scarcity. Anything abundant either cannot be sold (for example, air to breathe), or can only be sold at a low price (for example, the labor of landless rural people). An economy that runs on profits devalues everything that is abundant, leading to excessive exploitation and pollution. At the same time, somebody has to make sure that demand for marketed commodities constantly grows, so that demand exceeds supply (that’s the economic definition of scarcity). We’re told that we just naturally always want more, but in reality, we can easily observe that some people are content with relatively little and others never have enough. Also, everyone’s wants and needs are greatly influenced by their social environment. Our needs and wants only grow inexorably under specific conditions – and these conditions are expressly created by what I call scarcity-generating institutions.