Lately, I have been thinking about the idea of space and how it is conceptualized. This is partially due to all the David Harvey I have been reading, but also because it intersects with my work life a fair bit.
At work, we have been working on an interesting project that attempts to measure and quantify the amount of money needed to maintain/repair the infrastructure in West Vancouver.
We have covered a lot of interesting stuff. However, one point has stuck out for me. Due to the size of lots in West Vancouver and land use decisions made during its development, there is more infrastructure per person, (water main, sewer main, more ditches/culverts) and the infrastructure is more complicated (more pump stations needed, drainage infrastructure) This requires a larger investment per person to maintain/repair, that in a "typical" city.
Surprisingly building 10,000 square foot homes on the side of a mountain creates some engineering challenges.
This idea seems fairly obvious, but is not easily apparent to most people. The fact that the form we live in and the "space" we utilize has an impact on the world and requires resources to maintain should not require explaining.
An environmentalist would call these things "externalities". However, in this case we are not even dealing with intangibles like pollution, or CO2 emissions, we are dealing with a tangible piece of infrastructure that can be easilty explained and quantified.
Anyway, to get to my point. I think the concept of Space provides an interesting example of where markets breakdown. Most right-wing economists would say that markets are infinite. That there is an unending supply of new products/needs that can be addressed by Capitalism. This is why there is no crisis of overproduction and no overall collapse of the system .
This argument makes sense to me, new products can always be developed, new markets exploited, or new interactions/processes comodified. New ways of doing things will always be created and as long as capitalism exists methoids of extracting surplus from them will also be created.
However, this idea does not apply to conventional space. Space is in finite supply, and a minimum (450ft square feet condo anyone!) is required to maintain/live a fulfilling and productive life. This is why the comodification of space is so horrendous and the ongoing destruction of public space such a bad thing.
In conclusion, treating the space in which we live like an ipod is a bad idea :)
