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Australian Floods, Sydney-based designer Dan Hill happened to be in Brisbane this week when floodwaters overtook the city. http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-13-how-sprawl-killed-brisbane-a-report-from-inside-the-flood There will be much finger-pointing after this, from insurance companies refusing to pay up due to the releases from dams not technically being floods (what on earth else are they then?); from those who point out that, as memory of the '74 floods faded, developers were allowed to build in flood plains earmarked for further dams; from those pointing out that the floods are a result of climate change (even if these ones aren't, future ones will be); from those pointing out that the entire fragile mode of suburban development of Australian cities is particularly unsuited to the resilience required of the near-future; that development should not have been allowed on the riversides and basins of floodplains, and so on. There will be a time for discussing how to achieve more resilient patterns of settlement in Australia. I'm not at all convinced that Australians have the appetite for genuinely addressing this, even despite the floods. Most people are apparently incapable of thinking about the future on the scale required for investment in things like urban resilience, even accepting we need to get better at communicating all this. I'm not sure people see the connection between devastating flooding and a culture where property developers call the shots, where cost drives aspiration in building and infrastructure, and where a car-based fabric of dispersed tarmac'ed low-density communities is virtually the Australian dream. But if it's not events like this, I'm not sure what else it would take to make this clear and force the issue. Bangkok?