I had never heard of the word
euthenic
. It is the opposite of eugenics which is biologically and genetically focused. Euthenics is environment focused. The nature vs nurture debate has opposing
'ics'
. I wandered across the term in Paul Ashton's discussion of the
Cahill Expressway
.
From the article:
Prior to World War I, town planners spoke with passion and some authority about the pivotal role that planning would play in generating material and moral progress. Eradicating slums and urban chaos - and for conservatives, socialism - would improve the lower orders, while the transformation of obsolete infrastructure would generate wealth and happiness. Both outcomes would contribute to social cohesion and progress. Town planning was thus euthenic; it was predicated on the notion that environmental conditions influenced or even determined human characteristics and behaviour. Euthenics was based on nurture; eugenics, its social engineering opposite, held up nature or biology as the key to human progress.Ashton writes that after WWI euthenic town planning lost its influence and specialists such as engineers with utilitarian outlooks took over. The Cahill Expressway is a bit ugly, and Ashton notes that it was opened in 1958 prior to the development of skyscrapers in the Sydney CBD which happened through the 1960s. From my own experiences in the Quay, it is dark and ugly in the stretch where the rail and expressway go over the top of the Quay. However, I lived for a time in Sydney southern beaches and it was the only way that the southern beaches were connected to North Sydney and the Harbour Bridge. Until the advent of the tunnel, and the improvement of the Great Western Highway, the Cahill Expressway was a transportation necessity. Could it have been built differently so that it didn't run across the Quay? Most likely. There is nothing saying that Anzac Parade has to be entered at its most northern point, which is how the Harbour Tunnel tackled that problem. Even though I grew up in NW Sydney and lived for periods in different parts of inner-Sydney and regional NSW, when I came across the northern side of Sydney and hit highway after highway as they fed into the Harbour Bridge - I would be faced with the rising structure of the Harbour Bridge, the figure of the Opera House and Skyscrapers across the harbour.
