Blog

Warning and Disclaimer: This blog is concerned with philosophical musings about real estate. It has nothing to do with the real estate market or buying or selling real estate. This is a recreational activity :) If you are interested in the real estate market please click on the market link, or if you have questions about actual real estate in Victoria please email Jayme at: jayme@morganbaker.com and she will make me work on the answers.
Real estate as habitat , spatial control, creations of individual and group consciousness and many other aspects, is a fascinating microscope into the human condition.
The ideas expressed here are the personal thoughts of Morgan Baker and do not necessarily represent the thinking of Sutton Group or other Sutton Realtors in any manner whatsoever.

Some of the areas that I am curious about are:

Habitat and....
Spatial control and habitat
Mazlow's hierarchy of needs in relation to habitat
personal mind and habitat
social mind  and habitat
tribal mind and habitat
Fear and anxiety as a state of mind effecting habitat
habitat and the influence on mind......rural, urban, cold , warm
comparative cultural patterns of habitat
nature
nesting
legal structures of spatial control and definition
 

04 July 2007

In this discussion previously I used the phrase "consciousness and habitat" However many of our decisions about habitat may come from the unconscious or from instinct. For example the desire for habitat to provide safety and security may flow from powerful and primitive instincts. Couples contemplating children will be very concerned about the safety of the neighbourhood, both socially and in terms of risks such as highways, arterial roads, water bodies and so forth. Anyone who has observed animal and bird life will find a huge instinctual skill involved in the selection of nesting sites that are secure. I have a pair of ducks that have visited for four years in a row, Sir Donald and spouse, and although they spend days on the pond, the female will go elsewhere to nest, instinctively aware that the pond is not safe from the predatory local raccoon. Local crows  too will select a tree where it  may be difficult for Rocky to get to the nest, and when he does make the attempt the tribal crow response is rapid and raucous. The American reaction to 911 and any human reaction to spatial invasion resonates back to a very basic level, as do many of our decisions about habitat. Therefore I am going to use the phrase 'mind and habitat'. Whatever the 'mind' is, I am using it to encompass, conscious, unconscious and instinctive decisions.

Fear, and Habitat Anxiety

At an individual and group/tribal level, it seems to me, that a state of mind of fear and anxiety will create the physical habitat that reflects the mind state. Gated communities, militarized borders, alarm systems, cultural enclaves.

Consciousness and Habitat:

It is an interesting concept that habitat flows from consciousness . On a personal basis it is very apparent that the homes and spaces that persons buy or create reflect dominant themes of their consciousness. For one person a garden will have high priority for another it will have no attraction, the latter will seek to reduce the habitat that is expressed in this form. An analytical person will often give high priority to the economic value of the habitat whereas a woman contemplating children will look to its values as a nest.  One person may project a sparse highly ordered monastic environment, another will feel more comfortable in a homey cluttered space. When couples are buying or building a home the negotiation of these factors is often quite stressful and involves considerable communication skills. Many failed transactions are really failed attempts by couples to synchronize the differences in projected consciousness. Often this drama is played out with the Realtor doing a very complicated dance in an effort to not offend either side but still save the deal! A very common solution is to suggest a division  of space, perhaps the man will get the basement workshop or the garage.

Spatial Control:
 

21/08/2008

I arrived back in Canada in early January after a wonderful summer in Western Australia with my daughter Diana. We stayed in Perth for a part of the time but mainly free-loaded with my brother in Albany where I went to high school. Albany is on the Southern tip of Western Australia .. next stop Antarctica.  The Port of Albany was named King George Sound after exploration by  Captain Vancouver! in 1791. The good Captain  then sailed to North America and mapped Vancouver Island, isn't that amazing!  Diana and I had a great time, normally we are speaking to each other in the context of the family and for short time periods, but this allowed for some real bonding. We had long and stimulating discussions about all sorts of things and it brought back memories of most pleasurable times for me as an undergraduate in the 60's at the University of Western Australia. (Diana is studying art history at UBC). Life seems to have become so serious since then for young people, an intense focus on economics, on material success, in many ways I think, an extremely distorting and shallow view of the universe.  I read some stimulating books, 'The God Delusion" by Dawkins and on the other side " Ageless Body and Timeless Mind" by Chopra. I also looked a little into Einstein's thinking on spirituality and the concept of an evolving spirituality. As you can imagine these texts led to very spirited discussion! What has this got to do with real estate? Well real estate can be seen from many different aspects. One interesting area is that our housing and our use of the land flows from our values, from our culture and these of course are intimately connected to our spirituality (or lack of it). The primary spiritual value of our society it seems, for the last few decades, has been commerce and the primary value determining our land  use has been economics.  It is not an accident  that the recent  building at the entrance to the City of Victoria, the stadium, is singularly identified by a huge commercial TV screen! Last summer the most significant statuary in the city were plastic bears placed on street corners, probably purchased from a California Disneyland ad agency. And other cities have created beauty!   However the universe is changing in wondrous ways. On the west coast we have seen the emergence of strong values surrounding nature, incidentally Einstein was very attracted to Pantheism, and there is no doubt that these values are now markedly influencing housing and land usage in British Columbia. Bill Turner, a past real estate colleague, a truly humble man  and great  visionary, has given British Columbia wonderful leadership through the Nature Conservancy Fund and the protection of critical ecosystems.  Eco-conscious British Columbian developers such as David Butterfield, Vancity and others are leading the way towards environmentally conscious habitat and promoting these values in an international venue. (Environmental protection is a key principle of Butterfield's development at  Loreto Bay on the Baja.) Even the Liberal government appears, (strong qualifier), to be turning Green!  It is a delicious irony that modern spirituality with respect to the natural habitat in British Columbia 217 years, ( 1792 -2009) after Captain George Vancouver came to the shores to further the commerce of the English fur trade, is perhaps now closer to the view of the Haida with respect to the land,  than to the Church of England . To be fair to the Churches however, they too operated, and are operating, in the context of the zeitgeist of their  time.  Oh boy I have to run off to do an open house..........and I haven't even commented on the market!  I gave the lovely  word "zeitgeist' as a gift to Diana on the trip.... she would have preferred more cosmetics from the stopover airport in Hawaii!