‘Field Notes’ is a fortnightly column in which Regen Melbourne’s Lead Convenors provide on-the-ground updates and insights from their work and focus areas.

The Wildly Ambitious Goal of Regen Streets is to help catalyse a wave of regenerated streets across Greater Melbourne. While it might seem a fairly simple word, understanding how a wave works can actually help us determine Regen Melbourne’s role in this field, writes Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe. 

We’ve kicked off Regen Streets as our next Wildly Ambitious Goal. The goal is to catalyse a wave of regenerative streets across Greater Melbourne. 

When I speak to people about this goal they usually interrogate the concept by asking, “What is a regenerative street?” to which I typically reply, “Oh, it can be many things”, thus opening up a great discussion about the many shapes of a regen street. 

But no one has asked me about the wave. And to me, the wave is the operative word in the statement – the binding element that makes the goal of Regen Streets possible. In fact, the wave is the piece that can impact the broader system.

Let’s unpack what we know about waves. A wave is a disturbance that moves energy from one place to another. Only energy, not matter, is transferred as a wave moves. Waves move through a substance called a medium that moves back and forth repeatedly, always returning to its original position. 

When you look at a wave in the ocean, the movement on the water is actually the result of a wave, not the wave itself. The water can exist without the wave but, in this context, the wave cannot exist without the water. The water is the medium, the wave is the disturbance. 

There are seismic waves, lightwaves and water waves and soundwaves. Every wave has a different frequency, or wavelength, which helps us understand how much energy a wave is carrying. Every wave travels at a particular speed. Some travel at the same speed consistently (electromagnetic waves), some vary from wave to wave (water waves) while others are consistent if travelling through the same medium (sound waves). 

“It’d be easy to look at Regen Streets as the energy that creates the waves. But the energy is already out there – moving in different ways across Greater Melbourne as a response to external factors.”

Waves move in different ways, too. Refracted waves slow down and change direction when they meet a substance or material of differing density. Reflected bounce back when they hit another wave or a coastline. Interference is when two waves travelling in different directions meet and combine their energies to form interference patterns. Resonance is when waves slosh to and fro when the frequency of the source matches that of the object. Diffraction is when waves bend due to hitting a barrier and change shape in order to push through any paths of least resistance (eg. a gap in the barrier).

As we work to catalyse a wave of regenerative streets across Greater Melbourne, the science behind waves can perhaps lend us some clues as to how we might behave, and the different roles we can begin to play. 

It’d be easy to look at Regen Streets as the raw energy that creates the waves in the first place. But I suspect  the energy is already out there – moving in different ways across Greater Melbourne as a response to external factors. Perhaps our role is to be the substance for the waves, the medium that helps give them their shape, helps them travel and makes them useful. 

The waves may begin as a ripple and build up to be seismic. Their energy will be measured by wavelength, their impact will be monitored and the experience will be evaluated. The speed of the waves will vary depending on the energy behind them and the environment that is cultivated. And the waves will all behave differently as some will need to slow down and change direction, some will hit another wave and combine energy as a collective, while others will slosh to and fro when combined with a matching frequency. 

As I move around Melbourne working to define the direction for Regen Streets and spot the emerging patterns of effort that already exist, I see a lot of energy. I also see opportunities for this energy to be harnessed via a medium and transformed into a wave. When we say our goal is to catalyse a wave of regenerative streets across Greater Melbourne, it’s the ‘wave’ in this phrase that holds much power and what takes us from individual efforts to collective impact. 

Our waves may form through a disturbance of particles or through oscillating electric and magnetic fields. Whatever shape or form, as the wave comes past you, we invite you to be part of the transition. Over the coming months we will create many connection points to enable this and welcome you to reach out any time to me at nina@regen.melbourne. 

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