A recent holiday in Italy has given me a new perspective on the way we live in the suburbs of Hobart in Tasmania.

We live in an average single storey brick veneer home with a generous amount of space between our house and the street, and an even more extensive back yard (containing a gazebo and apricot, lemon and apple trees).

The city of Naples made the biggest impact on me. Our hotel was in the centre of the city accessible only via cobblestone lanes (I hesitate to call them streets) and its reception was on the second floor reached in a tiny lift. The easiest way to get around in the city was to walk, and this allowed us to see how life went on in those lanes. No space was wasted. Behind every doorway or up or down any stairway was some business activity – café, foodshop, joinery, tourist trinket shop etc etc.

One excursion was by train to Herculaneum and then on to Sorrento for afternoon tea. Although the view from the train was generally not very attractive, the space between the line and the adjacent buildings was almost invariably covered by a garden of some sort.

This travel helped me recognize the wasteful and unproductive way in which most people here use the space around their homes. Some grow food but most simply modify their space to support their leisure activities. Flower beds, shrubs, trees, gazebos, decks, lawns. What a waste!