My good mate’s dad died recently, and so last week I made a quick trip back home to hang out with my buddy and see if there was anything I could do for him, after the funeral.

It was the first time I had been back to Eden since moving to the Pacific Northwest about two years ago. Not much had changed.

For those of you who don’t know it, and I am sure that is just about everyone, Eden is a small town on the coast, halfway between Sydney, to the north, and Melbourne, to the south.

It’s renowned for its unspoiled coastline, national parks, and a colorful fishing history. Back in the day, those trawlers, the tuna-polers and abalone divers sustained pretty much the whole town.

But as the fish started to run out, and the government moved to protect what remained of the resource, the town had to find another way to bring in a buck. It managed, in part, by marketing itself as a tourist destination, and over the past 10 years or so there has been all manner of huge plans involving 5-star hotels, resorts, housing estates and brand new retail centers.

But for one reason or another, none of those developments have managed to get off the ground, despite the idyllic setting, which is hailed all over the world as one of the last pristine marine environments in the hemisphere.

Perhaps it is the way of the folk down there – not too taken by tourists, stuck in their ways, fond of the rickety old jetties they know so well – that outside development hasn’t taken root.

And perhaps the beauty of the place in many ways forms its own protection – enough people have fallen in love with the town as it is that they are not keen to see it change.

Though there are many in the town who grumble about lost market opportunities, and all the benefits that would pour in with development, there are also those who remember why it is they live there in the first place – not to be rich, but to live richly.

It is the sort of place where nobody locks their doors, you can wander idly up the main street, shopkeepers take an IOU if you are short of a dollar, and if you are ever hungry you can dive into Twofold Bay for a feed of mussels and flathead.

Those urging development need to remember that just up the road from Eden is a larger town called Merimbula, which has a McDonalds, a Target, a cinema, and more stores. Further up the coast is Bega, with factories, and a tertiary education institute. Further still is Wollongong, an old steel town turned beach-side metropolis. And then there is Sydney.

All these places represent various levels of development, and each offers it’s own charms and attractions, depending on what you, as a citizen, want, and how you want to live.

Too small? Move to a bigger city. Too big? The small towns are still there.

But in nations around the world, cities are becoming homogenous, as patterns of development draw them toward a similar apex.

Commerce, particularly retail commerce, is robbing them of their character. Shopping centers dominated by chains have built an environment for us where there is little discernible difference between Marietta, Ga, and Bellevue, Wash.

This purely profit driven determination to turn unique cities and towns into homogenized retail centers has done enormous damage to our existence as anything other than shoppers and consumers. You can talk all you like about exploiting the potential market, and maximizing revenue opportunities, but in the bigger picture of the development of human kind, this is a mindless and uninspired achievement.

Almost universally, as levels of personal wealth grew during the 20th century, this figure was matched by a decrease in recorded levels of personal happiness and satisfaction, and an increase in cases of depression, anxiety and stress. No doubt some readers will take this editorial to mean that I am anti-development. I’m not anti-development, just anti-doing the same old thing we have been doing since the 70s, that is having no positive impact on our quality of life.

The City of Sammamish is in a unique position in that it has been given the opportunity to formulate a policy of whether or not it wants to continue along this course, unlike many cities before it which were driven without coherent direction by development companies whose sole goal was return on investment.

The council’s decision a few years ago to put a cap on commercial density in the Town Center at a level lower than it could probably accommodate is a clear statement that it does not want to be defined by what you can buy here. It recognizes that views and trees and trails are what defines Sammamish and what will make it a sought after location long after the thrill of the checkout is gone.

There is no amount of sales tax revenue that can buy what many people love about this place.

Understanding this point of view requires a real investigation in what we consider ‘wealth.’

And, if a convenient JC Penny store is more important to you than a quiet trail, Bellevue is just up the road.