Geographic Information Systems

GIS is a tool that has become an invaluable tool in planning.

What it has done for the planning profession is make it possible to quickly convey data visually to administrators, and the public, which has made it possible to convey information quickly and easily.

Metropolitan Planning

As more people move to the urban regions the importance of metropolitan planning grows. The increasing population and size of the metropolitan regions means that there is need for greater level of coordination and focus on metropolitan planning. But so often these regions are governed by numerous bodies that are reluctant to collaborate and often see each other as the competition.

But in order to get the best outcomes, for the people and the administrators there needs to be a greater emphasis n planning the metropolitan region. This often requires an independent body to be created and govern the metropolitan region. This not only requires the coordination of roads, public transport, and housing but will efficiently allocate resources and services.

Most importantly it will create the connections across the metropolitan region, in the old and new areas and between the two. But this planning must recognise the individual community identities and strengths within and use it to the regions advantage.

What makes a city wonderful, inspiring, successful, and responsive?

Over the last century the theory of how to ‘make’ a town has come full circle. The early 1900s saw the recreation of the romantic historical designs. Practioners sought to adorn streets, parks, and squares with classic decorative art and design.

The reaction to this romantic design was hard edged modernism, most notably Le Corbusier Cite Contemporaire (1922). His geometric order of the city was in complete reaction of the highly decorated period before it. Modernism was typified by simple unadorned concrete structures arranged in a grid like pattern.

By the 1950s a backlash against modernism had taken root and people like Jane Jacobs and Kevin Lynch led the revival of urban design based on people and their interactions with their community. In most recent times the emergence of Duany et als new urbanism in the early 1990s from an interpretation of Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard’s 1987 manifesto saw a return to more traditional design with gridded tree lined streets, active street frontages, corner stores and mixed use down town areas.

Duany et al explored in Suburban Nation: The rise of sprawl and the decline of the American dream elements of past urban design that have been emulated in recent projects. They found that elements such as mixed used development, connectivity, site considerations, neighbourhoods, transit, streets, buildings, parking and style are all crucial to the success of a city.

But what else makes a city wonderful, inspiring, successful, and responsive?

The answer is not always so obvious. Sometimes it’s the little fairy lights in the trees, unexpected street art, an unfolding vista, or a red van on the lake selling the best burgers in town. What makes a town for me is a combination of both hard and soft infrastructure. It’s the way that the streets are lined with trees, the way that the buildings interact with the sidewalk. The mixture of services, homes, jobs, retail, recreation, and culture creates the type of place that I want to live in.

 

Master Planning

Master planning is about the control of the physical development. It ensures that places and spaces are coordinated to achieve a pre-determined outcome over a long period of time. The master plan uses a written document accompanied by maps, plans, charts, surveys, and zoning rulings to implement the vision for the area. But these elements are not universal; there is no specific rule for the formulation or administration of a master plan.

The master plan provides the whole community some sense of certainty about where their city/ town/ suburb is heading and the effects it will have on them. For a planner the master plan is a tool that helps governments visualise intent so to create regulatory laws and tools to bring the planners goals to fruition. The vision of the master plan also creates a guide for coordinating delivery of goals and a way of identifying a priority of action.  An essential part of a master plan is the ability to review and amend the plan as it is implemented. This ensures the master plan continually meets the needs of the community.

Multiple Approaches to Cultural Planning

Multiculturalism, for many Australians is manifested in what they eat. To most of us it is China Towns, Little Italy’s and other such grouping of cultural activities. Just looking around in the food court there are Chinese takeaways, sushi shops, curry houses, noodle bowls, pizza, fish and chips, and pie shops etc. all of these cuisines have been brought to Australia from another country. But multiculturalism is so much more than food.

I, like so many Australians, don’t comprehend the multitude of ramifications that a multicultural society brings with it. Multiculturalism brings many benefits to Australian society such as labour skills, knowledge, experiences, culinary delights, festivals, creativity, vibrancy, churches, temples, mosques and monasteries. It also presents challenges such as language barriers, communication breakdowns, differing expectations, service delivery, and housing access. With each of these benefits and challenges there are different values that a planner needs to be aware of. The planner may need to challenge their own Eurocentric educational teachings and become more open to and inclusive of other values and cultures.

The shift that needs to take place in the planning system is to recognise that some cultural practices need to be relinquished in order to make room for others. In particular I am talking about the Eurocentric knowledge.  What the migrant so often confronts when they come to Australia is a loss of family, friends, cultural context and reference points. What this creates is a world of uncertainty and anxiety. What the planning profession can do is to facilitate cultural practices and social connections to reconnect fragmented communities. Examples of how this could be achieved are:

- allowing housing that meets the needs of the family, and often the extended family, rather then imposing the idea of what a house should encompass;

- allowing organic development of multi use buildings to enable live/work situations; and

- not pushing migrants into areas but allowing people to find their own way (this would involve more affordable housing in more locations, which would not only benefit migrants but many other Australians.)

So I think there are two main points that planners need to take from multiculturalism, the first is that voluntary clustering of cultures illustrates to planners is that organic development can create vibrant, dynamic areas. It is these areas that often become the most fashionable districts of the city with their variety of bars, restaurants, shops etc. The second is that there needs to be a shift in the teachings of planning from one cultural perspective to the multitude that Australia now represents.

I just also want to share a little gem I found on the internet. It's a paper by Tamara Winikoff  on Multicultural planning and urban design in Australia. 

What a Wonderful World!

For Jane Jacobs the city is a function of the people living in it. Without the people the city would not be the vibrant place that we love; there wouldn’t be corner activity, there would be no sidewalk cafes, and there would be no pretty window boxes full of flowers.

 

The small corner parks would have no one to love them and there would be no shop keepers cleaning the sidewalk. The city would become dull, lifeless and boring. For Jane Jacobs the key to a city is its people, and the paths they take, the interactions they have and the ownership they take in their street.

For planners the best way to truly get to know and understand how a city works is by getting immersed in it, feeling the vibe of the streets, and being involved in the daily discourse. I could think of nothing better to do with my career!

But great cities, I think, have a few more elements then just the people; there is a variety of building and building types, there are interesting destinations along a journey, there are focal points, loud places and quiet places. There are surprises around corners, spaces just for you to discover. Cities, with their mix of people, places and spaces are magical places for people to come alive and create truly wonderful things; they inspire us and help us to grow.

Planning Prejudices

This week’s blog is inspired by Susan Fainstein's New Directions in Planning Theory. 

After Angus and Cherry's presentation Richard told us of Susan's bias towards the Just City model and this is why there was little critique of it, as opposed to the criticism of the Communicative Model and New Urbanism. This got me thinking as to what are my values that prevent me from exploring an issue to the fullest and do all planners have this problem?

I thought about my values that I bring to the table with me that influence my decision making. These included:

·        I grew up in a small fishing village. I guess the only thing that I really noticed was the lack of public transport. Anyone needing to go to the nearest town, 45mins away, could only take the school bus which took twice as long, and only ran on school days and to meet school timings. I personally highly value public transport. Everywhere I’ve lived I have chosen my home to be near public transport.

·        Growing up on the coast, where the river meets the sea, and surrounded by national park I value the access to quality open space but also recognise the need for a settlement to grow for economic prosperity.



The Village i grew up in.



·        In more recent times in my life investing in real estate has begun to influence my views on density and development. I question council’s sometimes obvious contradiction in policy and vision for their city or town. I also question development contribution fees. I don’t see councils increasing open space in already established areas, or how an increase in the number of residents will make grass grow any faster to increase park maintenance costs?

·        After a couple of trips overseas it is so easy to see where major infrastructure is failing our country. In Europe high speed rail connections are beginning to replace air routes due to time and the ability to work. The transformation of old city centres into pedestrian, cycle  and public transit friendly places shows that city centres don’t need to be over run by cars.



Amsterdam



Rome

These are just a few of my values, I wonder what are yours?

Planning Maturity

This weeks blog is inspired by Nigel Taylor's  Anglo-American Town Planning Theory since 1945: Three Significant Development but no Paradigm Shifts.

Since the end of the WWII there has been a maturing of the planning profession. From the architecture inspired of the early 1900s to distinct area with its own evolving theories and modes of practice. And as a true profession there were distinct differences in the way the practitioners believe that the job should be done emerging.

Le Cobusiers Modernist view of

'Towers in the Sky' surrounded by

parkland and freeways neglected the

needs of people.

 

Jane Jacobs Greenwich Village in NYC.

Jacobs' Post Modernist view of a world that

should be varied, diverse, a mixture of old

and new. Jacobs book 'The Life and Death of

Great American Cities' expands on all

these elements and is well worth the read.

 

One of the emerging schools of thought was that a planner was not only a person to make the city pretty but they also need to be able to follow a process of inclusion and research. The shift of planner’s role from creating the pretty to following a process brought legitimacy to the profession that wasn’t there in the early years. The other emerging thought was the way in which the city was designed. The post modernist view, of complexity being critical for a vibrant city, contradicted with the earlier modernist views of simplified order, promoted by the likes of Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier.

The shift from pretty to process, from modernism to post modernism shows that the planning profession is able to revolutionise their own planning theory and process.

Planning Theories: Improving Cities for People

This belated post is inspired by Richard T LeGates and Frederic Stouts' Modernism and Early Urban Planning.

Haarlem City Map 1550

Historically people settled together for trade, religion, services, and safety. This often occurred is strategic locations, with the convergence of numerous transport routes, and was the seat of administration and law enforcement.

The benefits of common settlement were accompanied by numerous issues such as poor sanitation, over crowding, poverty, crime, and poor health.

One of Riis'  famous
How the Other Half Lives
photographs.

The emergence of the industrial cities of the 18th and 19th centuries saw mass migration of rural people to the urban areas to work in the factories creating incredible deprivation and social polarisation.

In London the increase of port, factories and the importance of the financial district saw the population increase from 800,000 in 1800 to 1.8 million in 1840. Similarly in New York the population grew from just under 500,000 in 1860 to over 5 million by 1910.

These massive population increases saw urban issues, such as poor sanitation, over crowding, poverty, crime, and poor health, further exacerbated.

Queen Street Mall in Brisbane.

To combat these issues modern planners created a number of planning theories to combat what they saw as social ills.

Ultimately the early urban planning theories were about the creation of cities are for the people in them.

I think that is still the ultimate aim of planning today. The challenges and issues may have evolved, but the greatest driver is still about creating cities that have a positive influence on the people that live in them.