Contrasts in Reform: How the Cain and Burke Years Shaped Public Transport in Melbourne and Perth

Melbourne's public transport system, despite its extensive train and tram lines, is facing major challenges. From a point of near-extinction in the late 1970s, Perth's historically smaller public transport system is arguably now better placed to deal with growing environmental and economic pressures. The election of reformist governments in Victoria and WA in the early 1980s provided critical opportunities for public transport in both cities. This article documents the striking differences in the behaviour of the politicians, bureaucrats and civic action groups engaged in contention over transport policy in the two cities during this period. These differences had a significant influence on the performance of public transport in Melbourne and Perth today, and point to changes that will be required to improve transport policy outcomes in Melbourne

     

Social Disadvantage and Planning in the Sydney Context

The rubric of ‘new’ commons signals the re-assessment of old dilemmas about resource management and collaborative action in new social, spatial and technological settings. Urban commons feature in the expanding register of new commons, but there has been little analysis of the meaning and application of the concept. This article explores the urban commons in an Australian context, focusing on the provision of social infrastructure. While noting criticism of the concept's imprecision and ideological valency, the article argues that the urban commons offers new perspectives on public resources, urban governance and sustainability.

     

Transport,Housing and Urban Form: The Life Cycle Energy Consumption and Emissions of City Centre Apartments Compared with Suburban Dwellings

Buildings in cities and the activities carried out therein use a significant proportion of a nation's energy consumption and produce substantial quantities of greenhouse gases in the process. Residential buildings are a large contributor, partially as a result of the transport and housing activities of households. In this study, life cycle analysis is used to calculate the total transport and housing energy and emissions from a sample of 41 households in apartment buildings in the city centre of Adelaide, Australia and compare them with suburban households. The purpose of this is to determine whether the urban density option of higher rise dwellings offers a lower environmental impact than conventional housing. The analysis includes delivered energy and greenhouse gas emissions generated by motorised travel and activities within the dwellings, and the energy and emissions embodied in household motor vehicles and the apartment buildings. The total delivered energy consumption of apartment households was found to be lower than suburban households due mainly to higher car usage, particularly in the outer suburbs. However, the analysis of total greenhouse gas emissions provided a somewhat different comparison especially when they were considered on a per capita basis. The total per capita emissions for apartment households varied considerably but, on average, exceeded those of both the inner and outer suburban households. This resulted from lower occupancy rates and higher emissions arising from higher dwelling operational and embodied energy consumption. Overall, it cannot be assumed that centralised, higher density living will deliver per capita emission reductions for residents, once the combined per capita life cycle emissions from housing and transport have been accounted for. A more vigorous educational, promotional and regulatory approach is required to achieve greater operational and embodied energy efficiency in apartment buildings to fully realise the emissions-reducing potential of such buildings in centralised locations.

     

Decision-makers,Expert Witnesses and Advocates: The Roles of Planners in Merits Appeals

Darwin, in Australia's Northern Territory, faces urban planning challenges consistent with those reported in ‘resource peripheries’ around the world. The city has recently experienced strong population growth associated with resources and construction projects, and an increase in public sector workers sent to address the challenges faced by remote (particularly Indigenous) populations. The Northern Territory Government is determined to foster further growth, and promotes ‘major projects’ in urban development as the key. Analysis of the public debates about two recent major projects (the Waterfront Development and the Lyons residential development) reveal a planning process consistent with the clientelism observed by Rayner and Howlett (2009) in resource peripheries in Canada. The risks of clientelism are both the marginalisation of important internal publics and the institutionalisation of ‘temporariness’ as the driver of growth. Shifting to a more consultative planning process might help stimulate internal development, but could also put at risk the relationships that the Northern Territory Government has established with external investors.

     

Urban Form and Housing Density,Australian Cities and European Models: Copenhagen and Stockholm Reconsidered

Stockholm and Copenhagen have been widely regarded in English-speaking countries as exemplifying aspects of the compact city—from well planned, mixed use, higher density, transit-oriented development to sociable urban spaces. So how is it that the development of these two cities has also been located in the garden city tradition? This article tackles this question in the context of the implications European cities are often thought to have for low-density Australian cities. Comparisons of the urban form of Stockholm and Brisbane and of higher density housing in Copenhagen and Brisbane emphasise that the ‘Scandinavian model’ is as much about the role of open space in shaping urban form and in housing design as our current preoccupation with density.

     

Responses to Retailing Change in Canberra

Retailing is a major activity in urban areas. Where it is located is a major influence on traffic flows and the ease and level of access the population has to goods and services. Relying solely on the market to determine retail provision is likely to result in a misallocation of resources. Given the dynamism of the industry, and the uncertainty in predicting the future, the challenge for planning frameworks has been how to best respond to the needs of an increasingly affluent and mobile population while considering the social and environmental consequences of development. This article explores, with particular reference to Canberra, how retail planning policy has evolved to respond to these changes. How communities respond to such changes will depend on the relative weighting they give to accessibility, efficiency, equity, sustainability and amenity criteria. The aim should be the development of a retail system that provides for competition, choice, accommodates new retail formats while meeting the needs of the less mobile and the need to reduce overall travel.

     

CAN URBAN DENSITY EXPLAIN PERSONAL TRAVEL LEVELS?

This article examines the changes in personal travel levels, urban density, and other land use patterns over the period 1901 to 1991 in large Australian cities. It is shown that urban density changes are not the direct cause of the observed travel increases. Instead, the huge rise in travel convenience brought about largely by the shift from public transport to cars, best explains travel growth in the post-war era. Urban density, however, does affect travel convenience (especially average travel speeds and ease of parking), and thus indirectly, travel levels.     

An Analysis of Energy Consumption in an Adelaide Suburb with Different Retrofitting and Redevelopment Scenarios

Improving energy efficiency of the existing dwelling stock of towns and cities will increasingly be part of the effort to moderate fossil fuel energy consumption in the decades to come. At the same time, residential areas may be subject to densification to better utilise the existing urban infrastructure whilst accommodating a larger population. The analysis of energy consumption arising from these trends offers the potential for optimising built forms and assisting in development decisions for urban renewal to encourage lower energy outcomes. This article describes the application of a model which uses a life cycle approach to the analysis of energy consumption in a residential suburb. The results indicate that the inclusion of embodied energy expended during redevelopment can be substantial and should be considered when modelling future energy consumption scenarios.

     

Housing for Rural Migrant Workers: Consumption Characteristics and Supply Policy

Based on the housing consumption characteristics of rural migrant workers, we estimate and explain the trend of marginal housing consumption of rural migrant workers and the impact of income uncertainty on housing consumption, analyse the reasons why there is a structural imbalance in the housing supply for migrant workers and give policy recommendations for improving the housing supply situation. We argue that rural migrant workers are more conservative in housing consumption than urban and rural residents due to income uncertainty. The effect of income increase on housing consumption is far less than that on other consumption. These characteristics have to be taken into account in the formation of housing supply plans for rural migrant workers.

     

补贴视角的城市交通发展导向性分析

政府和社会在城市交通发展中的导向性非常重要。文章从补贴这一独特的视角出发,试图论证当前政府对不同交通方式的补贴差异。从运营环节和基础设施建设两个角度,分别测算和对比对公交和小汽车的补贴,最后得出结论:目前全社会对小汽车的补贴远高于公交,与公交导向的城市交通发展方向相悖,并使市民的出行方式更偏向小汽车。最后,指出需去福利化和形成市场主导的停车建设和收费机制,并用补贴和税费的"正负效应"促使形成公交导向的城市交通发展模式。     

Theory and Practice in Metropolitan Strategy: Situating Recent Australian Planning

Over the last several years, metropolitan strategies have been produced for the five mainland state capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The distinctive characteristics of Australian urban planning mean that they can be shown to reflect an Australian paradigm of planning. However, this paradigm is rewritten in different ways in each strategy reflecting the particular institutional circumstances and political culture of each state. In doing so there is some strong reaffirmation of this paradigm, but also indications of a more relational and transactive manner of planning adding further process to product. Here there is some resonance with recent developments in planning theory and to some extent in practice—largely in Europe.

     

Neighbourhood Provision of Food and Alcohol Retailing and Social Deprivation in Urban New Zealand

Recent research has considered whether a range of social and physical characteristics of residential neighbourhoods are important in explaining social and spatial inequalities in health. One strand of this research has investigated the role of neighbourhood access to retail provision of healthy and affordable food. In this national study we used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to examine the association between food retail (supermarkets, convenience stores and fast food outlets) and licensed alcohol outlet locations, and an area measure of deprivation for urban neighbourhoods across New Zealand. We found that contrary to the international evidence, for all outlet types, access to a range of retail options tended to be better in more deprived neighbourhoods. The implications of this socio-spatial distribution of food and alcohol retailing in reducing health inequalities are discussed.

     

Balancing Economic Development and the Preservation of Agricultural Land: An Evaluation of Shanghai's Municipal Land Use Plan

The megacity of Shanghai faces enormous planning challenges, particularly controlling rapid urban growth and preserving some of the world's most fertile agricultural land. Almost two-thirds of Shanghai's territory is classified as agricultural land. Maintaining this high ratio of agricultural land to total land area and, at the same time, accommodating a large and rapidly increasing urban population represents an immense and complex planning challenge. Shanghai has recently adopted a Municipal Land Use Plan to address some of these planning challenges. This article provides a review, analysis and critique of Shanghai's Municipal Land Use Plan. From a review of the relevant literature, this article develops a framework to evaluate Shanghai's plan. This framework provides a qualitative assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the SMLUP's overall goal of preserving arable land and fostering urban-economic development.

     

Planning a City through ‘Dialogue’: Deliberative Policy-making in Action in Western Australia

Deliberative policy-making is an alternative method of generating new planning strategies based on the public deliberation of citizens and stakeholders. Four ideals of deliberative policy-making espoused by deliberative democracy theorists are identified. Using this framework the ‘Dialogue with the City’ process undertaken by the Western Australian Government to develop the Network City spatial planning strategy for the Perth metropolitan region is examined. While this process went further than most towards realising the ideals of deliberative policy-making, the Government was not able to fully achieve the ideals of inclusive decision-making, equitable decision-making, deliberation toward the common good and consensus decision-making. It is most likely that the deliberative approach to policy-making does not represent a new model for governing; rather, these participation techniques constitute a more sophisticated model for involving citizens and stakeholders in planning.

     

Changing Demographics and Housing Space Demand: The Case of Seoul Metropolitan Region in Korea

The aim of this paper is to estimate the future medium and large housing needs of low-income renter households of Seoul Metropolitan Region (SMR), and to recommend housing policy responses to these needs. Using demographic methods, this study first projects the total housing needs of SMR, then decomposes them into the needs for different housing sizes by tenure and household expense using the household–housing size matrix. Between 2005 and 2015, approximately 360 000 medium and large rental housing units are needed. We argue that the Korean government should prioritise rental housing policy, and diminish the polarisation in housing conditions between the better off and the worse off.

     

How National Planning Might Enrich Metropolitan Planning in Australia

The Intergenerational Report recently released by the Commonwealth Government contains some of the elements of a national long-range plan. Because the Report comes from the Treasury it lacks some important themes such as the impact of the envisaged population growth on natural resources. However, it is linked with the major cities which it recognises as the major drivers and arenas in the changes it foreshadows. This link is cemented in the recent COAG agreement to produce new metropolitan strategies by the beginning of 2012, using an agreed and enriched planning process. The opportunities in this new situation are canvassed.

     

Neo-liberal or Third Way? What Planners from Glasgow,Melbourne and Toronto Say

Given the long and well-documented decline in the existence and relevance of place-dependent urban community, we explore the use of an idealised version of community of place in the marketing and implementation of a new suburban master planned estate (MPE) in Australia. In a social policy environment where strong communities of place are idealised, we find residents lack the resources or inclination to devote to the establishment of civic norms or durable social networks within the boundaries of the development and, for the most part, they are content to leave the establishment of the symbols of community to the property developer. It is the idea, rather than the reality, of community that is important, but in order to generate that idea, the developer needs to go to some lengths to create an ‘illusion’, or ‘sense’ of strong local community in the estate through marketing, the creation of nostalgic physical reminders, and selected community interventions such as cyclical events and celebrations. These all play an important role in the establishment of subjective ontological security for residents; to the benefit of both resident and developer.

     

Discontinuous changes in equilibrium retail activity and travel structures

The classical Harris-Wilson model of urban retail activity location is extended to include endogenous zonal retail prices, as well as endogenous travel costs. Illustrative equilibrium configurations of the activity/travel system are obtained through numerical experiments, under a variety of situations. Sudden changes in the spatial patterns of retail activity and interzonal shopping travel are shown to be induced by continuous variations in the values of the model's parameters. New sources of discontinuity are also identified, such as random fluctuations in the values of the exogenous variables, including residential population, link capacities and nonretail travel. Several directions for further theoretical and operational development of the model are discussed in conclusion.     

Floor Space per Person and Housing Development: An Urban Growth Approach to Estimate Housing Supply in Hong Kong

This article estimates an empirical model of new housing supply in Hong Kong based on the urban growth approach. The article introduces a new factor, space usage per person (SPP), to this model reflecting the quality of housing, the demand and supply aspects of the housing market, along with prices and other standard variables. SPP may also be used as a human settlement development indicator. Empirical results provide strong evidence that the introduced new factor exerts a strong positive influence on new housing supply, and that even a marginal change in the space usage pattern would have a great impact on housing supply. This suggests that non-price measures too should receive priority when estimating future housing development needs. Empirical estimates also suggest that a 10 per cent rise in real house prices leads to a 0.6 per cent increase in new housing starts and twofold rise in real house prices would increase the entire housing stock by 6 per cent.

     

Transport Characteristics and Policy Implications for Four Australian Cities

Abstract

The smaller capitals have larger levels of vehicular travel per head than the larger capitals and are more dependent on private transport, due mainly to greater non-work trip frequencies. Policy approaches are examined for reducing vehicular travel through increasing travel costs, changing land-use patterns and modifying people's values and attitudes to urban vehicular travel.