The electronic superhighway: Melbourne's CityLink Project

Abstract

Melbourne's CityLink, the largest private construction project in the world, promises motorists a new mobility which eases the conventional gridlock‐freeway impasse. Based on an electronic toll system, it also represents an interesting case study of how information technology can facilitate improved urban transit systems. However, such benefits, which in this case accrue to the construction company and motorists, may be illusory for the transport and urban welfare of the city as a whole when aesthetic, environmental and community questions are considered.     

Transport disadvantage within aboriginal communities in an urban environment

Abstract

Recent research into the transport needs of three Aboriginal communities in Sydney, Australia, has shown that in certain circumstances several of their members experienced disadvantage that differed from non‐Aboriginal transport users. This difference is driven by transport needs that relate to cultural activity. It is suggested that mobility for Aboriginal people who live in an urban environment is linked to their cultural survival.     

Smart Cities and Mobility: Does the Smartness of Australian Cities Lead to Sustainable Commuting Patterns?

ABSTRACT

Smart cities have become a popular concept because they have the potential to create a sustainable and livable urban future. Smart mobility forms an integral part of the smart city agenda. This paper investigates “smart mobility” from the angle of sustainable commuting practices in the context of smart cities. This paper studies a multivariate multiple regression model within a panel data framework and examines whether increasing access to broadband Internet connections leads to the choice of a sustainable commuting mode in Australian local government areas. In this case, access to the Internet is used as a proxy for determining urban smartness, and the use of different modes of transport including working at home is used to investigate sustainability in commuting behavior. The findings show that an increasing access to broadband Internet reduces the level of working from home, public transport use, and active transport use, but increases the use of private vehicles, perhaps to overcome the fragmentation of work activities the Internet creates. How to overcome the need for car-based travel for fragmented work activities while increasing smartness through the provisioning of broadband access should be a key smart city agenda for Australia to make its cities more sustainable.     

Infrastructure Planning: in a State of Panic?

Abstract

Infrastructure is routinely framed in contemporary urban policy as a vehicle to grow the economy through the creation of jobs. In periods of economic downturn and when ongoing fiscal uncertainty ensues, governments may look to the construction and maintenance of social and public infrastructure such as social housing and public transport. Cities and communities that have endured infrastructure deficits in the past may become the beneficiaries of adjusted national and state-level policy to support economic prosperity through expedient infrastructure implementation programs. Yet in the post-GFC policy environment urban infrastructure has recentred the role of infrastructure in driving urban economic recovery in terms of economic prosperity. Drawing from the state of exception literature, I call on the notion of urgency to explore infrastructure planning as it manifests at the juncture between strategic planning and implementation. This paper will contribute to the critical urban planning literature by examining how infrastructure prioritisation and implementation is shaped through a characterisation of urgency which subverts the relationship between urban infrastructure planning, implementation and planning process.     

Twenty‐five years (1967–1992) of urban transport planning in France

In retracing the history of the last twenty‐five years of urban transport planning in France, we begin by providing an explanation of the quarter‐century 1967–1992 in four distinct phases. This brings out for each one of the four periods the specific procedures, the tendencies of local policies on public transport, and the evolution of mobility behaviour as well as central planning problematics. It also highlights, in the language of economics, supply (transportation services) and demand (needs in terms of movement), the modalities of adaptation of supply to demand, and their dysfunction.     

Club Goods and Local Government

Problem: Private approaches to urban service provision are becoming more popular. Some argue these approaches are more efficient and more democratic than government provision because they are voluntary. While these club approaches can shift the burden of infrastructure finance to direct groups of users, they can also fragment urban service delivery and justify unevenness in service quality across the city.

Purpose: This article explores examples of club goods, that is, common interest developments (CIDS) for housing, business improvement districts (BIDs) for commercial areas, and economic development zones (EDZs) for commercial and industrial areas, and assesses their implications for local government. Emphasis is given to how clubs internalize benefits to members of the club but shed externalities onto the broader local government system. A critical governance concern is the impact on the long-term ability of local government to coordinate across disparate elements and interests in the community.

Methods: I discuss three types of clubs ranging from totally private common interest developments (home owners associations), to partially private business improvement districts, to totally public economic development zones. These club types are analyzed in terms of economic benefits, externalities, governance structure, and broader concerns with equity and sustainability.

Results and conclusions: Club good approaches to urban infrastructure delivery enhance private investment and reduce costs to cities, but they also shed externalities onto the broader city. Although these clubs are often private associations, this article shows how they are critically supported by government, beyond the property rights requirement assumed by most theorists. A further concern is that club approaches may undermine support for equity and redistribution at the broader city level.

Takeaway for practice: Local governments are under pressure to provide public goods efficiently and engage private voluntary approaches whenever possible. The efficiency and popularity of club approaches derives in part from their ability to capture the benefits of increased investment for internal benefit. However, local government managers also must manage diversity and build public support for investment to ensure equity across the urban territory. Balancing the benefits of club goods with the need for broader urban integration is a key challenge for planners and urban managers.

Research support: None.     

Diffusion of Bike Sharing as an Innovation Vector in the City: The Case of BiciMAD (Madrid)

Bike sharing nowadays is a must-have element of the urban transport system that is changing mobility patterns in cities worldwide. BiciMAD, a fleet of bicycles with electric pedal-assistance (pedelecs)—introduced in the center of Madrid (Spain) in 2014—is an example of the latest generation. In this article, Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) is adapted and applied as a framework to study data from a series of surveys among BiciMAD subscribers to describe adopter profiles and analyze attributes that influence the time of adoption, including an additional one: cycling familiarity. Empirical results are presented to show how an innovation (in terms of technology and service configuration on the level of a city) is dispersed. Conclusions show that smart bike sharing is an innovation vector in urban mobility, an attractive new travel mode for the identified adopter categories, namely (1) lifestyle cyclists, the venturesome and technology enthusiast Earliest Adopters, (2) dedicated cyclists, the rational and deliberate Early Majority, (3) leisure cyclists, the skeptical and peer-dependent Late Majority, and (4) fair-weather cyclists, the prudent Laggards.     

Myths of mobility on the geography of work and leisure among Rotterdam's new middle class

In the discourses on economic restructuring and in cultural studies, the new middle class is often portrayed as an urban stratum consisting of people who are very mobile in a physical sense. The geographical mobility of highly educated professionals and managers working in the service sector is manifest in both work and leisure activities. We argue that such accounts are exaggerated and undifferentiated. Data from a survey among members of the new middle class who work in Rotterdam suggest that on the whole, the mobility of the new middle class is rather low, with few exceptions. To a large extent, spatial mobility is limited to that segment of the new middle class who do not reside in Rotterdam. Their mobility consists of commuting to work and visiting entertainment amenities based in Rotterdam. These findings suggest an interesting correlation between mobility and an urban social and cultural orientation. On that basis, we argue that mobility and a sense of attachment to the urban place are not mutually exclusive. “The modern subject is a subject on the move” (John Urry). Marco van der Land is sociologist and attached to the Netherlands School for Social and Economic Policy Research at Utrecht University. He conducted research on the urban ties and civic culture of the Rotterdam new middle class, the subject of his forthcoming dissertation. Besides urban sociological themes he is occupied with the subject of globalization.     

From Geddes’ city museum to Farrell’s urban room: past,present, and future at the Newcastle City Futures exhibition

ABSTRACT

Genuine engagement about how best to achieve liveable urban futures should be part of planning’s raison-d’etre but it has a chequered history of delivery. Exhibitions harnessing the communicative power of mixed media and linked to a progressive and responsive programme of focused discussion and debate remain relevant to community consultation and civic engagement. Terry Farrell’s concept of the ‘urban room’ to involve citizens in engaging with the past, present, and future of towns and cities offers a contemporary refreshment of the approach propounded by Patrick Geddes from the early 1900s. The possibilities of creating novel and compelling opportunities for civic discourse in this guise are explored in this review article though the Newcastle City Futures pop-up exhibition and events held in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK in 2014. This event carries lessons for imagining how planners, developers, governments, and community groups may come together to critically and creatively forge future propositions for the urban condition.     

The electronic superhighway: Melbourne's CityLink Project

Melbourne's CityLink, the largest private construction project in the world, promises motorists a new mobility which eases the conventional gridlock-freeway impasse. Based on an electronic toll system, it also represents an interesting case study of how information technology can facilitate improved urban transit systems. However, such benefits, which in this case accrue to the construction company and motorists, may be illusory for the transport and urban welfare of the city as a whole when aesthetic, environmental and community questions are considered.     

Feral travel and the transport field: Some observations on the politics of regulating skating in Tasmania

Abstract

This paper summarises skating regulation around Australia, focusing on Tasmania. Such analysis is timely; the Australian Road Rules adopted in December 1999 expand skating from recreation to a mode of transport whose legitimacy assumes access to roads and footpaths, and deploys complex politics of identity and space, citizenship and access, and mobility.     

Neighborhood Air Quality,Respiratory Health,and Vulnerable Populations in Compact and Sprawled Regions

Problem: Recently, public health researchers have argued that infill development and sprawl reduction may improve respiratory outcomes for urban residents, largely by reducing vehicle travel and its attendant mobile-source emissions. But infill can also increase the number of residents exposed to poor air quality within central cities. Aside from emissions studies, planners have little information on the connections between urban form, ambient pollutant levels, and human exposures or how infill changes these.

Purpose: We examined neighborhood exposures in 80 metropolitan areas in the United States to address whether neighborhood-level air quality outcomes are better in compact regions than in sprawled regions.

Methods: We used multilevel regression models to find the empirical relationship between a measure of regional urban form and neighborhood air quality outcomes.

Results and conclusions: Ozone concentrations are significantly lower in compact regions, but ozone exposures in neighborhoods are higher in compact regions. Fine particulate concentrations do not correlate significantly with regional compactness, but fine particulate exposures in neighborhoods are also higher in compact regions. Exposures to both ozone and fine particulates are also higher in neighborhoods with high proportions of African Americans, Asian ethnic minorities, and poor households.

Takeaway for practice: Compact development and infill do not solve air quality problems in all regions or for all residents of a given region. Planners should take differences in neighborhood air quality and human exposure into account when planning for new compact developments rather than just focusing on emissions reductions.

Research support: This project was supported by a grant from the ShenAir Institute at James Madison University and by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.     

Planning for road pricing: A multi‐rationality approach

Road pricing has climbed high on the political agenda in several countries during the last decade. This can be attributed to a growing concern regarding urban congestion problems, environmental impact of traffic growth, and difficulties in financing new transport infrastructure. Nevertheless, examples of actual implementation are few. This may to a large degree be due to a restricted comprehension of the planning challenges that road pricing actually poses. Literature on transport planning and transport economics gives the basis for a definition of road pricing and a clarification of some emerging planning issues. Furthermore, planning for road pricing is here linked to contemporary planning theory by exploiting a “compound rationale for planning” proposed by Tore Sager and coupling this to pro and con arguments. The communicative elements of road pricing planning are exemplified and discussed, drawing especially on John Forester's theories of planning as argumentation.     

The urban environment and the motor vehicle

This Paper makes a case for the comprehensive and integrated approach to the planning of the environment and the motor vehicle. It points out that cities have had transport problems for many hundreds of years, and that one of the basic causes is the inability of the fabric of cities to adapt in a sufficiently flexible way to meet the rapid advances in transport technology. If, however, requirements of vehicular transport are given precedence over other aspects of urban life then the resultant damage to many existing urban fabrics may be very serious.

It is necessary to consider the problem at all three planning levels, national, regional, and local, but in Britain this has not yet been attempted. It is also necessary for the public to have a clearer idea of needs and possibilities so that misunderstandings between planners and public may be dealt with.

A brief reference to urban evolution is made in order to see the problem in its evolutionary context. The impact on urban environments of the new technological systems of transport of canals, railways, and motor transport is referred to, as is the serious effect on American cities by the latter system.

The current trend of decentralization of individual urban components is mentioned, and a warning of its effect is given. A warning is also given of the influence of the large scale Transportation Studies introduced from America, and the danger of considering them in isolation. Too few public authorities have as yet given sufficient attention to a much more important British contribution, the Traffic in Towns Report by Professor Buchanan.

In conclusion, the importance of the integration of transport planning with environmental planning at national, regional, and local levels is stressed, as is the need to distribute equably land uses and traffic generators. Finally more integration of rail and road systems is necessary, together with more study as to how this could be done.     

A spirit of urban capitalism: market cities,people cities,and cultural justifications

ABSTRACT

Diverse urban theories discuss how economic processes shape conceptions of a city, but less research focuses on how pragmatic situations of urban life contribute to the characterisation of cities. We argue that pragmatic justifications reify socially constructed meanings of cities by creating a ‘spirit of urban capitalism.’ This framework conceives of two spirits: the market city, which aligns with neoliberal assumptions, and the people city, which foregrounds a resident-focused model. Using case studies of Copenhagen and Houston, we showcase how these conceptions of cities are justified by elites and residents, and thereby build empirical scaffolding connecting urban economies and cultures.     

The Intersection of Planning,Urban Agriculture,and Food Justice: A Review of the Literature

Problem, research strategy, and findings: We draw on a multidisciplinary body of research to consider how planning for urban agriculture can foster food justice by benefitting socioeconomically disadvantaged residents. The potential social benefits of urban agriculture include increased access to food, positive health impacts, skill building, community development, and connections to broader social change efforts. The literature suggests, however, caution in automatically conflating urban agriculture’s social benefits with the goals of food justice. Urban agriculture may reinforce and deepen societal inequities by benefitting better resourced organizations and the propertied class and contributing to the displacement of lower-income households. The precariousness of land access for urban agriculture is another limitation, particularly for disadvantaged communities. Planners have recently begun to pay increased attention to urban agriculture but should more explicitly support the goals of food justice in their urban agriculture policies and programs.

Takeaway for practice: We suggest several key strategies for planners to more explicitly orient their urban agriculture efforts to support food justice, including prioritizing urban agriculture in long-term planning efforts, developing mutually respectful relationships with food justice organizations and urban agriculture participants from diverse backgrounds, targeting city investments in urban agriculture to benefit historically disadvantaged communities, increasing the amount of land permanently available for urban agriculture, and confronting the threats of gentrification and displacement from urban agriculture. We demonstrate how the city of Seattle (WA) used an equity lens in all of its programs to shift its urban agriculture planning to more explicitly foster food justice, providing clear examples for other cities.     

Implementing TOD around suburban and rural stations: an exploration of spatial potentialities and constraints

ABSTRACT

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is an effective way to integrate land use and transport in pursuit of the goal of sustainable development. Most of the literature on TOD is devoted to station areas in urban contexts; even when TOD is considered with a regional approach, suburban and rural stations are poorly investigated. Analysing a case study, this paper explores spatial potentialities and constraints for TOD in suburban and rural contexts. The results show that conditions for TOD around suburban and rural stations vary substantially from those around urban stations. A broader, more complex and context-sensitive approach to TOD is recommended.     

TRANSPORT: A TIME FOR REFLECTION Recent United Kingdom experience

Preface

Over the past few years, Urban Policy and Research has carried articles and letters reporting on the debate over urban transport and land-use policy. Practice Review has published a series of papers on the management of urban growth in major cities in Australia and New Zealand.     

Vinex policy moves into the implementation phase

National policy on urban and regional planning, as laid down in the Fourth Report on Physical Planning Extra (VINEX), is now being put into practice. The main point made in this document is that activities must be concentrated in the city regions in order to fortify the urban economic base, to economize on the consumption of land, and to restrict (increasing) car mobility in favor of public transport and bicycle tranffic. Concrete agreements pertaining to all VINEX development areas and all city regions have been signed by national, provincial, and local authorities. The agreements are based on a timetable spanning a period of ten years (1995–2005). The only thing that remains to be done is to implement the plans. However, the implementation of VINEX has been lagging far behind the production targets. In this article, we take a close look at how the national policy goals are implemented, using some examples from the field. We examine the content of the VINEX covenants and try to detect gaps in the agreements, which seem to be strictly formulated. This article demonstrates the range of attitudes among provincial and local authorities. The differences largely reflect the regional context involved. We draw attention to the influence of regionalization (and the failure to achieve it) on the pace of implementation. Furthermore, we outline the various positions of actors involved in VINEX on both the supply and the demand side Private parties, including privatized organizations that previously operated under the umbrella of government, are now directly involved and bear a sizable share of the risk. Not surprisingly, they also demand more say in how plans are carried out. Government authorities, however, remain the guardians of the collective interests that policy is meant to serve. Therefore, their role in directing the negotiations on the implementation of projects is more critical than ever before. Indeed, the role of the public sector will remain crucial for some time, since the mainstay of spatial planning until the year 2010 will be continuity. Helen Kruythoff is a human geographer working at the OTB Research Institute, for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies at the Department of Urban Development and Housing Stock Management. René Teule is a human geographer a researcher. When writing this articles he was a researcher at the OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies. He is now working at the City of The Hague.