Introduction
Climate change remains the
biggest threat to the modern way of life and as such planning for future
disasters remains the top priority. Cities in Australia are built primarily
from the American concepts of sprawling, car orientated cities, however, with
the looming threat of peak oil and also the documented contribution that cars
have on climate change, it is necessary to transform our wide cities to more
compact, environmentally friendly cities. The recent change to the Canberra
plan reflects such an ambition, however, the current transport model remains a
hindrance to the reduction in car trips in the city. The Canberra government
has promised to introduce a light rail system in hope or reducing the
community’s reliance on the car. Such a scheme is reflective of much community
consultation and commitment to the new urbanist style of planning.
Context
Urban planning has morphed and
evolved since the turn of the 20th century and has seen many
movements come and go over time as they become obsolete, such as the Corbusier
inspired modernism and the Garden City movement conceived by Ebenezer Howard,
although, elements of these planning philosophies still apply to a degree as a
new wave of postmodernism takes hold. Planners today are trying to move away
from the car dominated city that has plagued the developed world for much of
the last century and move back to a public transport oriented and compact city
which seems logical in the face of crippling environment decline through the
threats of global warming and even overpopulation in some areas. Canberra, the
capital of our nation, is especially plagued by these problems and one needs to
look no further than the bushfires in Duffy in 2003 to see just how Mother
Nature can wreak havoc when the climate takes a turn for the unusually hot in
the face of a severe drought and El Nino.
There is consensus that climate
change is happening although the extent of the current damage we have already
caused is not yet known. Evidence confirms that changes are happening and the carbon
dioxide emissions of cars is but one of the prime causes. Some small steps have
been taken to ameliorate this severe problem with the outlawing of tetra-ethyl
lead in favour of an unleaded blend but even then, one needs to look no further
than car dependent cities such as Los Angeles, Mexico City and even Sydney on a
bad day to just see the layer of smog sitting in the sky above the city to see
that things still are not perfect. Not only does this reduce visibility, it is
also a major public health issue often being attributed to respiratory illness.
Thankfully, being a city of roughly 350000 Canberra does not yet have this
problem despite the extreme dependence on cars to commute.
Climate change
As the contemporary age of
planning dawns on Canberra, several new initiatives are starting to take place.
The increased densification in Canberra is mostly due to a new plan; the
Canberra spatial plan, and with it comes potentially new vulnerabilities
against the threat of climate change.
The theories of anthropogenic
induced climate change is rarely up for debate and as such we are beginning to
see the effects it can cause. The 2003 Canberra bush fire was one of the city’s
worst disasters, coming off the back of prolonged periods of drought, the fires
swept through native grasslands to engulf a nearby pine forest and eventually
reached the suburbs of Canberra. As a result of this four people lost their
lives with a further 492 injured and some 500 houses destroyed (Camilleri et al
2010). The events of 2003 came under intense scrutiny with several
investigations in to the readiness of Canberra to be able to prepare for such
an event. As such, a taskforce and two inquiries were initiated in order to
understand what went wrong. Unfortunately, there has been resounding scientific
evidence to indicate that this kind of scenario is only set to increase in
frequency and intensity and as such it is imperative that we plan our cities to
best mitigate these effects.
Planning has evolved much over
the last 100 years. From the design orientated planning era, to the social
focused modernist era and now in to the beginnings of the post-modernist time
of planning. Each era has evolved and developed to manage concerns that were
prevalent during the time. The Parks movement was started in response to the
appalling living conditions that came with the industrial revolution and
urbanisation, the Garden City and City Beautiful movements were an attempt to
create awe inspiring cities in a time of increased global connectivity, and the
social planning movements addressed the concerns that society was increasing
being ignored in planning decisions. However, climate change is set to take a
heavy toll on ill-prepared cities, and as such, a holistic and tactful planning
methodology will be required.
Americanization of Australian planning
Australia and America both being
new world countries and relatively nascent countries when compared to their
colonial predecessor, England, share many similarities ranging from culture to
urban planning. Americanization in Australia’s brand of urban planning is evident
for all to see and has been since the turn of the 20th century
(Freestone 2004). Being planned by the
American born Walter Burley Griffin, one would expect Canberra to have a bit of
a ‘yankee’ flavour to it, however Burley Griffin’s plan was not received with
much acclaim and fanfare (depending on who you listen to). The plan suffered a
barrage of criticism at the time it was drafted and was not fully adhered to
due to a variety of reasons, the primary one being the onset of a world war resulting
in the plan’s replacement with the well-known Y plan. At the time of the plan’s
conception, Burley Griffin was forced to endure a whirlwind of savage criticism
against his polycentric plan and this ultimately led to him walking out on the
project in 1921, as such, the city was left in its embryonic stage to grow very
slowly until the 50’s came along (Freestone 2004). Canberra’s long reaching
arms of suburbia and strip malls in locations such as Belconnen and Woden are
testament to the American influences that are rife in Australian towns and
cities, although, due to its small size, Canberra has managed to avoid the
freeways that are all too often clogged and congested arteries that frequently bring
Sydney and Melbourne to a standstill and instead bears a long sweeping parkway
system that acts as the conduits that connect the city together keeping its
heart pumping. This parkway system however has led to an overwhelming reliance
on cars for transport (Freestone 2004). Although some people use buses, the
majority choose to drive their own car to get around the city. Fortunately for
those of a more two wheel persuasion, Canberra’s cycle tracks are the envy of
the nation and one can ride from Gungahlin to Tuggeranong on a path dedicated
specifically to bikes without the distraction of a beeping car, although if you
intend to ride your bike to work like a small minority of Canberra’s residents
do, you will still have to ride on the road which have now been modified to
include a bike lane to minimize the possibility of accidents.
Urban sprawl is a hallmark of the
American post-war city and the whole concept was conceived due to the advent of
the private car, enabling people to live further and further away from the
central business district of a city and retain an element of pseudo-country
living in the 20th century invention of the suburb and still be
within commuting distance to the big smoke.
The Australian dream which entails every family owning their own home
with a backyard or even on a block of land has contributed to this phenomenon.
More specifically, it focused on everyone having the ‘ownership of a detached
house (often single storey) on a quarter acre suburban block, surrounded by a
garden, which featured in the back a Hills Hoist and a barbeque.’ These principles
have led to Australia’s extremely low density cities which has in turn led to
urban sprawl.
Canberra’s sprawl can be
attributed to simply the date of its development. With an extremely slow rate
of growth up until the 50’s which by that time Canberra hadn’t even reached a
population of 20000 and this is when the National Capital Planning Authority
was set up to oversee the development of Canberra from a churlish backwater
town into a capital the whole nation could be proud of. This commission decided
to implement the well-known and now discontinued Y Plan to regulate the
development of the city and was originally planned to send the arms of Canberra
sprawling beyond the original borders of the ACT (Freestone 2004).
The cons to urban sprawl far
outnumber the pros , the main con being that the whole model is wildly
unsustainable and is responsible for environmental maladies such as declining
air and water quality, destruction and displacement of wildlife, and the one
most relevant to Canberra; car dependency. The recently approved light rail
development is seen as key to alleviating these car related strains and also
preserve the endearing bush aspect of the city. Light rail is the perfect piece
of infrastructure as it will encourage developers and planners alike to look
towards densification, especially around the stations and interchanges instead
of furthering the reach of the metropolitan area with new developments like
Molonglo. Such added density to key centres such as Gungahlin and Civic will do
wonders to improve Canberra’s perceived dullness and lack of character.
Combatting Sprawl
There is one problem that one
will find with urban consolidation and as many have seen in Sydney and
Melbourne, the prices of inner urban areas reach some astronomical levels. Such
situations are caused by an increasing demand for townhouses closer to the city
which can unfortunately result in higher densification occurring in unintended
areas that can be quite far away from the urban core due to lower costs.
Despite Canberra pledging to move towards a denser method of urban development,
there are still plans to continue developing the borough of Molonglo west of
the city and a yet unnamed area to the east of the airport which is currently
occupied by a pine plantation.
Like every city in Australia, the
characterised ‘Not In My Back Yard’ advocates (or NIMBYs) tend to have excessive
influence on what happens in terms of development and they have come to oppose
everything that goes up in Canberra using the classic argument of tall
buildings spoiling views and the angles of sunlight etc. Much to the dismay of
many, these individuals often get their way and promising developments are
stymied and this kind of sometimes myopic thinking is often the worst case
scenario in the long run and NIMBYs still tend to oppose anything higher than a
townhouse. Although not to be deterred, a look around Belconnen’s core today
will demonstrate that developers have seen approval and construction of medium
rise apartments get underway which is a big leap in the right direction for
this city.
In today’s environmentally
concerned sustainably managed world, urban sprawl cannot be allowed to continue
at its previous runaway rates. That is why cities ranging from San Francisco to
Canberra are embracing a model called the ‘compact city’ which features growth
boundaries to limit the sprawl but also a focus on mass transit such as light
rail and buses (Dantzig 1973). This means the Y Plan has been modified since
its conception in the 60’s and no longer is sprawl into New South Wales a
priority but more consolidating in the already established suburbs and
developments such as Kingston Foreshore attest to this more compact philosophy.
This lends from another American principle that limits the distance a certain
city or town is permitted to spread. Urban growth boundaries, as they are known,
are required by law in the states of Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. The 21st
century is the century of sustainability and green living in the face of
looming environmental danger and urban growth boundaries limiting development
will do a world of wonders until the electric car becomes a feasible solution.
However, one would have to remember that electric cars are powered by power
plants which, in Australia are of a coal fired majority. Sadly, it will take
most of the century to complete the shift to a truly green society and we can
only hope that by then the environmental price we pay is not too excessive.
New Urbanism
New Urbanism is founded on the
ideals of ‘human sized’ cities where services and facilities are accessible by
walking distance. In terms of climate change, such a scheme can be viewed as
beneficial as the compact nature of a city would significantly reduce the
population’s reliance on cars. As previously mentioned, the sprawling nature of
Canberra is somewhat contradictory to the notion of a sustainable city. The
vast distances that some residents commute to work is a direct consequence of
the urban sprawling model and without a reliable public transport system, will
result in many utilising private cars to travel that distance. With the car
representing 15% of national greenhouse emission (ABS 2010), it is necessary to
reduce such public reliance on private transport and plan cities to be more
compact with adequate public transportation. In some regard, Canberra has
adopted these principles and the new Canberra Spatial plan highlights the
commitment to increasing the infill in Canberra’s centres. However, with
already established large blocks in much of the city area, there will be much needed
cooperation between developers and the community to continue.
Community planning
With the popularity of
communicative and community based planning thanks to the likes of Paul Davidoff
in the 1960s (1965), there has been a fundamental shift in the way the planning
role is perceived. Once primarily based on design elements, planning became
more engaged with the theoretical social cohesion and the understanding of
human interactivity. Such an undertaking was in response to the rising social
change in the form of global civil rights movements, the fight for equality
amongst peers naturally penetrated the realms of planning and enacted
fundamental change in the way that housing estates were constructed (Davidoff
1965). It was during this time of increasing community power that planners
began to realise the importance that the public’s voice had in planning and as
such began to incorporate methods of how best to invite broader participation. However,
the process has faced issues in terms of unqualified individuals holding
developers to ransom. In the context of climate change, there is still much
inconsistencies in a community’s knowledge of the effects and changes they must
make in order to combat this threat, as such, it may be possible that a
community is never fully aware of how much impact they have on the environment
and may feel less empathetic to the cause in terms of mitigation. Due to the
increasing amounts of climate change mitigation being planned by government
sectors, some may consider these measures to be paternalistic, however, such
changes are made to ‘future proof’ the community. Canberra has faced growing
issues in this regard, primarily in the form of the number of residents who
choose to drive. Even though the public transport system is scrutinised
frequently, many residents do reside near major bus routes yet still make the
choice to drive. However, the recent government announcement of a light rail
system stems from years of public consultation in order to understand what mode
of transport the community would prefer. Although the plan is considered a
gamble, if successful, it would highlight the Canberra governments optimism in
community based planning.
Market planning
As planning continues to discover
methodologies of efficiency, questions have been raised on how best to
facilitate planning decisions. Susan Fainstein’s (2000) work on the ‘Just City’
points towards the neoliberal notion that the market is the best institution to
ensure the efficient distribution of resources. The argument is that the
prolonged debates and concessions that are experienced in the communicative planning
model are disturbing the planning process and stifling progress. Likewise,
Fainstein argues that the New Urbanism movements are doing nothing to alleviate
the social inequalities that communities are concerned about. Instead, it is
argued that the New Urbanism strive for social diversity through stringent
design principles is flawed as planning for diversity is actually an oxymoron.
As such, to create a city that best represents the views and desires of the
inhabitants, the capital marketplace is the best method of conception. In
Canberra, there has been some demonstrated success with such an endeavour with
power companies investing in to renewable and green energies. One such example
is the recent announcement that Fotowaitio Renewable Ventures will be
developing a solar farm in Royalla which will become Australia’s largest solar
plant (Towell 2012). Although such progress is positive, general consensus
remains that market approaches to climate change have been slow and as such,
require some level of government or community intervention to force adaptive
measures.
Conclusion
Planning history in Australia is
heavily influenced by the American style and the introduction of the car. As
such, many of the cities at the time were planned to sprawl with little insight
in to the transportation requirements of the future. Such a legacy has affected
Canberra’s mitigation abilities to the very real threat of climate change due
to the heavy residential reliance on the private car. There have been new
initiatives undertaken to alleviate such concerns, however, with public
transport perceived as the characteristic of sustainable cities, Canberra is
faced with a large financial investment to oversee such a venture.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010, Emissions by Sector, Measures of Australia’s Progress 2010
Camilleri, P Healy, C Macdonald, E Nicholls, S Sykes, J
Winkworth, G Woodward, M 2010, Recover
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Journal of Emergency Primary Health Care, Vol. 8, Issue 1
Dantzig, G Saaty, T 1973, Compact
City: Plan for a Liveable Urban Environment
Davidoff, P 1965, Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning,
Journal of the American Insitute of Planners, Vol. 31, Issue 4, p331-8
Fainstein, S 2000, New Directions in Planning Theory, Urban
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Freestone, R 2010, The Americanization of Australian Planning,
Journal of Planning History, Vol. 3
Towell, N 2012, 50-hectar solar
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