Seminar Five - Australian Planning History

After reading Robert Freestone's "Progress in Australian planning history: Traditions, themes and transformations, I thought i would be helpful to summarise his thinking regarding the development of Australian planning.

Freestone argued that the development of Australian planning history can be set against the broader history of Australian urbanisation, land settlement, and planning.

The colonial era  produced a foundational network of urban places largely without the integration of function (layout, infrastructure, governance), environmental responsiveness (design, site constraints and opportunities) and foresight (town extension, longer term vision) as would be expected in modern day planning.
 

After it's establishment, the Commonwealth government had no interest in planning other than that of Canberra, and so in the first half of the twentieth century it was actors drawn largely from the architecture, engineering and surveying fields, as well as state and local government who campaigned for better urban management processes and outcomes.  Driven by problems associated by the accelerating unplanned urbanisation brought on by the growth of mercantile and resource sectors of the economy, the coastal capital cities with their burgeoning populations and administrative importance became the natural focus of these campaigners, who through lectures, conferences, exhibitions, publications and general lobbying tried to raise the issue of slums, transport infrastructure, civic design and land use zoning.  However, these efforts had little effects on policies and protocols covering building and subdivision, although some tangible outcomes were evident in the creation of a number of planned states, housing developments, urban renewal projects, civic improvements, open space and improved transport infrastructure.

The second half of the twentieth century saw some return on the propaganda efforts of the earlier part of the century.  By the 1940's, planning was widely accepted as a legitimate activity of the state, although the extent of regulation was keenly debated.  Planning became incrementally institutionalised through legislative reforms at the state government level, with the evolution of government departments, statutory authorities, advisory panels, commissions and committees, however planning in practice encountered familiar political and financial constraints.

From the 1970's onwards, urban and regional planning became ascendant to deal with a wider set of city and development problems.  Specific Australian context environmental issues started to be considered, such as drought, bushfire, and flooding and more recently climate change.

Planning in Australia continues to be organised on a state level, with no one unified planning system bu multiple jurisdictions which have evolved according to their state and territorial context, with the state capitals as the dominant center of attention.

Thus while there are certainly convergences of planning theory and practice between Australia and other English speaking countries, notably England and America, the distinctive characteristics of Australian planning are around a high level of state control, with reliance on the state to supply and coordinate infrastructure, and detailed attention to spacial planning in suburban developments.

Seminar Six - Global City

Richard spoke on Global Cities, and started by considering how we might define a global city.  A global city was not necessarily defined by the fact that it had global trade networks, as was the case for many cities linked by the silk road from China through the middle east to Europe well before motorised transportation.  A global city in the modern context is defined by the intensity with which it interacts with other cities on a world scale.  This has been made possible by policy liberalisation to labor, immigration, economic policy through deregulation and loosening control structures.

The first driver for the creation of global cities was policy, the second driver is technology, being transport technology being cars, jets, trains and transport infrastructure to facilitate their movement between cities and information technology, allowing the high speed exchange of knowledge, information, and money.

Digital  technology impacts on how we plan and design out cities.  Cities are places of transportation, services, goods and emotion and collective lifestyles.  Early planning theorists argued that cities would become less and less important as distances became overcome by new means of communication and travel, however Technology can't replace human interaction.  Cities have become more and more important in the new paradigm as a place of connection and collaboration.  Look at the top global consultancies found in Melbourne and Sydney.  why are they located in CBD's? It is because agglomeration leads to innovation, competition and collaboration.

Global market actors are transnational companies (TNCs), and they chose to be located in central areas.  In the global economy cities compete for global talent.  They are command and control centers.  The integrated global economy requires cities for expertise and specilised services.  Cities are connected by the activities of firms and the movement of people connected with those firms.

Recognising the implications of global cities on the planning context gives urban planners an opportunity to ensure that the city environment is one which will be a viable place of operation for transnational companies.   City with specific attributes, such as low pollution, low commuting distances, low crime, quality cultural and entertainment facilities, reasonable costs of living and abundant choice of lifestyle pursuits, all together measured as quality of life, can attract the knowledge capital (the high caliber people) needed by these companies to function properly.  Assuming a city has reached sufficient critical mass to support entertainment and educational institutions, planning is the best lever to ensure the inhabitants of a city enjoy, and continue to enjoy, a high quality of life.

Seminar Four - guest presentation on Co-Design Methodolody

This week Melanie and Nicole from Community Services Directorate (CSD) presented on "designing public policy".  The theme of the guest lecture was consistent with the reading for the topic, New Directions in Planning Theory by Susan Fainstein, at least with regard to communicative planning model, and perhaps overcomes some of the practical deficiencies identified because the implementing agent is the same government directorate involved in the policy development.

Melanie and Nicole discussed the traditional policy cycle and how they had been following for over 10 years, and presented ideas on a new way of developing public policy from a co-design methodology to achieve better service outcomes for the community.

Under the standard Australian policy cycle model, consultation doesn't happen until well after the issues are identified and policy analysis and instruments are drafted.  Under the new communicative planning friendly model, consultation is brought forward to the beginning and repeated at every step.

CSD has three priorities with their project;

1) Collaboration - how Directorates jointly plan initiatives, by sharing responsibility
2) Belonging - how to ensure that disadvantaged member of the community were included in plan making
3) Connection - ensuring that no-one was isolated from the process.

Principles of Co-Design
1. Recognising people as assets
2. Building on peoples existing capacity
3. Mutuality and respect
4. Peer support networks
5. Blurring distinctions
6. Facilitating rather than delivering

CSD had to secure buy in from the relevant Minister to secure funding and approval for their project, from policy development through to implementation.  Critical to this was the need to have robust government and organisational structures in place and the capacity for government leaders to sit with some level of uncertainty, ameliorated by a model that shares risk with community partners.  This was facilitated by working with government and advisers early on.

I found the presentation to be quite relevant, certainly I can see how the co-design system could be used in a wider planning context, in terms of securing key-stakeholder support and participation in bigger scale public planning issues, for example, when preparing the new Belconnen town center plan, or other master plan initiatives or reviews. 

It is important that in opening consultation with key stake-holders, that their agenda doesn't overpower other interests who may not be as articulate, or as well organised as the larger community lobby groups. Its about ensuring that the whole community has an opportunity to have its voice heard.