Seminar 8: The Americanisation of Australian Planning

This was the last seminar and reading that was presented to the class. There were several steps in the process of the Americanisation of Australian Planning. A few of these steps were the City Functional, War and Reconstruction, Post World War 2, Traffic studies and freeway design. City Functional was all about Governments looking at city and how it was connected and functioned. During the 1930s Australia took a few ideas from American planning such as the Radburn design, but a lot of these designs did not succeed in Canberra including the Radburn design. After World War 2, Australian planning really looked at American planning and used their ideas, urban sprawl had great growth after this period, and the first shopping malls were built in Australia during this time. With the rise of the car for individual transport, America and Australia like the rest of the Western world designed there cities based on the automobile. This led to Australia planners to learn from America planners on how to design and create efficient roads for Australia.

The concept of the car really changed how planners looked at a city and could be said that there was too much focus on the car and not enough on people. Which I explained in my last blogs was the most important concept of planning, that we plan for people. I think last concept that was discussed in the Seminar and the reading was New Australian Urbanism. It is a move back towards concentration on people. New Australian Urbanism is all about an emphasis on design of streetscape, liveability, walkability, compactness and community. I think that this new way at looking at planning is good for future growth of cities and towns. This last seminar and reading were very interesting for me. 

Seminar 7: New Directions in Planning Theory

This seminar and reading I found was one of most interesting so far out of all the lectures. I think it had a lot of good concepts involved in it. This seminar looked at three major concepts for planning and they were the Communicative Model, New Urbanism and the Just City. All of which had pros and cons in planning practice.

The communicative model is all about having differing viewpoints and allowing participants from the public to join in on the process. It is important use this form of planning because knowledge is socially constructed and therefore are needed to figure out and solve issues. Social interactions also allow for everyone to be involved in the process. The problem with this model is that you may get unjust results and it also takes a lot of time to communicate with people.

New Urbanism looks at the infrastructure more than the people. Kunstler explains that is an area that has all the things needed for a resident within 5 minutes of walking distance. It can be seen as everything such work, recreation and home life are all planned in one area. One of the issues of this type of planning concept is that it has a very narrow view and does not include public participation.

The third concept was the Just City which the idea that a city and town should be a utopia and a planner’s job is to achieve this. It all about getting everyone involved in the process and making city beneficial for everyone. The problem of this concept is that it is hard to define and implement and it is not always possible to get everyone involved. This seminar was very interesting and New Urbanism was one of my favourite concepts that the presenters and the reading discussed.

Seminar 6: Anglo-American Town Planning Theory since 1945: Three Significant Developments but no Paradigm Shifts

Both the reading and the seminar for this week were very interesting. One of the main ideas that the presenters put forward was four major shifts in planning. These were; planners looked less at the physical and actually looked at towns or cities in the perspective that they are always in flux. The second shift was that planners look more deeply at social and economic activity of a built environment. Thirdly that plans should be a live process not an end of state blue print. Cities and towns must be planned for continuing change. Lastly there should be much stronger look at people and not just the physical environment. Planners must always remember that people are the fundamental entity of what you are planning for. The presenters and the reading also looked at normative and scientific theory. Normative theory is all about value and is subjective. The phrase “what should be” comes to mind when using normative theory. On the other hand scientific theory is all about being objective, the phrase “what is” comes to mind when using scientific theory.

The seminar also had a guest speaker who discussed social policy planning. Three interesting words came up in the seminar which were co-production, co-implementation and co-evaluation. All of these words recognise the need for the involvement of the public when making plans for something. The guest speaker also gave us a structure on the process of developing a plan. This involved six steps that were discover, interpret, vision, prototype, design and implement. Each of these steps were interesting showing a process of planning. I thought that both the guest speaker and the other presenters of this seminar were really interesting and intriguing.

Seminar 5: The Communicative Turn in Planning Theory and Its Implications for Spatial Strategy Formation

In this seminar there was a strong discussion made by the presenters on how to get a community involved in planning how to start up a discussion between planners and the community. One of the main ideas that the presenter’s discussed was inclusive and non-inclusive forums and arenas for discussion. Examples of inclusive forums and arenas were online posts, letters to the editor, postal submissions, phone surveys and community forums. Examples of non-inclusive were workshops, focus groups and community venue visits. But after the seminar we all thought it would be better to say less inclusive than non-inclusive because many of the examples included public input. The seminar also looked at styles of discussion such as formal and informal. Formal discussions would be reports, editorials and group/organisation submissions. Informal discussions would be online surveys, workshops and online submissions such as ones through twitter. Both of these are interesting ways of looking at how a person can communicate with the public about new ideas and concepts can be created for an area.

There was also a guest speaker who spoke about planning practice in Canberra. One of the major ideas he talked about was that it is hard to create large urban renewal projects in Canberra because of its history. Meaning that other cities have large disused industrial areas they can renew, while Canberra does not have these kind areas to make change. He also gave an example of how important it is to discuss the plans you have for an area with the community. The example was Fortitude Valley in Brisbane and how people were not told properly about the plans for building high rise buildings in the area therefore did not want the project to happen. But after the community were told and actually got an explanation many people liked the idea. This is just one example of why it is important to have a discussion with the public when planning.

Seminar 4: Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial Form

This Seminar was the one I and Billy presented to the class and here is some of the information we discussed about Contested Cities

David Harvey a leading theorist in the urban fields, discusses the fact that cities are important in understanding the human condition, but he does not fully go into depth about this.

Commentators in present day see the worst for our future cities (eg marginalization, disempowerment, alienation, pollution). Though this can be seen as the normal way of looking our cities. Though Harvey suggests that in the 19^th century western society, was much more concerned with the wealthfare of cities. Bourgeois movement (bourgeois French word that can be referred as the wealthiest class). This movement was fronted by people such as Jane Addams, Octavia Hill and Ebenezer Howard who we know were a big advocate for garden cities. Late 19^th century and early 20^th century cities greatly improved. But today we do not think of our cities as the most important thing in our society even though in the near future if trends consist half the planets population will be living in cities

Process and form

Harvey looks at how we see form as more important than the process. How the form has more influence than the process, but both are thoroughly connected. That everything within and around the city, such social, economic and political functions have purpose in the process of creating city

Community

Seen to redeem and fix everything, seen to be the absolute goal. Though this line of thinking comes from past thinking. A lot of community projects lead to isolation and move towards fragmenting the city and isolating its occupants. Marion Young: “Racism, ethnic chauvism and class devaluation I suggest grow partly from the desire for community” Community activism still very important though.

Two flaws in thinking community the be all and end all.

1.      Proper design will never be able to bring harmony (19^th century thinkers didn’t see that) (Also eg the car)

2.      Fixed communities (similar classes and gender relations)

The Paraisopolis favela borders the affluent district of Morumbi. Photo by Tuca Vieira. Photo:

Kevin McCloud slumming it 2010

Mumbai, Dharavi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-yjpvzGKZQ

Seminar 3: A ladder of Citizen Participation

In this seminar the group and the reading, looked at the idea of citizen participation in planning. One of the main areas that was looked at was Sherry Arnstein’s ladder of participation as shown below:

 

This diagram illustrates the point that there is many levels of citizen participation. One of the negatives of representing participation as a ladder is the fact that it makes the reader think that citizen control is the best and manipulation is the worst. The problem with this is that it is not always the case in planning, sometimes it better if the public do not have as much control over the process, as the planners do. Though it is important to bring in citizen participation to allow the public to have an understanding of what you are doing. I myself think it is important to try and always be in the middle of the ladder when planning, this allows you to be always connected to the public without leaving all the options up to them.

During the seminar there was also a guest speaker who discussed even more detail on the subject of citizen participation and engagement. An example was given about the Murray Darling Basin where there was no consultation with the public about plans, and just told the public. There was an outcry from citizens and the company had to talk to the people properly and ended up with same results when they did not discuss the plan with citizens. This shows that it is always important to have consultation with the public to make sure they are on side.

Some participatory mechanism are public hearings, calls for submissions, opinion gathering and participatory budgeting. All of which help to bring citizen participation into planning. This seminar and reading was very interesting look at citizen participation.

Seminar 2: Modernism and Early Urban Planning

Seminar 2 looked at the beginnings of modern urban planning which occurred during the industrial revolution. The reading is written by Richard T Legates and Frederic Stout both of which are academics in the planning field. The reading looked at the growth of planning from 1870 to 1940 and looked at several planning concepts such as the Park’s Movement, the Garden City, the City Beautiful movement and modernism in planning.

The Park’s Movement was one the first concepts of planning to help create a better environment for people to live in, other than the horror of living in polluted and intoxicating industrial revolution cities. The Park’s Movement was all about bringing a natural environment to the city. One of the greatest and most successful examples, is Central Park in New York. This is a prime example of bringing a natural environment into a city, which is still very successful in the present day. Ebenezer Howard was at the forefront of Garden Cities, which were the idea of bringing the countryside into a city. Howard was very much part of the creation of the first garden city; Letchworth. The City Beautiful Movement came about in the 1890s and was continuation of both the previous movements in planning.

One of the most interesting things I discovered in the reader was Le Corbusier who argued for density through skyscrapers and Frank Lloyd Wright who argued for urban sprawl. Both of these techniques were taken up by many cities worldwide after World War 2. Though it interesting that these 20^th century plans have created issues for planners of the 21^st century. I thought that seminar 2 was very interesting and engaging and I am looking forward to the next seminar.