Seminar 3 - A ladder of Citizens participation

Citizen participation – isn't probably thought about when thinking of planning very much. But none the less is such a significant part of planning and making sure Plans are good and work well. Sherry Arnstein developed a ladder of different levels of community consultation the ladder begins with a section called non participation which involves Manipulation and therapy – these are consultation areas are really basic you tell the community the good things that you think they’ll like and then keep the negatives secret till the plan is implemented.

The second section of the ladder is tokenism which consists of Informing, consultation and placation – in this section you tell the community what you intend to do and you may even hear feedback from them and possibly take that on board but basically you have an idea and vision and that’s what’s going to happen regardless of what is said you just hold it as a token so the community feels like its involved. The final section of the ladder and the most important, the section which will result in the best outcome for all stakeholders and society in most cases is citizen power this includes partnership, delegated power and citizens control – in this section you allow the community to engage in the plans and add their ideas and criticisms so you end up with a plan that works in the community. A good example of poor community consultation that was given in the seminar was the highway across the south Bronx, joining the more affluent areas of New York with Manhattan with no consideration of the poor people in-between no consultation was given to the impoverished people affected by this plan and as a result many people were displaced and made homeless while others received a distinctly lower standard of living due to a lack of involvement and consultation.

While a good example of good citizens participation was given in the presentation through the Murfreesboro citizens participation plan which is government going out of its way to get feedback on its plans and policies from all members of society whether disabled, abled, any race, old, young and in-between all members of society. Consultation is so important in planning as you may be an expert in planning but if the plan doesn't fit in with citizens and the community it is useless and won’t work but plans with good community consultation create great initiatives and a better society. 

ACT Plan - Future Plans for canberra

ACT PLAN: Canberra's to the lake combining Canberra's city centre to the lake and making city hill a well used central park and commerce area. This plan will include prime land realises for businesses along the lake at West Basin and also around London circuit. This plan will connect the west basin to the city buy bridging over parks way as can be seen in the pictures which I think is a great idea.

This development is hoped to make the lake and city more lively bringing alfresco dining and restaurants to the lake. This development also includes turning the civic swimming centre into a new ports stadium with around 30,000 seats and a roof allowing the venue to have more of a multipurpose due to it also being able to be used for concerts and other things. Also in Canberra the roof will be a handy asset to getting people to attend events especially in winter. This development will also included a revamped constitution avenue making it a real hub fro Canberra with a lot more shops, business, government buildings cafes and restaurants along it.

The problems I personally have with this plan is a loss of parking most central car parks are being replaced with buildings and although the businesses will be required to supply parking the parking will be at a much lower level then is currently supplied which with extra buildings and a stadium will not work. A solution to this could be public transport but buses just aren't suffice you need a proper heavy metro rail to get people to use public transport which I have outlined in this article - http://www.alexaplanningblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/metro-rail-network-for-canberra.html - 

Another problem I have with this plan is safety if you are going to start using city hill as a major park and place of commerce you need proper underpasses below the road to avoid accidents.

What do you think? Let me know comment!

Seminar 2 - Modernism and Early Urban Planning

Modernism and early Urban Planning (1870-1940)

Modernism began around the 1890’s when people started moving from regional areas to urban cities mainly for work and to be closer to ports and markets. Urbanisation didn't really begin in Australia until the 1910’s when there was a shift away from the bush to urban metropolises. This lead to the industrial revolution and modernist planning really took of being able to build much larger buildings then before (birth of the skyscraper). This shift saw cities populations boom between the 1860’s and 1910’s New York's population went from 479,000 to 5 million, Philadelphia’s population triples to 1.5 million and Chicago expanded from a modest 112,000 to 2.1 million. This influx of people quickly led to problems not only physical but psychological and mental as well. The physical problems cities encountered with this influx of people where transport, congestion, space, environmental decay and serious physical health issues from a lot of pollution and poor sanitation, psychological and mental issues related to peoples life styles due to being stuck in traffic people could spend less time at home with family, loss of green space meant it was harder for peoples recreation (sports), socialising and just the general beauty of these areas.

Chicago

New York

A solution to these problems of urbanisation and modernism came about through Ebenezer Howard in the early 1900’s who had a vision of spreading cities out and having gardens and green spaces for aesthetic, recreation and environmental reasons. This garden city vision began with Letchworth in the UK the first garden city. What garden cities provide is an all round higher stand of living and a much healthier life style, garden cities balanced urbanisation with green spaces and solved modernisms problems. People in garden cities are more spread out with better transport to solve congestion and pollution issues and the parks and open areas create a lot of areas for recreation and socialization. Quickly the garden city movement swept across Europe and then across the world.

Letchworth Garden City

Canberra

Planning issues that came about after this swing from modernism to garden cities where modelling issues cities where being designed with 2D modelling programs on planners computers and without public consultation which lead to expensive mistakes. Streets were built without taking into account the topography and where to steep plus layouts didn’t mesh with peoples lifestyles in these garden cities this lead to infrastructure building becoming a lot more expensive and peoples lifestyles not fitting into these cities. This was until 3D modelling came about which was a huge technological leap forward in planning now plans could be drawn up using these programs taking into account topography and you could get a good idea if the plans would work and could show your plans to all interested parties/stakeholders and consult with them to improve the plans and get the best outcome for all involved.

3D Modelling 

Seminar 2 Notes

Week 4 seminar – planning theory and process 1

Modernism and early Urban Planning (1870-1940)

·         Sheds light on early urban regional planning and people who shaped planning

Define modernism

• ·         1890-1940
• ·         Mid 1910’s in Australia
• ·         Changed the way we look at environment
• ·         Deliberate departure away from the previous norms
• ·         Shift away from bust to city
• ·         Locations closer to ports and markets

Early urban planning practices

• ·         Building of cities
• ·         Market towns, evolution, congestion problems 1500-1600’s
• ·         Industrial revolution 1760’s-1840’s
• ·         Need for transport
• ·         Practical reasons – residential area, industrial area
• ·         Pollution
• ·         Congestions, bottle necks
• ·         Transport, better roads
• ·         Inefficiencies- loss of time in traffic not with family or at work
• ·         Work life balance impacts

The parks movement

• ·         Began early 1900’s
• ·         Give society cleaner environment, less congestion, recreation
• ·         Central park – for citizens, recreation
• ·         Metro sprawl – to small cities
• ·         Garden city movement
• ·         Open spaces
• ·         Parks and wild life
• ·         Better standard of living
• ·         Better lifestyle
• ·         Prettier
• ·         Better environment
• ·         Feeling of well being

Planning issues

• ·         Modelling problems
• ·         2D modelling vs. current virtual digital 3D modelling
• ·         3D modelling more efficient
• ·         Adelaide 3D modelling plan website
• ·         Potential developments
• ·         Public consultation
• ·         Prevent planning mistakes
• ·         Sim city computer game
• ·         Factor costs
• Time line
• Industrial revolution

Notable people

• ·         Ebenezer Howard – garden cities his vision (Letchworth UK)
• ·         Camilo Sitte – city planning according to principle – beauty and practical planning
• ·         Le Corbusier + Frank Wright – Le was a modernist – Frank a naturalist
• ·         Frederick Law Olmsted – transformed landscape gardening designed central park new york
• ·         Edward basset – defined planning

Great depression

• ·         Creativeness
• ·         Innovation

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