Seminar 5: The Communicative Turn in Planning Theory and its Implications for Spatial Strategy Formation: By P Healey

In this paper Patsy Healy outlines the shift that planning has experienced throughout its history. Urban and Regional planning initially wasn't really planning at all, it was more just design architects trying out there plans to build urban areas not really taking into account the community or practicality of that. Then planning moved on to understanding you need to plan urban and regional areas for them to work efficiently, so planners would draw maps and implement them with the best of intentions but these maps, designs and plans were doomed to fail for one key reasons, if you don’t communicate with the community either the plan won’t work in that community or an amazing plan for that community was designed and it is really what the community needs but they will reject it because they feel like they haven’t been consulted and their concerns have been skipped over .

Newport

Patsy Healy recognised this, and took not of a shift in planning theory from just plan, design implementation to consult, plan, consult, design, consult, implement, and receive feedback and criticisms. This shift in planning theory was huge for many reasons one your plans were/are effective in that community, two it increased the time and planning spent on design, increased the planning processed involved in urban and regional planning and flow onto to an evolution in how to consult with an increase in the quality of technology. Within the seminar the example given showing how community consultation has evolved in planning theory and spatial strategy was the Newport local development plan.  The Newport local development plan used advanced planning techniques to improve the towns community, economy and environment they began this with a comprehensive consultation and background research they then developed land use plans and land requirements for spatial strategy, looked at employment and education to improve the local economy, consulted through many different and open forums such as the internet, town hall, phone, community facilities, libraries and around the town more generally. The addressed and resolved issues consulted again and then finalised the report document and submitted it for critique. This resulted in a workable plan for the community and improved the economy, environment and community.

Seminar 4 - Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial form

This seminar was based around David Harvey’s work on social process and spatial forms. David Harvey touches on big issues for planning and constructing cities and also developing current urban areas and making them work. Community vs. functionality is a big issue and it’s hard to say which one is better, what good is a great community which can’t function? And what good is a well functioning urban area without community? One could argue you can’t have a good community that can’t function and you can’t have a functioning urban area without community, it doesn’t work like that, there has to be a balance.

D Harvey touches the fact that the urban landscape of the city creates fundamental social inequalities. A class and income effect which means some people will thrive earning a lot of money and living in affluent areas, well others dwindle living in poor and dessalent areas. You can’t have the one extreme without the other and this creates great urban expanses such as expensive aesthetic buildings and areas as well as urban downfall secluded societies in the form of slums. This seems to be unavoidable in today’s society and with vastly increasing populations in major urban areas it only seems to be getting more extreme.

Solving this problem is where the community vs. functionality comes into things. If you redevelop a slum you have to deliver a dense urban development to house the residents of the slum in and the maintenance of that new urban area will only happen if the residence are happy and want the new development, many are not. The slums may be dirty and not nice to look at but they have a strong sense of community as shown in the documentary slumming it so to just redevelop it you have to consider how the community would continue to work and make the urban landscape look nicer. Not just develop non- functioning vertical slums.

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

Bullet Train for Australia -TV Ad