Small Footprint, Affordable Housing IS Possible, With PLANNING
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June 29, 2010Victoria’s Planning Minister Justin Madden – of the ‘sham community consultation on the Windsor development‘ has been ‘rolled again’ announced Jon Faine yesterday on his ABC Vic. Morning Show.
The Opposition has blocked legislation on extending the urban sprawl and compromising the Green Wedge plan BUT it appears BOTH parties are prepared to continue this madness – they are just disagreeing on detail.
Immediate talkback texts to Jon Faine’s discussion of the party political posturing indicated there are plenty who regard this as planning madness by BOTH major parties.
Surely We Need Public Discussion – With Expert Input
Let’s talk, in a leisurely way that gives us time to reflect and learn, about the Australian quarter acre block dream and the lifestyle this suggests and let’s consider ideas such as ‘New Urbanism’ as seen through the eyes of US urban planning Professor Christopher Leinberger who says:
“This change can be witnessed in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, where once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars.
Instead, they are looking for ‘walkable urbanism’ – both small communities and big cities characterized by efficient mass transit systems and high density developments enabling residents to walk virtually everywhere for everything – from home to work to restaurants to movie theaters..
Suburbs always worked best for families, anyway, and apparently this trend stems from a demographic shift as much as from an environmental and financial one, as more Americans choose to remain childless for longer, and sometimes for life..
These people, as well as baby boomers trading the suburban life for an urban retired one, are driving the trend..
In recent years, a generation of young people, called the millennials, born between the late 1970s and mid-1990s, has combined with baby boomers to rekindle demand for urban living. Today, the subprime-mortgage crisis and $4-a-gallon gasoline are delivering further gut punches by blighting remote subdivisions nationwide and rendering long commutes untenable for middle-class Americans..
For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s-slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.””
Getting To Small Footprint Density – Responding To Market Demand
Here is a powerpoint presentation from Prof Leinberger with ideas and a range of solutions to consider.
IN BRIEF
- Density with amenity
- ‘Middle’ Building Types Missing – duplex, fourplex, bungalow courts, mansion apartments
- The term compact development does not imply high-rise or even uniformly high density but rather higher average ‘blended’ densities. It features a mix of land uses, development of strong population and employment centres, interconnection of streets and the design of structures and spaces at a human scale
- Protecting community character
- Blending of uses
- Blending of densities
Good ideas?
4 Comments
I’m appalled at the stupidity of our so called ‘town and city planning’ authorities.
Places like Oulu in NW Finland have been building a smart community and culture since the early ’80s and now have amazing infrastructure, a sort of EU Silicone Valley, cycling facilities and harmony reputed now to be one of the best in all of Europe (I agree), superb PT, almost total lack of signs and hoardings which run amuck across our towns and cities, super smart housing – yes they have -20+C but you should see the quality of construction, not least almost everything has triple glazing (yep, 3 not just 2!) and real insulation.
Our housing construction and architectural industry needs a big proverbial boot…… shoddy design and construction, lack of guidance to build smart and not just floor space. To go compact for living space but with really high quality commons.
And as for our rail systems. Even Finlands ‘Pendolino’ trains can hit 200 kph but hiss along (they build them like aircraft!) at a regular 160+, and the more local intercity runs have 2 decker and superbly comfortable vehicles. Our mining magnates bitch about a tax – I would like to see them lead a charge to get a high speed national rail grid (300 kph, from Perth across and all the way to Cairns) both passenger and freight. Try Melbourne – Sydney city centre to centre in 3 hours. It’s possible. That would almost beat air, Ctr to Ctr. Our Melbourne to Bairnsdale V/Line diesel hauled trains (when it does not become a bus at some point) barely manage freeway speed (110) and run vehicles now also barely 2nd world standard.
I agree with Michael, our so-called Planners are simply collecting their takehome pay at the end of the week. No innovation, no interest in World’s Best Practice, only lip service. After the disastrous bushfires, there was an opportunity to look again at the damaged areas to see how they could be rebuilt sustainably with an eye on, for instance,peak oil problems and climate change. Not. Just more of the same, only permitting the introduction of things like paling fences and tilt-slab construction. What a joke.
Totally agree highly paid consultants and planners are the bane of our society, coming up with bad solutions that anyone with half a brain could do better. Local government also have alot to answer for with the town and city planning outcomes being appalling in most cases with out thought for community, families, women and children. And as for the baby boomers and the yuppies, how dare they be seen as the only people to be considered in the development of urban living at the expense of surburban living which is generally more family friendly, what forget families, children our future generation which perpetuates our species, but when have children and mothers ever really been valued, and for all of us our roots start here and we would not exist without it.
Totally agree with what’s been said. I think the world is full of idiots. Some are in top paying jobs & most government depts. & have too much control & the rest are those who do nothing to change the situation.
I was taught from a young age that there is no such thing as “can’t”, it’s a pity it’s not being taught nowadays.