Urban Dreaming: Australian Cities For The Future

…“There is a trade-off in city size between agglomeration benefits and increasing external costs such as traffic congestion, crime, pollution and noise/sustainability concerns). Large cities that are compact and enjoy good accessibility, matched by efficient transport infrastructure, are among the most efficient urban settlements. These cities do not arise by chance but require decades of careful management and guidance”…

…“Australian capital cities regularly feature in the top ten in international liveability rankings. However, the refreshingly honest federal State of Australian Cities 2010 report noted a concerning tendency for some rankings to decline in recent years. The absence of cities of greater than 5 million among the top ranked cities in The Economist and Mercer liveability surveys is also notable”…

…“Professor Ed Blakely from The University of Sydney notes that, with the right linkages, cities of 250,000-300,000 people, either standing alone or as a substantially self-contained element within a wider city, can have the benefits of both scale and density to be competitive, without the detriment and burden related to larger populations”…

…“The village/precinct level is the urban space in which people conduct much of their daily lives and is where their sense of community is likely to be most firmly based. Village/precincts can range from small local centres, through large activity centres to Central Business Districts or parts thereof, with a sense of distinctiveness/identity being a key defining quality”

Enhancing the liveability of villages/precincts within our cities is a high priority. This is about place-making, including issues such as local job creation and innovation (eg in areas like energy efficiency, distributed energy generation and water self-sufficiency), promoting community building, extending low rise compact settlement patterns with more mixed use development and affordable housing, improving walkability and connectivity, enhancing local character and providing a high quality public realm (including passive security features).”

…“Inclusive governance – and decentralised urban functionality more generally – is a crucial aspect of the long-term development of our cities, and will be a good test for the spirit of our democracy. Collaboration goes beyond simple consultation, and by involving more stakeholders – not only for comment on individual planning projects or issues, but as legitimate voices in the direction their urban environment will take – suboptimal outcomes can be avoided. Additionally, this urban strategy process has the potential to mitigate and transcend the vagaries of partisan politics”…

…“Just imagine a network of city nodes, each a few hundred thousand people connected by advanced communications technology and transport access, where people don’t need to travel too far from home to find meaningful work, where the society is economically productive and competitive, socially and ecologically resilient, surrounded by lush forests (perhaps geo-engineered in large scale reforestation programmes to bring increased rainfall), and subsisting on “vertical agriculture” (where, without any derogation of the value of traditional farming, food produce is grown in multi-storey glasshouses); and while people would live in closer proximity, the quality and quantity of their public spaces, parks and gardens would be much greater too”…

…“If our cities are to remain great cities, transformational changes will be needed, rather than a continuation of the incrementalism of the past”…