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How planning just became a whole lot harder
Planning cities is about to get a lot more complex. Seven years into the 21st Century, and social change, climate change and a bevy of competitive demands from the global economy are all combining to create stresses on cities that were barely imagined a decade ago.
On top of the requirement to plan for an expanding population that may or may not be disrupted by fuel shortages, consideration must now be given to the adaptations needed to prepare people, buildings and infrastructure for the vagaries of fiercer and as yet less predictable weather conditions.
Demographic change and soaring house prices are also creating new pressures for planning solutions and each could have a major impact in reshaping Australia’s cities. (See page 19) In fact one architecture student told TransScan that one of the most difficult problems now facing architects was marrying the demands of “affordability” with the equally demanding require ments of “sustainability” when designing the next generation of housing.
Added to this, “successful cities” are now finding they have to be competitive in attracting and incubating a new generation of “ideas people.”
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided a picture of the climate stresses that the adapted cities will need to mitigate.
For example, without adaptations to bring down city temperatures heat related deaths in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney, could more than double to 2500 annually by 2020.
In separate figures, CSIRO has estimated that Perth’s death rate among the most vulnerable group—the over-65s—could rise from 294 today to 689 by 2020. By 2050 it could be up to 1548. (By comparison WA’s road toll for 2006 was 202.)
As the scan shows, there are plenty of ideas for cooling cities (see below) but as yet no concrete plans. In fact the authors of the new IPCC report—who included scientists from the CSIRO—readily admit that tools are still lacking that will let planners properly assess the cost-benefits of a local strategy for climate adaptation. What they do agree is that the solutions will not be cheap.
The scan also showed:
Mapping hotspots
There are ways to reduce a city’s heat dome including Chicago’s much reported policy of encouraging roof gardens. But using Manchester and Sheffield as test cases, scientists in England are hoping to go a stage further by pinpointing precise urban “hot spots” and devising tailored solutions to cool them down.
Manchester University is conducting the project and will use a specially equipped car and small plane to measure surface temperatures across central areas of the two cities.
As well as mapping the hotspots, the researchers also hope to create a “heat and human comfort vulnerability index” for typical buildings and their surroundings. “Our urban and city areas are becoming increasingly unhealthy, dangerous and uncomfortable to work and live in, and are remarkably vulnerable to global warming,” says Professor Geoff Levermore, Manchester’s Professor of the Built Environment. “Actions by planners, designers and building owners are required in the short term if cities are to avoid becoming ever more vulnerable in the long term.”
Urban agriculture?
Apparently there is little scientific data on how “green roofs” would perform in Australian conditions but Melbourne University is hoping to fill some of the gaps by building an experimental green roof at its Burnley campus. According to Professor Nigel Stork of the university’s School of Resource Management, the aim will be to monitor how the roof impacts on the building’s temperature and its water runoff.
He says part of the research will be to identify and evaluate selected Australian plants capable of withstanding a “harsh roof environment”. “If green roofs are to be successful in Australia, we will need to develop a suite of attractive drought tolerant groundcovers,” he said. Prof. Stork also has ideas about using today’s environmental pressures to promote “urban agriculture”.
Again he wants to see experiments using roofs to grow food and make cities productive in new ways. He says urban agriculture can use up city waste (such as compost), generate plant biomass and reduce transportation distances for the food produced. He also believes offices with gardens would attract higher rents and provide a healthier environment.
Stop copying
Are cities becoming too standardised? According to Professor Sharon Zukin of the Graduate School of New York’s City University they are —and it is all because of the fierce international competition to attract investment and tourists. She says each city has been told that to be successful, it needs to create an “authentic and memorable” destination.
The trouble is the “destination culture” is producing the same model. “Catering to consumer consumption—be it shopping, modern cuisine, farmers markets, festival marketplaces or museums—tends to be the model followed by many cities,” she said on a visit to Australia. “There is little recognition that authenticity of place can be found mainly within the existing local community. Cities need to find their own authenticity rather than replicating what exists everywhere else.”
Cities of ideas
Professor Zukin (see above) is not the only one who believes cities should rethink their future development. Bruce Katz, director of the metropolitan policy program at the Washington-based Brookings Institution says economies based on knowledge and innovation bestow new importance to densely configured urban places where ideas are easily transferred.
“A world undergoing climate change demands new sustainable approaches to human settlement,” he says. Today prosperity depends much more on the prosperity of cities. That requires delivering cities that grow in inclusive ways “by reducing poverty and promoting a strong and resilient and diverse middle class.”
Gated anxieties
Do gated communities and high-tech security systems contribute to widespread feelings of insecurity? According to Dr Murray Lee, a criminologist at the University of Western Sydney they do.
“Despite the fact that Australia’s crime rate is falling, people still report they feel threatened and more fearful of crime than ever before,” he says. In his new book, “Inventing Fear of Crime: Criminology and the politics of anxiety” he argues that people’s fears are being manipulated to create a vast industry that simply did not exist 40 years ago.
“If we stop walking the streets at night, stop talking to our neighbours, and we install elaborate security systems, then we are breaking down our micro-communities and reducing the natural surveillance mechanisms that we use to monitor the comings and goings in our neighbourhoods,” he says. “Fearing crime and avoiding public places can have the opposite effect and actually make our public places more dangerous.”
Population drift
Will housing affordability play a role in the growth trends of WA’s towns and cities? In the US “affordability” is already playing a part—and “affordable” towns and cities are growing much faster. According to William Frey the senior demographer with the Brookings Institution, it is American towns with populations of less than 250,000 people that are the biggest beneficiaries.
While America’s largest cities have been growing at 3.5% the small towns have seen population increases of 5.7%—and it is largely due to cheaper housing. Could it happen here? According to a housing affordability audit just published by the Urban Development Institute of Australia the only major urban centres in WA that still fall within an “affordable” range are Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and Karratha.
That means they are well outside the Perth, Peel and South West regions which are currently viewed as the State’s key growth areas—“if policy settings are maintained”.(9) Recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest there is no new population drift—yet. Geraldton is showing a 0.3% annual growth and Kalgoorlie is minus 0.6%.
