Glen Searle

Urban Structure and Energy—A Review

The nature and form of the urban environment is a critical determinant of the sustainability of our society, as it is responsible directly for a large proportion of consumed energy, and influences indirectly the patterns and modes of energy consumed in everyday activities. We examine the current state of research into the energy and greenhouse gas emissions attributable directly or indirectly to urban form. Specifically, we look at the embodied (construction) and operational energy attributable to the construction, maintenance and use of residential dwellings, and we review the literature on the relationship between urban structure and private travel behaviour. While there is clear evidence from both intra- and inter-city comparisons that higher density, transit-oriented cities have lower per-capita transport energy use, the effect of housing density on residential (in-house) energy use is less clear. More detailed research is needed to examine the relationships between urban form and overall energy use.

Uncertain Legacy: Sydney's Olympic Stadiums

The two main stadiums for the Sydney Olympic Games were developed by the private sector with State assistance to reduce government costs and risks. In the post-Olympic period, both stadiums have experienced major revenue shortfalls which threaten their viability. This has been caused by competition from pre-existing, though smaller, State-owned stadiums and lack of potential major sporting and other events. In part to help the Olympic stadiums, the government produced a masterplan for major urban development at the Olympic Park. This paper illustrates the risks of partnership development of specialized infrastructure, and the way in which special events can lead urban development.

Metropolitan strategic planning: an Australian paradigm?

This article describes the characteristics of a distinctively Australian paradigm of metropolitan planning which reflect circumstances of governance, infrastructure provision and concentration on suburban expansion into surrounding countryside. The resultant plans are detailed in their arrangement of land use and communications, comprehensive and long term. There are indications this paradigm may be changing as these dominating influences alter in character. Contemporary metropolitan strategic planning in Europe and America is overviewed to establish the distinctiveness of the Australian paradigm. Changes in plan-shaping forces are leading the emergence of a new European strategic spatial planning paradigm very different to Australia’s. Strategic spatial planning in the United States, while heterogeneous, has examples that reinforce the idea of an Australian paradigm in terms of the influence of governance structure and infrastructure agency on the level of spatial plan detail.

Green around the gills? The challenge of density for urban greenspace planning in SEQ

Abstract Australian cities exhibit a quality of life arguably among the best in the world, but rapidly expanding populations may soon threaten this status. The burgeoning conurbation of South East Queensland (SEQ) is an example. Recent growth management policies and plans (e.g. South East Queensland Regional Plan and local authority growth management strategies) have sought to curtail urban sprawl through urban footprints, growth management boundaries, urban consolidation, and other measures. The ‘density imperative’ presented by these collective urban policies affects the sourcing, provision and management of open space in inner-city locales in SEQ which may soon run out of land for parks and urban greenspace. This paper presents results from recent research into the environmental equity dimensions of providing urban greenspace in SEQ. Critiquing the long-entrenched parks-standards approach, the paper offers a ‘needs-based’ alternative, and considers its utility for SEQ and other fast-growing Australian urban areas. Questioning orthodox planning perspectives about who lives in higher density areas, we argue that local and state governments should look towards a variety of new types of green and open space to meet the needs of existing and future residents living in denser built environments.

Planning context and urban intensification outcomes: Sydney versus Toronto

There is a lack of knowledge about effective implementation of intensification policies. The paper concentrates on the intensification experience of Sydney, Australia, and Toronto, Canada. Historical narratives, which document intensification efforts and outcomes since the 1950s, paint different pictures. For much of the period, Sydney adopted a medium-density strategy sustained by public-sector incentives and regulations. In Toronto, in contrast, the focus has been on high-density developments driven mostly by market trends. Lately, however, the Sydney intensification strategy has shifted to high-density projects. The paper concludes by drawing out findings that are relevant to intensification policies in the selected metropolitan regions and elsewhere: the ubiquity of NIMBY reactions; the importance of senior government involvement because less sensitive to anti-density NIMBY reactions; the possibility of framing intensification strategies in ways that avoid political party confrontation; and the role of major environmental movements in raising public opinion support to intensification.

Planning Discourses and Sydney's Recent Metropolitan Strategies

The recent metropolitan strategies for Sydney (1994 and 1999) are analysed. A discourse analysis is used to help identify underlying ideology and assumptions in the strategies. ESD, economic competitiveness and compact cities are central discourses in both strategies. The 1994 strategy uses an integrated urban management approach implemented by a comprehensive action plan and new institutional arrangements, and in which a neo‐liberalist ideology is dominant. The 1999 strategy is less prescriptive, with greater emphasis on justifying existing government policies. Differences between the discourses identified and actual strategic planning actions suggest the limitations of purely textual discourse analysis for understanding strategic planning.

Theory and Practice in Metropolitan Strategy: Situating Recent Australian Planning

Over the last several years, metropolitan strategies have been produced for the five mainland state capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The distinctive characteristics of Australian urban planning mean that they can be shown to reflect an Australian paradigm of planning. However, this paradigm is rewritten in different ways in each strategy reflecting the particular institutional circumstances and political culture of each state. In doing so there is some strong reaffirmation of this paradigm, but also indications of a more relational and transactive manner of planning adding further process to product. Here there is some resonance with recent developments in planning theory and to some extent in practice—largely in Europe.

Industry Clusters and Sydney's ITT Sector: northern Sydney as ‘Australia's Silicon Valley’?

Abstract This paper examines the claim that the North Ryde–North Sydney arc is Australias ‘Silicon Valley’, seeking firstly to identify the empirical validities behind the claim, and secondly to ask how the documented patterns might be explained. The paper evidences the fact that this area indeed provides the pre-eminent site for Australias information technology and telecommunications (ITT) sector. However, examination of this industry suggests that its expansion in Sydney has been motivated primarily by the increasing centrality of advanced producer services within the high-order business sector. It is Sydneys attributes for multinational business, as opposed to the propulsive dynamics of local clustering per se, which appears to explain the spatial concentration of these activities. Thus, it is the urbanisation economies of Sydney more than the localisation economies of the ITT sector which account for the growth of this sector in the city. Nevertheless, localisation economies are sporadically significant, suggesting that Sydneys ITT sector is to a certain extent a hybrid product of the two types of economies.

Planning, economic development and the spatial outcomes of market liberalisation

Abstract The shift of urban governance to neoliberalism raises questions for the role of planning in economic development. Local plans may need to be overruled, but this creates potential contradictions. Local context is critical in this process. In Sydney, planning has been subordinate to economic development under market liberalisation since the late 1970s.

New Century Australian Spatial Planning: Recentralization under Labor

Abstract This paper discusses a recentralization of spatial planning in Australia since 2000, during which Labor governments have been predominant. The new planning initiatives have primarily reflected an imperative to improve capital city competitiveness and development levels in general. A second driver has been a desire to make development more ecologically sustainable. The paper demonstrates this recentralization in state plans, state infrastructure strategies, metropolitan and regional strategies, new specific purpose authorities, development control system changes, and Commonwealth government intervention. While the fluid and dynamic nature of these changes resonate with UK planning characterized by ‘soft spaces and fuzzy boundaries’, they have not resulted in new multiple scales of governance but, rather, reassertion of state government primacy in spatial planning.