I don't understand why it is considered incorrect to suggest that isolated poorly designed boxes on unusable small parcels of land is a poor model for urban development?
Why is it incorrect to propose an urban reality that is rich in experiences beyond a car-based trip to a privately owned, air-conditioned mall? Suburban experience can be rich and rewarding and most Australians are products of suburban upbringing, particularly the decision makers, and arguably are none the worse for it. I confess to sharing this history.
But those were days when the outer suburbs were at worst about an hour by train from the central city and where schools were at most a half hour walk from home (kids had legs then and could walk to school). A time also when there were corner shops. A time when the suburb was modelled on some ideal of 'village' life albeit with more space between the 'cottages'. But this all falls apart when the 'village' corner shop is a mall, 30 minutes drive off, full of the same franchise shops found from Darwin to Dandenong. And when the closest school is two postcodes distant. When most income is dedicated to operating two cars and paying off an outrageous mortgage overblown because the house is too big, the land too expensive and the house buyers' market is distorted through external forces (hand-outs and investors' tax breaks).
The current suburban model is incorrect because it focusses on the simple idea of detached houses dropped in the middle of a not-too-big and not-too-small piece of dirt with little concern for amenity or sustainability let alone quality and richness of life. It focusses on the house as a product not as part of a system.
What is the value to society in creating swathes of housing without access to community services and public transport? How will we deal with the personal dispossession that will be fermented out on the edges? We see the results of social neglect now in established suburbs closer to urban activity centres.
So here we are one decade into the 21st century and almost forty years after the first oil shock still developing urban forms that were not even working well when 'fossil energy'* (i.e oil and coal) was more abundant let alone now when we should be utilising 'current energy'* (i.e renewables).
And this sprawl takes over prime agricultural land and water catchments and wildlife habitat. It is as if the Monty Python team have taken up strategic urban planning ! I don't find it the least bit humorous.
* Peter Droege The Renewable City
Why is it incorrect to propose an urban reality that is rich in experiences beyond a car-based trip to a privately owned, air-conditioned mall? Suburban experience can be rich and rewarding and most Australians are products of suburban upbringing, particularly the decision makers, and arguably are none the worse for it. I confess to sharing this history.
But those were days when the outer suburbs were at worst about an hour by train from the central city and where schools were at most a half hour walk from home (kids had legs then and could walk to school). A time also when there were corner shops. A time when the suburb was modelled on some ideal of 'village' life albeit with more space between the 'cottages'. But this all falls apart when the 'village' corner shop is a mall, 30 minutes drive off, full of the same franchise shops found from Darwin to Dandenong. And when the closest school is two postcodes distant. When most income is dedicated to operating two cars and paying off an outrageous mortgage overblown because the house is too big, the land too expensive and the house buyers' market is distorted through external forces (hand-outs and investors' tax breaks).
The current suburban model is incorrect because it focusses on the simple idea of detached houses dropped in the middle of a not-too-big and not-too-small piece of dirt with little concern for amenity or sustainability let alone quality and richness of life. It focusses on the house as a product not as part of a system.
What is the value to society in creating swathes of housing without access to community services and public transport? How will we deal with the personal dispossession that will be fermented out on the edges? We see the results of social neglect now in established suburbs closer to urban activity centres.
So here we are one decade into the 21st century and almost forty years after the first oil shock still developing urban forms that were not even working well when 'fossil energy'* (i.e oil and coal) was more abundant let alone now when we should be utilising 'current energy'* (i.e renewables).
And this sprawl takes over prime agricultural land and water catchments and wildlife habitat. It is as if the Monty Python team have taken up strategic urban planning ! I don't find it the least bit humorous.
* Peter Droege The Renewable City
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