Australian Planning and Globilisation

This weeks reading was called “The Americanisation of Australian Planning” written by Freestone in 2004 and was presented by our lecturer Richard Hu.

The reading concentrates on the development of planning in Australia and how it has changed from the early 1900's right up until the modern 21st century. Planning cities in Australia developed around 1900 as a reform movement concerned with the conditions in Australian cities and was heavily derived from British idealogy and values.

From the early 1900's through to the post war period planning in Australia has experienced many changes, these include areas such as physical form and public infrastructure, legislation, regulation and the development of new priorities.

The 1970's saw slow growth and rapid social change, bringing along several new forms of planning such as environmental, social and advocacy. These three planning disciplines are the cornerstones of modern urban and regional planning, with an in depth knowledge of these areas required for any modern day planner to be successful.

The 1980s and 90s brought along strategic planning through concentrating on economic, social and ecological concerns, this is highlighted through the Brundtland report of 87 on environmental sustainability.

Some of the most influential changes to planning in Australia has come in the 21st century through globilisation, sustainability, climate change and disaster mitigation and recovery.  The globilisation of the world has ment that cities such as Sydney and Melbourne are becoming increasingly  bigger hubs of Australias states, with exponential numbers of people moving into City areas. It is estimated by 2050 that 75 % of people will live in cities, so what does this mean for Australia ?

Does this mean the end of country areas in Australia such as Dubbo? Will large country urban areas slowly dissapear as people continue to seek the city lifestyle.  Globilisation and the growing needs of people through technology and access to services could ultimately see this scenario play out and create a new generation of challenges for planners to tackle.

Is it all about the middle class

This weeks seminar was by Adam and myself and was on a reading by Susan S. Fainstein called New Directions in Planning Theory.

Susan Fainstein is a world renowned planner and is currently a Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard University, her outlook mainly focuses on the political and economic side of planning.

The reading spoke about communicative planning and how it is designed to initiate planning at a local level. This makes the planner an essential element of discussion, meaning planners have to communicate with other actors in their daily practice, through face to face interactions or through planning documents.

New Urbanism is also a significant talking point and how it is the revival of the design focus of cities.  It attempts to reduce any inequalities through successful design which is similar to the Garden City ideals. This idea creates a strong city that interconnects, that is to say that everything is within a ten minute walk no matter what part of the city you live in.

Susan Fainsteins "Just City" puts planners in the role of advocates and allows them to accept the conflictual view of society. One of the main concepts of this is the need to embody the middle-class, not just the poor and disadvantaged.

This idea of supporting the middle class is seen in the Illawarra, which as experienced a shift from a predominately blue collar area to increased middle class working. The area is now moving away from the mining and steel industries towards increased middle class demographics. This can be seen in the area of Shellharbour which has seen an explosion of middle class development of housing and infrastructure.

This is seen in the continuing developments of areas such as Flinders and Shell Cove, both of which were subject to intense promotion and advertising through television, radio and social media. Five years ago these areas did not exist and were predominately farming land and had no housing developments.
The Shellharbour city centre has transformed into a hub of accounting firms, lawyer firms and several medical centres, a significant change from what it was five to ten years ago.

Art, Science, Modernis. Has planning experienced a Paradigm shift?

This weeks presentation was done by Laura and Jess, the reading was called The Anglo-American town planning theory since 1945: three signiŽcant developments but no paradigm shifts written by
Nigel Taylor.

The reading this week was a summary of what we have learned so far this semester through the first ten weeks of seminars. The topic of planning as an Art or Science was once again brought and the question was asked has planning had any paradigm shifts? That is to say has there been a radical change in the underlying beliefs or theory.

So has there been a shift ?

Im inclined to say both yes and no. Over the past few decades post WWII there have been many changes that have shaped planning to be what it is today. Certain aspects of science have made there way into the discipline, enabling them the luxury of being skilled in architecture and design as well as scientific analysis.
These changes over time were highlighted into a couple of key points :

1. From the planner as a creative designer to the planner as a scientific analyist and rational decision maker.

At one stage planning was primarily physical design and design based art. This was until systems and rational process theorists suggested it was a science. This did unsettle some plannners as they were required to learn aspects of scientific analysis.

2. From the planner as a technical expert to the planner as a manger and communicator

This was the definitive idea that both the art and science should be specialities that planners have to possess. They also propsed that planners have to be effective managers and communicators to ensure maximum efficiency.


Planning has experienced many changes and the battle continues to rage on about whether they are scientists, artists, mediators, facilitators or anything else you like to call it. The post modernism era has shaped many of these changes and it will continue to do so while there are so many differing opinions about the planning discipline. The bottom line is all planners wil have some knowledge of these areas, it is up to each individual which area they would like to pursue as there specialty.

Arguing, Community and Planning

This weeks reading was presented by Dan and Sarad and strongly focused on the role of arguing and community in the world of planning. The paper presents Professor Healeys take on the future of planning and the way in which she believes it would successfully create sustainable planning.

There were two waves of planning that swept across the world in the second half of this century. These included:

The comprehensive rational planning process of the 60s and 70s which was largely methodological and institutional and the political economy of urban regions in the 80s which was aggressively critical.

Through the reading she is proposing a communicative argumentative approach to planning which would be based  on a new wave of ideas sweeping over the field of planning and policy analysis. The system would be principle based and designed to build a consensus through economic and social relationships. She is more or less proposing to get as many people in community meetings as possible and talking till an agreement is made.

So are arguements beneficial to decision making ? Some would say that if you argue strongly for something and you are passionate about it then it displays that you are genuinely interested about the issue and you are going to contribute effectively to the decision making process. While on the other hand most would say that arguing just creates contradiction and heated exchanges that lead to no real avail.

Some of the benefits involved with the approach proposed by Prof Healey include reinventing stale ideas, recogonising diversity and is very inclusive as all attempts to keep people in the loop of what is happening are made. Despite this I believe the disadvantages out weigh the benefits.

Someone cannot vigorously argue about an issue if they know next to nothing about planning, how could they possibly influence a professional when they might not be a planning professional themselves. The process of arguing is never guaranteed to reach a compromise and finally while it would be nice to include everyone, the chances of this happening are very small, there will always be someone who misses out.

This approach was designed as a set of questions to challange and provoke our school of thought, it involves a cyclical strategy which is based around reviewing ideas, inventing or developing new ideas and monitoring these into the near future.

Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial Form

This weeks seminar was by Will and Tom  and was on the reading "Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial Form" by David Harvey in 1997.

Throughout the seminar there was a strong focus on what makes a community unique and the different aspects that shape different communities throughout the world. So what does make a community?

I believe a community is made up of people with a common sense of place or connection to a certain place. This can be seen through coastal and country communities, both of which live by different lifestyles, culture and values. People living on the coast are brought together through the beach whilst people living in country communities are banded together through agriculture and a completely different way of life.

 The people living within these communties gain a sense of togetherness and share common interests which allows them to interact successfully amongst one another. Quite often these communities have been created through generations of families who have chosen to live in the place that they grew up in, creating an even deeper sense of connection to certain places and how people can unify.


Communities also have certain meaning themselves, for example, in some cases they can serve to isolate rather then include, however it is this seperation from others that creates strong communties that share common attributes in some cases. An example of this is seen in gated communties, whilst the people living within these gated communities get along quite well and cooperate, as soon as they leave there is a mentality of us vs them.

Community Activistm is fundamental in creating commmunities, through militant particularism- which suggests that almost all radical movements have their origin in some place, with a particular set of issues which people are pursuing and following. Through this you can spread a persons passion amongst a greater number of people you will and hence create a better community.

Planning in the face of conflict

This weeks reading  was called“Planning in the face of conflict" by John Forester.

This weeks article presents local planners own accounts of the challenges they face as simultaneous negotiators and mediators in local land-use permitting processes.Planning Directors and staff in New England cities and towns, urban and suburban, shared their viewpoints on a series of extensive open ended interviews with John Forester.

The article next explores a range of mediated negotiation strategies that planners use as they deal with local land-use permitting conflicts.How local planning organisations encourage effective negotiation and how mediated negotiation strategies give power to the powerless.

The above picture highlights the role of a planner in the situation where a resident and developer are arguing over a planning decision affecting there neighborhood. It is the job of the planner to create meetings and mediate discussions between the two parties, to ensure all viewpoints are heard and that a middle ground or mutual decision can be found.

In the face of conflict, planners also give power to the powerless, most of the time this is referring to local citizens.For example a planner could mediate a discussion between residents and developers on an issue effecting there neighborhood. In this case, the planner is giving the residents more power as they have the opportunity to speak directly to the people who want implement the change .

In one of the many interviews that John Forester undertook, a planning director suggested that planners and developers often share a common language. They have the ability to pinpoint technichal and regulatory issues and understand what one another sare saying. He also pinpoints the need to teach special terms of local zoning code to affected neighbors before tackling the issues that are at hand.

If the planner, developer and resident are all able to speak in a professional language in which they can all understand one another, then the chance of reaching a mutual agreement is drastically increased and reduces the chance of conflict.



 Creating successful plans in the face of conflict is a challenged faced by thousands in the planning profession, dozens of different strategies are used by different individuals in order to mediate discussions between developers and residents. The planners role in these discussions is essential if residents and developers alike want to continue to work together to keep creating successful plans for the future.

A Ladder of Citizenship Participation

 The reading this week was called " A ladder of Citizenship Participation" from the Journal of The American Institute of Planners (1969) by Shelly Arnstein.

This weeks presentation by Pat and Jess was strongly centred on the role and involvement various communities have in planning decisions. A group activity was set up to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating people from the community into planning decision making.From this group discussion many interesting and some controversial opinions were raised, including references to hitler, irrational people and meritocracy just to name a few.

Some of the advantages to this that were discussed included: satisfying citizens and making them feel they are making a difference to there area, it attracts a number of different perspectives around the issues that are being discussed, allows for transparency and citizens are using there power to do what they desire, for the most part this is to further imrpove there local community.

As always there are disadvantages that come along with the above,  these include: the cost, it can be dangerous giving citizens access to resources as it could lead to a misuse and waste of money, unprofessionalism may play a part as not everyone is a planning professional and conflict could quite easily occur through disagreements amongst different citizens who have opposing opinions about community issues.

So are communties being involved enough in the decisions that are ultimately going to affect themselves the most ? In 1969 planning decisions involved the upper class and excluded the poor, especially certain minorities, where as now there is increased community involvement and consultation, although the community still does not have complete control. An example of this is seen through the canberra 2030 plan- time to talk.

Nowadays on the eight rungs of the ladder of citizen participation we find ourselves around number four, in the area of tokenism.  Through local councils, governments, community forums and community events local citizens are becoming increasingly involved in planning decisions. We are moving into an era where the opinion of the people is having a greater impact on the powers at be and it is this interaction amongst the smallest of citizens to the most powerful of planners that sustainable plans and communities will come to life.