Week 6 - Urban Consolidation: Sydney

Metropolitan planning strategies that pursue a consolidation agenda do so in order to facilitate a sustainable future. This is due to the fact that consolidation, as opposed to sprawl, is seen as a panacea for reducing carbon emissions, protecting biodiversity, increasing the utilisation of public infrastructure, and enhancing social cohesion. However, through an analysis of the Sydney Metropolitan Strategy (NSWDOP, 2005) and its review, Sydney Towards 2036 (NSWDOP, 2010), it is evident that urban consolidation is hard to implement in retrospect. At sites identified for increased densities, the state government has encountered local resistance, which can be seen through NIMBY (not in my backyard) protests in established suburban areas such as Ku-ring-gai.

This resistance is born out of the desire to still live out the ‘great Australian dream,’ the notion of owning a home of one’s own on a suburban quarter acre block. Coupled with failed attempts at consolidation in the past, traditional notions of consolidation e.g. taller buildings overlooking/ overshadowing smaller ones, have been seen as the antithesis of this dream, and help to explain why Australian’s, in comparison to the rest of the world, have been slow to adopt such planning policies. Relatively speaking, this problem is unique to Australia, as being such a large continent; everyone feels they are entitled to their own block. A look to Western Sydney is able to reveal the spatial articulation of this dream, and illustrate the powerful grip it still holds over Australians.

As a consequence, it is the notion of sustainability, now seen as a common ground for humanity, which will be integral in facilitating the necessary shift towards consolidation. However, as this paradigm shift is still evolving, this stipulates the need for consolidation to first and foremost take place in areas where it can be justified under the guise of gentrification. As seen through development at Green Square and Wentworth Point, low density areas traditionally used for industrial purposes meet this criteria. Furthermore, due to the fact that they are often run down and/ or underutilise, they provide the perfect circumstance for strategic master planning to facilitate sustainable, utopian communities.

In light of this, a look to both developments are able to reveal a common shortcoming in that they are not readily accessible by public transport. This is particularly worrying, as the degree to which consolidation can be considered sustainable is directly proportionate to the degree to which an efficient public transport network can reduce the reliance on private vehicle ownership, and in turn reduce congestion and carbon emissions. The notion of transient orientated development (TOD) is often promoted as a panacea to implement these criteria, and refers to the process of increasing urban densities around a centralised transport hub. As a consequence, mechanisms implemented in retrospect are in contradiction to the very nature of TOD, with both precincts electing to deal with the issue of accessibility in lieu of population growth. Such propositions are short-sighted, driven by economics and serve to counteract positive externalities associated with efficient land use planning within the precincts themselves.

Johnson, L, 1997. Western Sydney and the desire for home. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 32, 2, 115-128.

Ruming, K, 2012. Multiple Suburban Publics: Rethinking Community Opposition to Consolidation in Sydney. Geographical research: Institute of Australian Geographers, 50, 4, 421-435.

Bucolo, S, 2003. Transient orientated Sustainable Urban Developments - Enhancing Community Consultation through Web Based Virtual Environments. Proceedings of the 1^st international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australasia and South East Asia, 1, 1, 271-272.