The compact city: an Australian perspective

Australian cities are in a time of transition. There are new constraints emerging that mean new kinds of city development patterns are needed. This change includes: (a) awareness of the need for slowing down sprawl and providing alternatives to the car through better transit and better land-use planning, (b) demonstrations of new design options (better cities), and (c) introduction of new planning and management options such as urban consolidation, demand management and integrated strategic network development. All of these are moves towards the compact city. At the same time there is considerable momentum behind the traditional practices and institutions which produce our suburbs and transport patterns. Australians in general are happy with their cities as long as they can have a reasonable house and land package and can afford the multiple car ownership it generally assumes. There are two problems with this situation though: (a) There is increasing difficulty in providing the same kind of house/car package with escalating public and external costs. Unless reformed there will be increasing burden on the public purse or an unfortunate legacy for future generations. (b) There are increasing private costs (as well as the public and external costs) and hence growing inequities. This is not an acceptable future for Australian cities and hence there is a new challenge to provide traditional urban amenity with new urban form approaches. The compact city is thus firmly on the agenda in Australia.