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My City Of Sydney...
Jun. 27th, 2009 03:23 pmFrom today's Sydney Morning Herald:~
The 1909 city plan: the original and still the best
Sydney would be a modern metropolis but for politics and complacency, writes Kelsey Munro.
A CENTURY ago, a royal commission released a grand reimagining of Sydney, a bold plan to turn a famously unplanned city - yet one with a beautiful harbour - into an efficient modern metropolis.
The famed Chicago plan by Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett, also released in 1909, became a benchmark for modern urban planning and made Chicago a model for cities around the world. Meanwhile, Sydney became … well. Did we mention the harbour?
"In Chicago you'll see a demonstrable impact of that plan on the landscape," said Rob Freestone, the professor of planning at the University of NSW, "with extensive open space through the metro area, particularly down near the waterfront which was recast away from the old factories and railyards … into a magnificent cultural leisure zone."
This is not a phrase most people would spare for, say, Darling Harbour. The Sydney commissioners had the power only to suggest improvements. The biggest problem with their plan, town planners say, was that it wasn't properly implemented.
Dr Glen Searle, the director of the planning program at the University of Technology, Sydney, said: "It's a pity those plans didn't happen in the way they created Paris, slicing grand boulevards through the old city. The ideas were good and the usual things stopped it."
It was a wonder the 1909 plan, hamstrung by political impasses, limited resources, two world wars and the Depression, was implemented at all. The commissioners proposed the underground city circle railway, an under-harbour tunnel to the north shore (the Bridge still was decades away), a competition for Central Station and broadening the likes of Anzac Parade and Oxford and William streets. Much was ignored. What went wrong?
Some argue Sydney is guilty of complacently trading on its natural assets. "Melbourne tries harder because it's got to," architect Bob Meyer said.
Planning in Sydney has long been beset by politics. "You've got a real tension between Macquarie Street and Town Hall in the central city," professor Freestone said.
John Mant, the veteran Sydney urban planner, is scathing. "The planning regimes over the years have been far too concerned with the business of approving developments, rather than planning for a good city," he said.
Poor planning has meant the inner and eastern suburbs have access to far better public amenities than the outer suburbs. Unchecked housing design has made beautiful waterways ugly. Developers hold too much sway. The planning apparatus - with bureaucratic silos fighting each other and separate ministers for roads, transport and planning - created systemic incompetence, he said.
City of Sydney councillor John McInerney, a former city planner, admits there have been mistakes. "The biggest … was to give in to the motor car [after World War II] and give up on the commissioners' core concept of public transport," he said, citing the Cahill Expressway and the Western Distributor, and the council's sell-off of small CBD laneways in the 1970s to developers for office towers.
There have been urban planning wins. Mr Meyer, from Cox Architects, cited public access to much of the harbour foreshores, the green belt and the 1968 urban plan's creation of corridors of development along train lines rather than freeways.
Despite traffic gridlock, transport chaos and white elephants such as Homebush, Cr McInerney thinks planning is finally on the right track "for a new type of Sydney, more related to pedestrians, bikes and public transport."
"We're almost going back to the 1900s again."
If you've read this far, you deserve ( a laugh )
The 1909 city plan: the original and still the best
Sydney would be a modern metropolis but for politics and complacency, writes Kelsey Munro.
A CENTURY ago, a royal commission released a grand reimagining of Sydney, a bold plan to turn a famously unplanned city - yet one with a beautiful harbour - into an efficient modern metropolis.
The famed Chicago plan by Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett, also released in 1909, became a benchmark for modern urban planning and made Chicago a model for cities around the world. Meanwhile, Sydney became … well. Did we mention the harbour?
"In Chicago you'll see a demonstrable impact of that plan on the landscape," said Rob Freestone, the professor of planning at the University of NSW, "with extensive open space through the metro area, particularly down near the waterfront which was recast away from the old factories and railyards … into a magnificent cultural leisure zone."
This is not a phrase most people would spare for, say, Darling Harbour. The Sydney commissioners had the power only to suggest improvements. The biggest problem with their plan, town planners say, was that it wasn't properly implemented.
Dr Glen Searle, the director of the planning program at the University of Technology, Sydney, said: "It's a pity those plans didn't happen in the way they created Paris, slicing grand boulevards through the old city. The ideas were good and the usual things stopped it."
It was a wonder the 1909 plan, hamstrung by political impasses, limited resources, two world wars and the Depression, was implemented at all. The commissioners proposed the underground city circle railway, an under-harbour tunnel to the north shore (the Bridge still was decades away), a competition for Central Station and broadening the likes of Anzac Parade and Oxford and William streets. Much was ignored. What went wrong?
Some argue Sydney is guilty of complacently trading on its natural assets. "Melbourne tries harder because it's got to," architect Bob Meyer said.
Planning in Sydney has long been beset by politics. "You've got a real tension between Macquarie Street and Town Hall in the central city," professor Freestone said.
John Mant, the veteran Sydney urban planner, is scathing. "The planning regimes over the years have been far too concerned with the business of approving developments, rather than planning for a good city," he said.
Poor planning has meant the inner and eastern suburbs have access to far better public amenities than the outer suburbs. Unchecked housing design has made beautiful waterways ugly. Developers hold too much sway. The planning apparatus - with bureaucratic silos fighting each other and separate ministers for roads, transport and planning - created systemic incompetence, he said.
City of Sydney councillor John McInerney, a former city planner, admits there have been mistakes. "The biggest … was to give in to the motor car [after World War II] and give up on the commissioners' core concept of public transport," he said, citing the Cahill Expressway and the Western Distributor, and the council's sell-off of small CBD laneways in the 1970s to developers for office towers.
There have been urban planning wins. Mr Meyer, from Cox Architects, cited public access to much of the harbour foreshores, the green belt and the 1968 urban plan's creation of corridors of development along train lines rather than freeways.
Despite traffic gridlock, transport chaos and white elephants such as Homebush, Cr McInerney thinks planning is finally on the right track "for a new type of Sydney, more related to pedestrians, bikes and public transport."
"We're almost going back to the 1900s again."
If you've read this far, you deserve ( a laugh )
