The document discusses optimizing urban structure through an integrated New Urbanist model. It reviews traditional Australian urban structuring and its influence on the development of Australian New Urbanism. Key points include clustering walkable neighborhoods to form mixed-use towns served by public transit. Integrating neighborhoods, towns, and regional structure can optimize prosperity, sustainability and transit access. The document also compares different international models and their relative performance on public transit, retail and centers.

1. Optimizing Urban Structure: Towards an Integrated New Urbanist Model Adjunct Professor Evan Jones Brookfield Multiplex In collaboration with Chip Kaufman, Ecologically Sustainable Design, Melbourne CNU 17 June 2009

3. Part 1 Australian Urban Models: Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane

5. Not only is the notional catchment for Hillarys much larger, there is also a greater proportion of the area (shaded red ) with no proximity to any centre at all. This area is highly car dependant on the Hillarys regional centre . Sprawl Suburb: Hillarys Traditional Suburb: Subiaco District Centre Town Centre The traditional Subiaco centre is smaller and supported by a cluster of neighbourhoods via direct transit connections. Subiaco as a result achieves much greater residential densities and employment self-sufficiency . Australian Urban Models: Case Study # 1. Perth How Suburbs Work - Self-Sufficiency

6. 1 Mile Town and Neighbourhood Structure Australian Urban Models: Case Study # 2. Melbourne Town and Neighbourhood Structure Mile grid with half-mile arterials and a smaller permeable street network, to minimise need for arterial and retail gigantism

7. 1 Mile Australian Urban Models: Case Study # 2. Melbourne Town and Neighbourhood Structure 1 Mile

8. Australian Urban Models: Case Study # 2. Melbourne Town and Neighbourhood Structure

9. Australian Urban Models: Case Study # 3. Brisbane Town and Neighbourhood Structure Brisbane Inner West Town Structure Neighbourhood Structure Streets, Centres, Open Spaces H illy terrain inspires ridge roads and deforms the grid

10. Part 2 Integrated Urban Structuring in Australia

11. 1. Walkable Neighbourhoods cluster together to form mixed use Towns Typically in the Australian Liveable Neighbourhoods structure, the mixed use town centre serves around 15,000 to 30,000 people, and is supported by six to nine neighbourhoods. It contains a main-street based convenience retail node ideally with two supermarkets, together with service businesses, substantial commercial uses, civic and recreational facilities. Typically one in ten towns within a metropolis enlarge to become a regional centre , and contain major hospital, civic, educational and office uses. It serves around 100,000+ people. Walkable Catchments and Bus Routes Ecologically Sustainable Design

13. 3. Various ways for Walkable Neighbourhoods to cluster together to form Towns Near a freeway exit Along a major arterial Perpendicular to a main arterial At a waterfront

14. 4. The Relationships between Town Centres and big Arterials A. Main Street at right angles to big arterial, often with rail station Jindalee TC Mungarie Park TC Point Cook TC B. Main Street parallel to big arterial - needs good local street links to core customers C. Main Street across corner of two big arterials

15. 5. Regional Structuring Examples: Jindalee, North-West Corridor, Perth, WA 1996 Perth - Population: 1.4 million Highly-planned ‘sprawl’ in ever-extending corridors - an urgent need to change as transport networks are now predicted to fail Typical subdivision plans 1995 North-west Corridor Structure Plan

16. Scenario A Rail along Freeway, on edge of urban corridor. National Park to east Scenario B Rail part way into urban corridor, along Connelly Drive Scenario C preferred Rail in the centre of the urban corridor 5. Regional Structuring Examples: Jindalee Regional Structure Scenarios

17. Testing by design at the more detailed scale, then re-adjusting the regional structure as necessary 5. Regional Structuring Examples: Jindalee Town and Neighbourhood Structure

18. Comparing Employment 5. Regional Structuring Examples Jindalee - Measuring Outcomes Conventional Design Population 29,259 Dwellings 9,753 Jobs Needed 14,629 Proposed Jobs 2,612 Containment Factor 18% Liveable Neighbourhoods Design Population 30,234 Dwellings 11,768 Jobs Needed 17,652 Proposed Jobs 11,306 Containment Factor 64%

19. Two main remaining large growth areas totaling 26,000ha in the Sydney Basin, population 380,000 Joint public/private $7.8 billion infrastructure funding Regional structure now set, detailed design to be administered by new Growth Centres Commission and local Councils www.metrostrategy.nsw.gov.au 5. Regional Structuring Examples: Western Sydney Urban Land Release 2003-05

20. Consolidate and enhance key viable habitat fragments, remove others. Investigate spacing and linking of Town Catchments. Green network generally located between towns , not between neighbourhoods Preliminary urban/green Preliminary town locations 5. Regional Structuring Examples: South West Sydney – urban structuring

21. Scenarios for Testing South West Sydney Final Adopted Plan Rail to Leppington - a new Regional Centre Bus transit boulevards to five town centres. Possible conversion of key route to LRT in future Walkable neighbourhoods with local centres and bus routes on local arterials Green network and heritage farms between towns Retail complementary instead of predatory

22. Molonglo Valley, Canberra To ensure that places will work well, we need to design them out as pieces of cities and towns . The structuring approach is based on good examples of traditional cities, together with responses to current parameters. The town-scaled circle templates are a representation of what will work when adjusted to the site. Constraints must be interrogated to ensure urbanism is not fractured by green. 5. Regional Structuring Examples: Conclusion

23. Part 3 International Practice

24. “ It is no coincidence that Clarence Perry retreated to the centre, in a relatively isolationist, exclusive and defensive fashion, separating social institutions from the life of commerce which he kept on the edge. Oh, and by the way, he blew away Main Street in one fell swoop.” …Paul Murrain Perry identified a walkable neighbourhood based on a five minute walk from community facilities within the centre of a residential ‘cell’. The commercial elements were located at the junction of the arterial routes. This diagram separates Community within a ‘neighborhood center’ from Commerce along arterials outside the neighborhoods. The Perry Diagram

26. Perry Transposed By transposing the Perry circles onto the movement economy and commerce , the Liveable Neighbourhoods structure becomes apparent, whereby a cluster of neighbourhoods supports a town centre . Only land expansive community uses such as large-format schools are located in the interstices between neighbourhoods .

27. Routing Problem: with this diagram, Public Transport must either serve the town center along the main boulevard/s, or else also loop inefficiently through all four NCs, or both, all of which options will compromise transit times and services. Relative performance: Public Transport A Prototype for Heavy Rail with Feeder Buses: Bus routes feed each Neighbourhood Centre, en route through Town Centre, either running both north-south and east-west in an expansive region, or as localized ‘spider’ feeder route, supplementing heavy rail service

28. 4 neighborhoods 8-9 neighborhoods (inc TC) Retail Performance: Twice the capacity to generate sufficient population to enable a relatively self-sufficient mixed-use town center, which can improve on the role of large conventional stand-alone centers Relative Performance: Centres

29. North Harlow a UK examples of public transport feeding neighbourhood and town centers directly Plan courtesy of Paul Murrain Relative Performance: Centres

30. Yard Houses Mueller Plan, Austin, Texas Courtesy of Roma Design Half-mile NC’s seem to be only parks in this plan, whose Movement Economy (main traffic flows) supports neither the NCs nor the Town Centre Neighbourhood Centres

32. Transit Corridor from Sustainable Urbanism , by Doug Farr Attempts to illustrate transit for all modes - transit corridor bypasses neighborhood centers (only appropriate for heavy rail) 39 neighborhoods but only one city/town center, and difficult, with paired neighborhoods, for others to mature into a larger center/s, supported by smaller ones clustering to it. Regional Structuring Proposals

34. Are Australia and the US different - the diagram shows how structured urbanism fits within the Jeffersonian mile grid. 1 mile Diagram courtesy of Peter Richards peter@drarchitects.com.au Regional Structuring Proposals – A Liveable Neighbourhoods alternative 1 mile

35. NEW URBANISM (Project level) SUSTAINABLE GROWTH MANAGEMENT Urban, Transport and Natural Resource Context Projects Sustainable Growth Management Model Right Model + Planning Governance, Infrastructure & Finance Mechanisms Green and grey initiatives: water, energy, natural resources, materials, waste New Urban and Transport Coding available Still in many Local Government codes CONVENTIONAL (Sprawl)