The following is a review/summary of Robert Freestone's text Progress in Australian planning history traditions themes and transformations (2014).
FileThe purpose of this text is to review Australian planning
history in general with specific focus on post-2002 Australian contributions to
planning history development.
“Planning history is the historical
study of all aspects of urban and regional planning and its variants within
their social, economic, cultural and environmental contexts.”
Why Planning
History?
History can be good and it can be bad. ‘Bad’ history can be
used and abused by a certain group which creates bias. Planning history can
also create bias when “history’s
ideology is hijacked to legitimise political ends and for nationalistic,
religious and economic purposes”.
Also history influences our present day decision making, “we
too often fail to realise that our ideas and actions have been thought and done
by others, long ago; we should be conscious of our roots.”
Planning history itself can also act as a planning tool -
Therefore deeper understanding and analysis of planning history is necessary.
This led to the initiation/globalisation of many planning history groups
(International Planning History Society)
Concerns about planning history
Freestone touches and cyphers through many planning texts
about the concerns of planning history and comes to 3 main concluding points:
·
research takes a largely empirical approach,
expressed within narrative writing and case study formats.
·
planning forms the subject and planners the main
actors.
·
stories are still dominated by a Western
modernist perspective.
·
He goes onto
mention critiques against town planning and planning history. Some of the main
descriptives used were
-
Town planning is described as “amateur” when
viewed by the standards of the social science disciplines
-
“too diverse”
-
“on the side of angels”
-
“top-down, professionally reaffirming,
‘malestream’”
An Australian Planning History
The
Development of Australian Planning
In this
section Freestone organises Australian planning history into sequential time
periods where he touches on the dynamic nature of planning and altering focus:
¢ Inventing
planning
¢ Post-war
reconstruction
¢ The
long boom
¢ Re-imagining
planning
¢ Neo-liberalism
and beyond
-
Inventing
planning (1900s–1930s).
This focused on reversing the issues which arose
prior to federalisation in the British-colonial era. These focus issues are all
subsequent branches of urbanisation, they included: slums and slum clearance,
transport infrastructure, civic design and land use zoning.
-
Post-war
reconstruction (1940s–early 1950s).
This period saw planning became more of a
government issue with the evolution of “legislative reforms at state government
level, government departments, statutory authorities, advisory panels,
commissions and committees”
-
The long
boom (1950s–1960s).
Planning systems grew through advancement in each
jurisdiction – where “technocratic modernist ideals” dominated
-
Re-imagining
planning (late 1960s–1970s).
Planning became more complex and with wider focus.
Major focus went on land-use zoning and environmental aspects as global warming
became widely accepted. These environmental aspects were also a focus in
Australia as environmental challenges such as drought, flood, fire, other
natural hazards had major impacts
-
Neo-liberalism
and beyond (1980s to date).
Focus of planners was on “economic development and
employment growth on the one hand, and environmental protection and community
amenity on the other”. This period saw the planning professional become more
multifaceted with flexibility being key.
Upon review
of this chronological evolution of the Australian planning system Freestone
makes some important links. He notices the “early influence of British town and
country planning thought, with later American environmental initiatives, and
then selective adaptation from an increasingly globalised planning toolkit”.
The
emergence of planning history writing
Documentation
of planning’s evolution in Australia dates back to “George Taylor’s pioneering
text” in 1914. After this breakthrough, the theses of planning history writings
have shifted to coincide with the era of planning as outlined previously.
The first
planning history texts mainly explored past, present and contemplated future
planning events. This evolved when entering Post WW2 and the long boom eras
were the focus shifted to critiquing Australia’s “over- heated city centres and
what they saw as dreary outer suburbs comprising unappealing low-density
housing estates gashed by wasteful ribbon development”. These periods saw work
emerge from Robin Boyd, Gavin Walkley, Patrick Abercrombie and Denis Winston.
Political
and equity concerns about Australian planning were continually raised during
the 1970s. These topics were heavily documented in: Stretton’s “Ideas for Australian
Cities” (1970), Sandercock’s “Cities
for Sale” (1975) and Spearritt’s “Urban History of Sydney - since the
1920s” (1978)
While more
recent planning texts switched its focus to “confirming the value and market
for new planning history, while drawing on the concerns and methods of social
science”. This was heavily prominent in “With Conscious Purpose: A History of Town
Planning in South Australia” (1986) by Alan Hutchings and Ray Bunker.
Stocktaking
progress
Freestone himself has completed 3 previous historical biographies
of Australian Planning History in which he makes reference to – 1983, 1993 and
2002
1983
“Three major
themes were identified: the emergence of a robust agenda for studying various
aspects of planning’s development from the 1900s, the importance of British
precedent in early Australian developments, and the shift from idealism to
pragmatism in planning thought from the 1920s onwards”
1993
A decade
after the initial recording other deeper strains came into the foresight of
Australian planning history – “colonial town layout, civic design, housing,
planning movements, Canberra, metropolitan planning, political conflict and
federal urban policy”
2002
The third
records the growing diversity of the planning profession, where this increasing
diversity “helps to outline a ‘crossroads of inter-disciplinary endeavour’”
These
stocktakes identified that Australian planning heavily focuses on metropolitan
areas, the general trends of urban planning have shifted between the peripheral
growth, the ‘middle-ring’ and inner-city consolidation.
Developing
a theme: a garden city trace
Since the
‘maturation’ of planning history in the 1980s there has been an influx of
Australian planning reviews. These reviews identify a common theme, the garden
city. These typically compare the Australian garden suburbs to those of a
“landmark garden communities elsewhere”.
Planning
history conferences: the urban history/planning history (UHPH) series 1993-2012
Australian
planning history conferences are held biennially and are conducted
independently which allows them to remain informal. The purpose of these is to “provide
an institutional lens on growth and trends in the field capturing both the
widening array of subjects and depth of scholarship. All have been products of
their time, place and theme to some extent”
|
City
|
Year
|
Theme
|
|
Sydney
|
1993
|
The Australian Planner
|
|
Canberra
|
1995
|
|
|
Melbourne
|
1996
|
The Australian City – Future/Past
|
|
Sydney
|
1998
|
The 20th C planning experience
|
|
Adelaide
|
2000
|
|
|
Auckland
|
2002
|
Southern Crossings
|
|
Geelong
|
2004
|
The 21st C City – Present/Past/Future
|
|
Wellington
|
2006
|
Past Matters
|
|
Caloundra
|
2008
|
Sea Change – New and renewed urban landscapes
|
|
Melbourne
|
2010
|
Green fields, Brown fields and New fields
|
|
Perth
|
2012
|
Urban Transformations – booms, busts and other catastrophes
|
|
Wellington
|
2014
|
Landscapes and Ecologies of Urban and Planning History
|
Interfaces with other histories
Freestone
explores “the productive and developing intellectual linkages with cognate
fields. As an interdisciplinary endeavour, planning history inevitably
intersects with other historical approaches”
Architectural
History
There have
been three productive meeting grounds of architectural and planning history:
1.
Pioneering architect-planners - those
individuals who moved between the design and development, particularly during
the post-second world war era.
2.
Architectural ensembles and their management
(the regulatory realm such as building height controls) and the development of
planned architectural precincts and facilities including community centres and
housing estates.
3.
Urban design – planning controls has a large
design dimension
Urban
History
“There have
been various reviews of Australian urban history which are revealing for how
little they say about planning history”
This account
is revealing of an at times surprisingly fragile nexus between urban and
planning history in Australia.
He goes onto
state that, despite the absence of planning history in urban history,
‘undoubtedly’ urban studies generally have infused planning history methodology
in different ways. For example through: encounters with the messiness of
everyday urbanism, nuanced sensitivity to the complexities of place and greater
reflection on the limitations of planning and the forces of anti-planning.
Environmental History
“Environmental history can not only contribute to
contemporary planning debates but intertwine with ‘the political interests and
outcomes that are the focus of planning history’.”
“Environmental attitudes drive early land management
practices (such as land use regulation and classification) which can lead to
impacts on planning and therefore planning history
Also, the listing of heritage places (e.g. the Plan of
Adelaide) has direct influences on town planning which subsequently impact on
planning history.
Social History
Links have been made between planning history to general
social life. For example, poor planning practices link to inadequate housing
which contribute to homelessness.
Innovative
Discourses
This section of the paper explores more examples of how
planning history is constantly being progressed and has recently been refreshed
both within the interstices and at the margins
Human encounters with top-down planners
Modern planning has
shifted away from a top-down approach toward an approach with “a deeper
appreciation of human experience since the mid-1900s”. This has led to
increased community participation and consultation, for example “the emergence
of a ‘city social’ planning agenda from women, appreciating the amateur entries
into the federal capital competition of 1911–12, and revisiting visions for new
communities spawned by the idealism of the post war reconstruction era in the
1940s”
“‘In failing to countenance the input of the general public
into planning, and planners’ negotiations with the public’, planning history
can ‘deny unique or discrete aspects of the planning experience.’”
Deconstructing the morphology of planned landscapes
Urban morphology can be broken into three main dimensions:
urban form (buildings and spaces), resolution (scale) and time (evolution and
transformation). By breaking the planned landscape into these areas we are able
to better understand them through three main types of study: the descriptive
(city form), the explanatory (city building) and the normative (city design).
This highlights the diversity of the planning field, the
history of planning and planned landscapes
The gender agenda
Prior to the 1990s women’s contributions in planning were
rarely recognised. This was noted in Leonie Sandercock’s 1975 text Cities for Sale which critiqued the
dominance of the “great man” approach in planning. Only until recently, when
Sandercock came to revise her second addition of Cities for Sale during the 1990s that women’s participation in the
planning field were noticed and documented. Particular note went on women’s
advocacy of better housing and more extensive facilities for children and their
active nature in progress associations and resident action groups.
This is also evident in Canberra’s planning history with Marion
Mahoney Griffin’s contributions to the plan of Canberra becoming increasingly
recognised.
Children and Planning
The transformation of society and our children throughout
history have also influenced changes in planning approaches and ideas. This is
highlighted when Victorian-era planning is compared to modern planning. Health
and well-being of children, particularly during slum clearance was a
significant planning consideration throughout the Victorian era and this is
directly contrasted to modern day concerns of child obesity, safety, social
exclusion, and transport access. This has led to the promotion of national fitness
days and the inclusion of children’s playgrounds in many regional and urban
centres.
Indigeneity
During the European-dominant eras in Australia, Indigenous
people were “virtually scripted out” of the town planning process with planning
being described as “a normative and conservative profession, defining and
managing a land system based on stolen property, oriented primarily to the
needs of metropolitan commerce and operating to contain and confine racialised
social groups”
There are considerations that modern planning also
privileges Eurocentric ideals, with land-use zoning and other modern planning
practices creating conflict over “land tenure, utilisation and value to the
present day”
Recent documentation on the issue has highlighted the
contributions of Indigenous Australians in the planning process including their
layout of villages so it could accommodate several hundred people and their influence
in the form and function of the original town grids, land reservations and the
siting of roads and infrastructure.
**********************
New Methods, New Sources
This section is to convey the importance of plurality of
historical method and data sources.
There have been significant texts recently by both Duggan
(2001) and Spearitts’s Sydney since the
Twenties (1978) which move
beyond traditional archival sources to images such as cartoons, advertisements
and artwork.
Freestone makes reference to other methods being used to
increase the relevance of planning history, these include: oral history,
official autobiographies, archaeological methods and fictionalisation of
planning history. This enables the reconstruction and conjecture of planning
history to be more creative.
Canvassing the
Future of the Past
Freestone goes onto prescribe 4 “observations to
productively move forward”. However, in doing this he states “a definitive
future research agenda is futile. If the field of planning history is to remain
engaging, dynamic and relevant, it will generate its own pathways.”
Deeper Institutional and Place Based Histories
Describing institutional and place-based histories as “a
niche that needs to be filled” Freestone uses the local Woden-Weston Creek
example led by John Gilchrist. This plan “is a fascinating story of the
struggle for acceptance of modern planning ideas for long term growth and
neighbourhood planning” which put the progressives against the conservatives.
Evaluation of planning outcomes
The need for “detailed, holistic evaluations of planning in
practice” is imperative. Freestone goes onto state that “holistic evaluations
can deliver real impact” in achieving “policy-relevant aspirations” which
planning historians commonly strive for.
Interdisciplinary collaboration
Strong connections of history between the disciplines
outlined in the previous section are vital in order to achieve feasible and
detailed historical work in the future. But also, connections with our Australasian
partners need to be enhanced so potential issues which the area encounters can
be effectively neutralised.
Talking to the community
Planning history needs to be more than just a history of and
for planners. The prospective audience is much wider and lessons need to be
communicated to and appreciated by government officials, elected
representatives, and the community at large.
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