Sustainable Urban Growth Conference 2009
Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 11:00 am
Is it just me, or did this event fly under our radar? Hmm, we kinda dropped the ball on this one.
In March last year, the SA chapter of the Property Council and the Land Management Corporation hosted the two day event "drawing together great minds from around the world to focus on renewing Adelaide as a sustainable city". You can find the presentation slides here, and some
video highlights here. I've only looked at a couple, but they were both interesting:
G. B. Arrington from Parsons Brinkerhoff Placemaking presented Making TOD real in South Australia - Learning from US best practice. Hefty focus on Portland, especially Orenco Station and the Pearl district (and as you know, the Queen and I heart the Pearl district), as the poster child for "grow up not out". Also an interesting section on Tyson's Corner in Virginia - the original nowhere-ville, featured in the book "Edge Cities". In 1960 it didn't exist, then they re-routed two interstates to intesect there. From nothing, office parks and a huge shopping mall sprang up; by 2000 it had a daytime population of 100,000, and only 20,000 residents. Now the local planners are trying to transform it from car-dependent sprawl into a pedestrianized, multi-use TOD. If they pull it off, it will be the urban development equivalent of Pinocchio turning into a real boy - I hope they've got Jimminy Cricket on the team.
Professor Jeffrey Kenworthy, Professor in Sustainable Cities, Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, presented Reducing car dependency in Adelaide. A collection of data points showing where Adelaide is doing both better and worse than other cities (sadly, the worse somewhat outnumber the better). In particular, it makes a significant argument to treat our lack of freeways as "a feature not a bug", and capitalize on the opportunity to invest in transport alternatives.
All in all, some very cool stuff. But while the site says that "Many Conference outcomes will flow directly into State Government policy around housing densities, land use, integrated transport systems and centres planning", I'm not sure that I'm seeing that get represented in the actions happening around the city. For example, this conference happened well in advance of Minister Holloway giving his blessing to Buckland Park.
In March last year, the SA chapter of the Property Council and the Land Management Corporation hosted the two day event "drawing together great minds from around the world to focus on renewing Adelaide as a sustainable city". You can find the presentation slides here, and some
video highlights here. I've only looked at a couple, but they were both interesting:
G. B. Arrington from Parsons Brinkerhoff Placemaking presented Making TOD real in South Australia - Learning from US best practice. Hefty focus on Portland, especially Orenco Station and the Pearl district (and as you know, the Queen and I heart the Pearl district), as the poster child for "grow up not out". Also an interesting section on Tyson's Corner in Virginia - the original nowhere-ville, featured in the book "Edge Cities". In 1960 it didn't exist, then they re-routed two interstates to intesect there. From nothing, office parks and a huge shopping mall sprang up; by 2000 it had a daytime population of 100,000, and only 20,000 residents. Now the local planners are trying to transform it from car-dependent sprawl into a pedestrianized, multi-use TOD. If they pull it off, it will be the urban development equivalent of Pinocchio turning into a real boy - I hope they've got Jimminy Cricket on the team.
Professor Jeffrey Kenworthy, Professor in Sustainable Cities, Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, presented Reducing car dependency in Adelaide. A collection of data points showing where Adelaide is doing both better and worse than other cities (sadly, the worse somewhat outnumber the better). In particular, it makes a significant argument to treat our lack of freeways as "a feature not a bug", and capitalize on the opportunity to invest in transport alternatives.
All in all, some very cool stuff. But while the site says that "Many Conference outcomes will flow directly into State Government policy around housing densities, land use, integrated transport systems and centres planning", I'm not sure that I'm seeing that get represented in the actions happening around the city. For example, this conference happened well in advance of Minister Holloway giving his blessing to Buckland Park.