Australia Plans for Syndey Subway to Mimimize Sprawl
Like many cities around the world, lax land use laws have lead to what we all know and love as urban sprawl. Back in the days of cheap fossil fuels and a “what, me worry” attitude concerning our natural environment, cities grew out willy-nilly from a central area in which older buildings were abandoned for newer ones in outlying areas and suburbs. This kind of growth leads to residents living farther away from other areas that house commercial buildings where many of those residents work or shop. This in turn leads to more and more cars on the roads, more traffic, more pollution, and I think you get it so far.
Welcome to the Carbon Era. Now, cities are trying to reverse urban sprawl and Sydney, Australia is one of those cities. The Australia Prime Minister and his Labour party are trying to gain support for their plans to rethink Sydney in ways to increase density within areas closer to the city centre. The plan is to put in two new subway lines and develop high-density housing close to the stations. Think high-rise near-suburbs.
The PM feels that Sydney can be made to be of a similar density of people and jobs as some of the world’s largest cities that rely on efficient mass transit to shuttle their citizens around, like say, London or Tokyo. He’s so sure of it that he’s willing to spend $13 billion on the plans.
Of course, there are a number of reasons to re-envision the modern city, and ‘re-densifying” (my own word there, enjoy!) is a crucial component to making a city work. It seems counter-intuitive — to make more people live in a specific area rather than spread them and their waste out, but the more efficiently cities use space for residences and businesses, the more space that will be available for trees and nature — and less need for hour-long commutes.
mass transit, subway, Sydney, Australia, urban sprawl, urban, city planning, urban planning, urban design, space, residences, commercial buildings, city, cities, trains, London, Tokyo
February 24th, 2009 at 3:02 am
One pro of more density is that people have to commute less, move less and thus burn less gas with their cars.
The main con is that there will be massive traffic. So unless they address very efficient travel, they’re setting up for lots of frustration.
Re-densifying, ha? Very nice.