The challenge of attaining a sustainable urban morphology for South East Queensland

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements The author is grateful to the two anonymous referees for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Notes 1. Self-containment, at least in urban planning terms, relates to the level of travel trips that are internal to the locality. Any locality that has a majority of all its travel trips occurring internally is deemed to be self-contained, though this assertion is not uncontested (Cevero, 1995 Cevero, R. 1995. Planned communities, self-containment and commuting: A cross national perspective. Urban Studies, 32(7): 1135–1161. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Ewing et al., 1996 Ewing, R., DeAnna, M. and Li, S. 1996. Land use impacts on trip generation rates. Transportation Research Record, 1518: 1–6. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Healy & O'Connor, 2001 Healy, E. and O'Connor, K. 2001. Jobs and housing location in Melbourne, 1986 – 1996. The Australian Planner, 38(1): 9–15. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Hence, the colocation of employment, retail, leisure and residential uses to satisfy the majority of local needs are critical to self-containment. Perhaps more important, however, is the mode of transport for these trips and the provision of high quality, high frequency and highly accessible public transport offers greater sustainability gains than car use (Yigitcanlar et al., 2005 Yigitcanlar, T., Dodson, J., Gleeson, B. and Sipe, N. . Sustainable Australia: Containing Travel in Master Planned Estates. Research Monograph 9, Urban Research Program. September, Griffith University, Brisbane. [Google Scholar]). 2. Over the last decade and a half, urban commentators (McLaren, 1992 McLaren, D. 1992. Compact or dispersed: Dilution is no solution. Built Environment, 18(4): 268–284. [Google Scholar]; Cevero, 1995 Cevero, R. 1995. Planned communities, self-containment and commuting: A cross national perspective. Urban Studies, 32(7): 1135–1161. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Jenks et al., 1996 Jenks, M., Burton, E. and Williams, K. 1996. Compact City: A Sustainable Urban Form?, London: Spon. [Google Scholar]; Newman & Kenworthy, 1999 Newman, P. and Kenworthy, J. 1999. Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence, Washington, DC: Island Press. [Google Scholar]; Williams et al., 2000 Williams, K., Burton, E. and Jenks, M., eds. 2000. Achieving Sustainable Urban Form, London: Spon. [Google Scholar]; Williams, 2005 Williams, K., ed. 2005. Spatial Planning, Urban Form and Sustainable Transport, London: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]) have generally used the term sustainable urban form to depict the growing debate concerning the economic, social and environmental costs of existing urban morphology. This is a manipulation of the term form and is used to describe both urban structure and the fine grained strategies of implementation, which are more correctly associated with urban form.