Urban Growth Management 207designer intent in relation to worthy social outcome.^19 Withal it has to be under-
stood that little can be done to impose ‘good’ design upon urban projects as a
regulatory condition.
Many of those involved in urban design seem previously to
have been military prison contractors, in line with this quote from
the recent (2001) Australian Planning Institute’s 50th Jubilee
publication, that the Australian urban ‘composition often forms
one big rectangle – a town of rectangles. That was early town
planning in Australia – planning undertaken by surveyors, often
under the direction of soldiers.’^20 Of course all that is ‘urban’ has
been ‘designed’ – even if with rulers, compasses and set squares,
and the more inadequate the input to that design the more easily
this can be detected.
The ‘ideal’ suburban pattern, depicted in figure 5.3 as Premier
subdivision: Wellington 1960s, begs many questions, one that is outstanding.
This is, whether the people involved with producing these layouts at that time
had any opinion about social goals of a community kind as they pulled this kind
of physical arrangement into a curvilinear and podded outcome. One thing is
certain, the planner-engineer-surveyor-architect-landscapist quintet implicated
historically in outcomes of this kind were nottrained to design for social effect,
The best way to become
appreciative of ‘good’
design is to visit
acknowledged ‘uplifting’
urban places; and also to
study model examples
such as the 14 projects
depicted in Steven
Fader’s Density By Design,
2000.Figure 5.3 Premier subdivision: Wellington 1960s.
The street toponomy (not shown) for this subdivision was based on exotic Caribbean republics,
a choice marginally better than the selection of street names based on the now eviscerated flora
and fauna! Automobiles in use to access all schooling, entertainment, shopping, repair and work
functions.