Monthly Archives: November 2011

Nowa Huta – town planning and heroes

By , Monday, 28 November 2011, Be the first to comment

Nowa Huta was a showcase development by the communist government in Poland in the 1950s. Today, on a bright, cold central European winter afternoon, I took the bus from the old town of Krakow, and rode out to see the place that in 1949 promised poor people “a better future”.  In this homage to socialist realist town planning and architecture I was also retracing my own past. In 1970, during my first year teaching in the Department of Town and Country Planning at Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh College of Art, I came here on a study visit with my students. Read more »

State of the Australian Cities points the way to Planning for Growth

By , Monday, 21 November 2011, Be the first to comment

Perth, Western Australia, has seen a significant increase in public transport use over the last decade

“From 1 January 2012 all of Australia’s capital cities will have in place planning systems to guide their futures, and it is these plans that will inform the Federal Government’s infrastructure funding. In this way, our essential social and economic infrastructure will all be funded in a coordinated way that best serves the needs and priorities of the nation.” With these words, Anthony Albanese, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport introduced the 2011 State of Australian Cities report. This explicit connection between the state of the cities, plans and investment in infrastructure sets a marker that other countries could learn from. Read more »

Land, development and planning in Brunei

By , Monday, 14 November 2011, 2 Comments

Water village – horizontal and vertical house extensions plus satellite dishes

The palm trees sway in the breeze. Under a blue sky, the waves lap the beach of a sandy cove. The nearby mangrove forests are home to an amazing diversity of wildlife. How will Brunei, this tropical paradise, cope with the development pressures coming its way over the next 40 years? What does it tell us about planning in small countries?

A doubling of the urban population

Brunei Darussalam is less than 500 km north of the equator and has a population of about 400,000. It is squeezed into the north coast of Borneo. Bandar Seri Begawan is the capital and largest settlement with almost 250,000 residents. In all about 300,000 people live in the urban areas. Thus it is highly urbanised already, but the rate of urbanisation remains at over 2% per annum. In addition, the rate of natural increase is high. UN-Habitat forecasts that Brunei’s urban population will double by 2050.

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