Transport part 5- Urban planning

Why I don't agree with the model of everybody living in densely-packed cities

In recent years I have seen a growing consensus that the "best" way is for urban areas to be very densely-packed, with very little green space and emphasis on terraced housing and "high rise".  This is to promote a minimum of travel and promote walking, cycling and public transport over the private car, as opposed to suburban sprawl which often encourages relatively long-distance travelling.

To this, I would say, "Everything in moderation.", as there are many social downsides to having densely-packed urban areas.  Traffic congestion is often a major problem even when car use is significantly reduced, because of the significantly reduced road space, and this affects bus as well as car journeys.  Greater reliance on public transport, combined with a high population density, leads to problems with crowding on buses and trains (e.g. the stories about train guards in Tokyo having to push passengers onto packed trains).  A high local population density also puts high demand on local services such as water and electricity.  Many people like to have green space around where they live, and so densely-packed urban areas make urban, as opposed to rural, living less attractive for these people.

Traditionally, proponents of densely-packed urban areas suggest that we can get around these problems by implementing rationing, such as banning certain letters of the alphabet from driving on particular days, restricting non-essential water and electricity use (where, by "non-essential", they mean not work or family-related, lumping fruitful recreational activities together with wasteful ones).  But this implies restrictions on people's freedoms which is another significant social cost.

Suburban sprawl is also worth avoiding

Many UK towns and cities have fallen into this trap.  A city centre is built and then suburban developments gradually sprawl out from the town/city centre, which are not planned in advance but are put down to address local demand for housing.  As a result, we end up with situations where most of the attractions and employment are based in the town or city centre, but most people live in suburbs, some of which are a considerable distance away, and due to lack of adequate provisions for public transport and cycling, most people end up commuting into work by car every day.

My preferred model for urban planning

My utopian conurbation would have one main central "hub", and instead of random suburban sprawl extending from it, we would have "mini-centres", each with their own set of attractions and workplaces.  

One advantage of the third model is that instead of everybody being crammed into the centre, they are more spread out into various centres, but unlike with the random suburban sprawl, people are more able to head for the nearest "sub-centre" for attractions and/or work, instead of everybody having to commute into the city centre.  The "sub-centres" can be connected via high-speed roads, rail systems, and a cycle network, giving cyclists the choice whether to use the roads or the cycle network (particularly useful in the case of high-speed roads where most cyclists really do need an alternative).  As there are numerous sub-centres rather than one large centre, it is more feasible to use just moderately dense (rather than excessively dense) residential areas without creating large travelling distances from the outskirts to the centre.

This model may remind some people of Milton Keynes, which has failed from an environmental perspective because the planners who devised it focused too much on accommodating the private car at the expense of public transport (although cyclists did get the Redway system), but on the other hand, it has succeeded at achieving many other objectives such as avoiding suburban sprawl and leaving plentiful green space.  But I think this model can be tweaked quite easily to make it very accommodating for public transport as well, such as by having regular buses connecting the main "sub-centres", and we can provide cyclists with cycle networks similar to those offered in various parts of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Ultimately most urban parts of the UK have already been developed and so there are many practical limits on how far we can take this model.  But for me, when we try to make new developments, or redevelop old towns and cities, this is the sort of model that we should be striving for, and not the "cram everybody into very densely packed urban zones" model.