Reflection on WK 2 Reading: Urban Form and Locality by H. Barton

Neighbourhoods form the heart of our communities but are these hubs really master planned with the users in mind? In a climate where people are readily moving to the cities, we must ask ourselves why is this happening?  Is there not enough facilities or transportation available for people to utilise in these outer suburban areas? Or perhaps the facility locations are hard to access and/ or the road networks hard to negotiate and require extensive driving time? With inner city space becoming scarce, we need to be able to produce not only functional dwellings but efficiently working suburbs. This reading proclaims that there are four interlocking dimensions of form that all impact on the functional success of suburbs. These forms are; the degree of dispersal or concentration, the degree of segregation or intermixture of urban activities, settlement density and fourthly, the Shape of the suburb. All these factors contribute to how a suburb works and ultimately produces a set of characteristics (for positive or negative) that are particular to each suburb.  Currently there ‘is disagreement between researches about ‘the significance of density, the validity of the compact city strategy and the appropriate role for new settlements.’ However, I don’t believe that having one formula to produce new suburbs will necessarily mean that it will work well in every context or for every target user/ community. Although I do believe it is important to set up guidelines for incorporating mixed use facilities, green spaces and a strong transport and road networks for each suburb targeted at future needs rather than what is required at the now.  I believe that providing for the future in the beginning would ensure the community had room to grow for the future and would perhaps minimise then need for people to move to the cities.  Before reading this reading I had no idea that the shape of a neighbourhood impacted functionality as much as it does!  Concentrated linear bands are known to reduce transport times and also let more green spaces filter into the suburb.  Having a road network that works really does save time as before the M7 was built there were multiple ways to get to the North-side of Brisbane but few where direct and many congested.  The M7 now cuts my travel time to the City/ Fortitude Valley by over half and is much more direct and functional and as such I often use it multiple times a day.

Overall, this reading has tried to debate the options required for the future vitalisation of the suburban form.  However, I believe this will be a long debated subject with which no specific answer will ever perfectly fit. Like any individual home, master planning of suburbs must be considered in each individual context and setting.