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Ideas for Australian cities
- GenresNonfictionAustralia
367 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1970
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 3, 2021
still relevant today; information for everyone - not just planners and policy makers
August 16, 2015
I read this book when it first came out in 1970, and I was working for the State government in South Australia, where Stretton himself lived.
It had a seminal influence on public housing and urban housing policy across Australia in the seventies, and planning education could never be the same again after he had written it.
It was the first time an Australian thinker had considered the power structures within cities, how infrastrucure provision (or lack of it) affected people's loves, how well-designed public housing intended for working as well as welfare families could work for social justice. He was also a major influence on the national Labor Party which governed in Australia from 1972-75 and ran at full tilt to implement many of Stretton's ideas, as well as those of international thinkers on urban and regional development, and to rebalance Australia's urban and regional economies, spaces and places. The pace of change was too rapid for most State goverments who hated having their long-established ways of doing things upset by the Federal government. Always a tricky relationship, much of the work of Labor's Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD) was undone by subsequent Liberal (conservative) governments. But some programs did survive - the Australian Heritage Commission, for instance. I was lucky enough to work in both those agencies (DURD and the Heritage Commission) during my years in Canberra.
A friend whose blog I follow has written a wonderful review of Stretton's book which you can see at http://whatbooktoread.com/2015/08/11/...
Highly recommended for anyone interested in the issues of public housing, urban and regional development and resource allocation. Sadly, his writing is now mostly of hsitorical interest.
It had a seminal influence on public housing and urban housing policy across Australia in the seventies, and planning education could never be the same again after he had written it.
It was the first time an Australian thinker had considered the power structures within cities, how infrastrucure provision (or lack of it) affected people's loves, how well-designed public housing intended for working as well as welfare families could work for social justice. He was also a major influence on the national Labor Party which governed in Australia from 1972-75 and ran at full tilt to implement many of Stretton's ideas, as well as those of international thinkers on urban and regional development, and to rebalance Australia's urban and regional economies, spaces and places. The pace of change was too rapid for most State goverments who hated having their long-established ways of doing things upset by the Federal government. Always a tricky relationship, much of the work of Labor's Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD) was undone by subsequent Liberal (conservative) governments. But some programs did survive - the Australian Heritage Commission, for instance. I was lucky enough to work in both those agencies (DURD and the Heritage Commission) during my years in Canberra.
A friend whose blog I follow has written a wonderful review of Stretton's book which you can see at http://whatbooktoread.com/2015/08/11/...
Highly recommended for anyone interested in the issues of public housing, urban and regional development and resource allocation. Sadly, his writing is now mostly of hsitorical interest.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews