'communities "that just want to be left alone" '

Town planners the village idiots
The Australian 9 March 2006
Bernard Salt Demographer

"Being seen to consult everyone has become far more important than actually doing it
The town-planning community talks a lot about inclusiveness: modem society is a broad church and we must consult and engage all members equally.
But even more important than actually consulting everyone is being seen to consult everyone. I reckon that town planners just love the power kick of conducting meetings, workshops and community consultations where they can strut their stuff before an audience. Town planners raise issues, negotiate outcomes, set priorities and establish agendas. They razzle-dazzle mums and dads with their oh-so-smooth talk of overlays and the consultative process. The Average Joe or Jo just doesn't stand a chance when going head-to-head with a fully grown town planner.
Now perhaps I am being paranoid but I think that some planners have evolved into that big brother that George Orwell warned us about. Have you ever tried to argue a contrary case with a town planner?
Consider for example their latest cause celebre, the "urban village".
I have advice for cynical, free-market supporting property developers everywhere. When you submit that development application for broad-hectare sub-division, do not label the project common suburbia. No, no, no. Call it an "urban village". The same goes for apartment projects in the centre of town: this is not another tower block, this is an urban village. OK, so it's a "vertical urban village". OK, OK it's a "sustainable vertical urban village"
You see town planners really are a very simple life-form. They have evolved over millions of years nurtured only by the sound of a selected bunch of phrases and terms. A modem town planner cannot digest a term like "suburbia"; it makes them feel ill. But when it comes to terms like "urban village", it's ecstasy.
The entire race of town planners seems to have this idealistic vision of an urban society in which residents know their neighbour and happily chat with their local butcher. Here is an urban Utopia where everyone "feels" part of a warm, caring and - bless their town-planning souls - loving community.
Here is a place that replicates the social structure of an 18th century English village, dropped smack bang in the centre of Sydney.
How can anyone argue against the virginal purity of an urban village as a town planning concept?
Well I can and do argue a contrary case.
The lifestyle of some residents in modern cities does not support the logic for urban villages. There are some admittedly recalcitrant, people who like the anonymity of the big city. Odd as it may seem, these people feel no need to chat with neighbours, or with butchers. These people get all of the social interaction and personal validation they need from social networks operating at their workplace.
Residence and workplace in ye olde English villages were one and the same: there was but a short stroll between thatched cottage and village common. It was in everyone's interests to get along with their neighbour, their butcher, their baker.
But many households in today's inner cities are comprised of singles or couples who work full time. They do not have rosy-cheeked children longing to wander off to chat with the village smithy under a spreading chestnut tree. I think that most residents of Melbourne's Southbank and Sydney's Pyrmont would have busy work-based lives.
But this apartment-based lifestyle is also confrontingly devoid of the home-based social interaction that planners have prescribed in their urban villages where "everyone knows your name".
I would like to put forward the following heretical idea. The town planning community seems to be universal in espousal of the philosophy that all cities should accommodate a diverse range of communities. Well, how about provisioning for a community that does not want to be part of a community? Is that allowed? Or should we just be planning for communities that behave in a way that planners approve of? I think that the CBD fringe should make a modest provision for an urban landscape that is devoid of any sense of community. The type of people likely to live in such places would regard their apartment as a bolthole, a reprieve, a sanctuary, from workaday life. This is the New-York notion that "I socialise at work and I merely launder and sleep at home - and if I am lucky occasionally I might not even sleep at home".
Urban landscapes designed to minimise human contact would present streets without corner shops and without civic meeting places. Streets would be harsh and Manhattanesque with no place for neighbours to gather to indulge in wanton eye contact, let alone idle chat. These streets would look a lot like a hotel corridor: functional places facilitating easy access to private spaces.
The last thing residents of non-communities want is a dutiful chat with the neighbour when they arrive home after a long day at work. They do not want to know the name of their butcher; but more importantly, they do not want their butcher to know their name.
I know these views are confronting to many town planners who think everyone is socially isolated and could do with a jolly good dose of neighbourly love and village affection. But if our communities really are as inclusive as is proposed, then surely even these non-conformist views should be provisioned for? I therefore look forward to town planners planning for some communities "that just want to be left alone".

Bernard Salt is a Partner with KPMG