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Activity Centre Planning

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What are activity centres and why should we have a policy about them? ... Based around public transport routes (tram, train station); Have multiple owners; ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Activity Centre Planning


1
Activity Centre Planning
  • RMIT University
  • Environment and Planning Program
  • 4th and 5th July 2003

2
Presentation Outline
  • What are activity centres and why should we have
    a policy about them?
  • The key role of retailing and bit of retail
    planning theory central place theory.
  • The pattern of Melbournes centres and the growth
    of the stand-alone shopping mall.
  • The challenge for planning.

3
What are activity centres?
  • Broad definition (descriptive)
  • - Any place which attracts people to it for a
    variety of activities such as shopping, working,
    studying, recreating or socialising.

4
What are activity centres?
  • More specific (prescriptive)
  • - A mixed-use centre (including retail and
    employment centres) of a reasonable size which is
    based around a public transport node, preferably
    including fixed rail.
  • Activity centre not universal term. Has been
    District Centres , or town centres, key sites
    etc..

5
What are activity centre policies?
  • Activity centres policies are policies about
    directing the location of those things which
    attract people.
  • Such policies seek to cluster these uses around
    public transport rather than allowing them to
    disperse along main roads.
  • Increasingly, a higher density of housing around
    these centres is also advocated.

6
Why should we cluster activities?
  • Environmental reasons - locating a number of
    activities together makes multi-purpose trips
    possible which
  • Reduces number of trips
  • Reduces fuel consumption
  • Is more efficient
  • Saves time and money
  • So AC policy is actually a policy about
    sustainable urban form.

7
There are also social reasons
  • Mixed-use places are more interesting and
    dynamic, mono-functional areas (such as office
    parks) are dull and sterile.
  • "In these areas a single group of people, a
    single occupation, a single social group or age
    group has been more or less isolated from the
    other groups in society resulting in a poorer and
    more monotonous environment", (Gehl and Gemzoe
    1987104).

8
There are also social reasons
  • Activity centres which can be walked to, and
    walked around within, promote social contact,
    better health and interest.
  • "People's love of watching activity and other
    people is constantly evident in cities
    everywhere", (Jane Jacobs 196137).

9
And economic reasons.
  • There are economic advantages to businesses to
    locate within mixed use centres where synergies
    can develop.

10
Why should we locate these clusters around public
transport?
  • To encouraging a mode shift away from car travel
    so as to
  • improve the environment
  • encourage walking (for health and sociability)
  • cut down on the amount of land needed to be
    provided for car parking
  • increase the return on public sector investment
    in public transport etc

11
Key role of retailing
  • Retailing is a key attractor of people. It
    generates more trips, (and less predictable
    trips), than many other major activities.
  • Activity centres are often equated with shopping
    centres, but not all shopping centres are
    activity centres.
  • Can you have a viable mixed use centre without
    retailing?

12
Key role of retailing
  • It is the retail sector that is the most visible
    and the most widely experienced. The vitality of
    its retail sector in many ways underpins the
    downtown's overall success. Shopping is an
    activity that almost everyone doesWhere we shop
    very much defines the way in which we experience
    our community, the places that become familiar to
    us and the routes we learn about. A strong core
    of shopping provides a reason for the general
    public to come downtown on a regular basis
  • City of Toronto Land Use Committee Report No. 9,
    1994.

13
Retail Planning in Theory
  • Much is still based on the work of Walter
    Christaller, (1933).
  • Christaller wanted to discover what determined
    the pattern of settlement in a scientific manner
    by looking at towns in Southern Germany.
  • The theory he developed was called Central Place
    Theory.

14
Central Place Theory
  • A central place is simply a place, or a town,
    which is at the centre of a region.
  • Christallers theory predicted that central
    places would be evenly distributed across the
    landscape in a nested hierarchy.
  • Places or towns whose regions extend over a
    larger area, and in so doing incorporate the
    regions of smaller places, are called higher
    order central places.

15
Central Place Theory
  • A few key terms to understand
  • Each type of good will have its own range. The
    range of a good is the maximum distance which
    people will travel to buy it, and this is
    determined by both the price of the good and the
    cost involved in travelling to buy it.
  • People will travel further and at greater expense
    to purchase goods of greater value (higher order
    goods)

16
Central Place Theory
  • Multiple purchase trips lowers the cost to the
    purchaser in both travel and time, so people
    favour destinations that offer a variety of
    functions.
  • This characteristic, the extent of a place's
    range of functions, is called its centrality in
    central place theory.

17
Central Place Theory
  • Each retailer will have a minimum trade area, or
    threshold market, necessary in order to make
    their business viable. This will be determined by
    the number of people willing to buy the goods
    within that area, given their other available
    options.

18
Central Place Theory
  • Places which only supply lower order goods, with
    smaller threshold markets, can therefore be
    spaced closer together without losing viability.
  • Larger central places, which supply not only
    lower order goods but also higher order goods
    with a larger threshold market, will need to be
    spaced further apart in order to be viable.

19
Walter Christaller 1933

20
Walter Christaller 1933
21
Melbourne 2030
22
Does this describe Melbourne?
  • Melbourne has one predominant central place, the
    CBD.
  • It has a number of very large regional centres
    (Super Regional or Principle) such as Dandenong,
    Frankston, Box Hill, Chadstone, Highpoint,
    Ringwood, Prarhan, Footscray etc..
  • Then far more middle range centres such as
    Carnegie, Sandringham, Niddrie, etc..
  • And a great many neighbourhood centres

23
Criticisms of CPT
  • Central Place Theory ignores many complex
    variables such as
  • differences in the individuals ability to travel
  • the ease of travel in different directions
  • individual choice and taste
  • the effect of advertising and promotion
  • the difference in spending for necessities and
    discretionary purchases.

24
Is it now out of date?
  • Does this pattern of hierarchy fit with a
    dispersed pattern of car based shopping?
  • What type of a place is a Bunnings or a Harvey
    Normans in Central Place Theory?
  • Where do the specialised smaller centres that do
    not supply local needs fit? (e.g. Brunswick St,
    Lygon St etc)

25
Modern trends in retailing
  • Retailing has decentralised because of
  • Increased car usage
  • Larger format of retailing requiring cheaper
    land
  • Increased affluence of consumers (Bromley and
    Thomas 1993).
  • New forms of retail development resulting from
    retail decentralisation, especially out-of-town
    developments, have distorted the traditional
    retail hierarchy and heightened the issue of
    sustainable development at both local and global
    scales
  • Ibrahim and McGoldrick (200336).

26
Trends in retailing in Melbourne
  • Melbourne has many traditional shopping centres
    which are
  • Based around public transport routes (tram, train
    station)
  • Have multiple owners
  • Offer a broad range of goods and services.
  • This is still by far the most common form of
    shopping centre in Melbourne (around 65).

27
Trends in retailing in Melbourne
  • The stand-alone shopping mall (single owner,
    car-based, built on greenfield site) was
    introduced to Melbourne with Chadstone in 1960.
  • This was followed by Northland in 1966, Eastland
    1967, Southland 1968, Doncaster 1969 and
    Highpoint 1975.

28
Trends in retailing in Melbourne
  • Corporately owned stand alone shopping centres
    account for just under 25 of all retail
    floorspace in Victoria, (Jebb Holland Dimasi
    200020).
  • Melbourne has the lowest rate of all Australian
    capital cities apart from Adelaide, but it is
    growing.
  • Tracking retail changes has become more difficult
    since the demise of the retail census. Now
    floorspace can be used in place of sales.

29
Top 20 centres by retail floorspace in 1979-80
30
Top 20 centres by retail floorspace in 1985-86
31
Top 20 centres by retail floorspace in 1991-2
32
Top 20 centres of retail floorspace in 2000
33
Trends in retailing in Melbourne
  • Figures for 2003 would show more increases,
    (remember only out of top 20).
  • Stand-alone shopping malls are increasing in size
    and dominance in the higher order end of
    retailing.
  • However the CBD retains its predominant role

34
The challenge for planners
  • Stand alone shopping malls are a problem for
    planning policy makers. They
  • Are mostly car-based
  • Have a negative impact on the economic viability
    of more traditional centres
  • Are owned by large (and powerful) capital
    investors
  • Continue to want to expand.

35
The challenge for planners
  • The problems associated with increased car
    dependency and dispersal must be addressed by
  • Strategic policy e.g. Melbourne 2030 or
    international examples
  • Integration of land use and transport planning
    e.g. Transit Cities program
  • Protection and promotion of traditional shopping
    strips

36
The challenge for planners
  • Economic development to ensure local employment
    opportunities and vitality of local areas
  • Urban design which encourages walking etc
  • Location of further housing around activity
    centres and public transport nodes
  • Local area plans to address specific problems and
    develop individually tailored solutions.
  • --------------

37
Activity Centre Planning
  • RMIT University
  • Environment and Planning Program
  • 4th and 5th July 2003
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