The Future of the Fringe: The Crisis in Peri-Urban Planning

© Michael Buxton and Andrew Butt 2020

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Contents

Introduction

PART I: Peri-urban concepts, policy and practice

1Understanding the peri-urban

City and countryside

Concept of the peri-urban landscape

Cities, place and scale

Spatial scale

Temporal scale

2Conceptualising peri-urban regions

Towards a peri-urban theory

Urban-rural continuum

Spatial relationships

Production and consumption

Counter-urbanisation

Structure and function in peri-urban analysis

Peri-urban resilience

3Planning and policy for peri-urban protection

Constraining the city: green belts and urban edges

Emergence of green belts as policy and practice

UK green belt policy

Land use and the green belt: multi-purpose or homogeneous land uses

Urban growth boundaries

Approaches to green belt protection

4Land markets, land supply and price and the peri-urban fringe

Land supply, demand and price

An integrated approach to land supply

Location and land price

Developer interest

Spatial planning and peri-urban land value

5Regionalism and peri-urban development

Thinking regionally about the peri-urban

Australian regionalism

Regions and the sequencing of change

Rural-residential development

Urbanisation, land subdivision and agriculture

6Liveable peri-urban spaces

Concept of liveability

Rural amenity and well-being

Risk and liveability

Inundation and sea level rise

Bushfire risk

Climate change and risk

Liveability and adaptation

Liveability on the metropolitan fringe

PART II: Peri-urban issues: an Australian context

7Australian green belts

Policy context

Sydney green belt

Adelaide green belt

Melbourne green belt

Lessons from the Australian green belt experience

8Population change in peri-urban Australia

Australia’s population geography and the place of peri-urban regions

Conceptualising the social processes of change

Australian regions and population change

Peri-urban case studies

Population trends

Age and migration

Commuting and work

Housing and households

Conclusion

9Peri-urban agriculture

Vulnerability and threat

Australian agricultural change

Positioning peri-urban farming

Impacts of urbanisation on production

Why peri-urban agriculture is important

10 Biodiversity, natural resources and peri-urban regions

Importance of biodiversity

Urban and peri-urban biodiversity

Natural resource values and peri-urban catchment management

Peri-urban land tenure

Rethinking land use

11 The practice of peri-urban planning

Importance of spatial planning

Case studies: peri-urban regions

Planning for growth

Planning to prevent growth

Integrated planning

Conclusion: peri-urban futures

References

Index

Introduction

Peri (peripheral) urban areas (peri – around, about or beyond) are those non-urban areas adjacent to or surrounding metropolitan settlements. They are under unprecedented global pressure for change. Population increases and migrations to the urban fringes, suburbanisation, spatial fragmentation of land, resource depletion, and loss of traditional forms of land use, especially agriculture, along with other development trends, are exerting often irresistible pressure on increasingly scarce peri-urban resources. Habitat is under increasing threat although remnant flora and fauna on the fringes of cities are often highly significant for biodiversity values. The impact of changing land use on the quality of wetlands, waterways and estuarine areas presents serious challenges for urban and rural water systems and the habitats these support.

Planning for the future of these areas is challenging. Peri-urban landscapes often defy a simple categorisation between urban and rural land uses, and multiple planning objectives for habitat, urban resources, future urban land, farming land and a range of other uses often complicate priorities. Consequently, planning policy and practice for peri-urban regions remain contested and solutions are elusive, yet addressing a planning agenda for these areas is vital for urban and rural futures alike.

Peri-urban areas are vitally important for the values they embody, and for the future liveability of their regions and nearby urban areas. They provide resources, such as sand and stone, and sites for major infrastructure, such as dams and airports, and the settings for recreation and tourist services. They are reservoirs of biological diversity, producers of high-value agricultural goods and often areas of great beauty. Environmental values in peri-urban areas are diverse. They include natural habitats; amenity, scenic, recreational and productive landscapes; and the water quality of rivers and streams. Peri-urban areas provide important physical and mental health benefits for the people who live in them and for those in adjoining cities as places for relaxation, recreation and renewal. Such benefits make a crucial contribution to the liveability of metropolitan centres and to the well-being of residents in cities and regions.

Debate about the future of peri-urban areas is closely related to discussion on the need for limits to human consumption of resources. Governments, communities and planners have long tended to recognise the need to limit urban expansion, with mixed success. Yet peri-urban areas are under threat from development as never before. The rate of change of peri-urban areas and its extent is increasing from an already high base. In this century of urbanisation, already over half the world’s human population lives in large urban settlements. This figure is projected to increase to three-quarters of the population of some countries, and it is already high in many developed economies. Relentless urbanisation has consumed large areas of land, also increasing the value of the peri-urban land and causing transitions in land use beyond urban areas. Given their proximity to urban expansion, peri-urban regions collectively represent a vital global natural resource essential for the future of humanity and the maintenance of natural values. The accessibility of these regions is the greatest threat to their future. These areas are crucial to our perception of ourselves as living within the limits imposed by a natural world, in contrast to a future dominated by massive urban agglomerations, subsuming or modifying all forms of nature. Peri-urban areas are places that are seemingly beyond an urban imprint yet close enough to be accessible to urban communities for leisure, resources and lifestyle. As a result, they provide a visible insight to radically different notions of what it is to be human, and of the future of humanity and the Earth.

Paradoxically, these natural environments, so attractive to people and investment, can act as instruments of their own destruction. High-amenity peri-urban locations, in particular, draw increasing numbers of people as residents and visitors, extinguishing many of the features that make these areas so valuable. Yet, as in the urban fringes of many metropolitan areas, living in peri-urban areas can also impose stresses on residents through increased travel times to work, longer distances between destinations, the lack of conventional services, and isolation.

The widespread development of peri-urban areas, through either urban or rural-residential development, denies a range of possible futures. Humans will need to adapt quickly to changed environmental conditions as a result of climate change, the loss of natural capital and the depletion of natural resources. Uncertainty about the future demands the maintenance of future options. In this century of unprecedented change, it is essential that we retain the widest possible choices over the future of land uses. No land use is more permanent than suburbanisation, as it both changes and fragments land. Peri-urban areas can provide valuable areas on the periphery of cities where innovative responses can assist in the process of human adaptation to rapid change. We lose their potential contributions at our peril.

Decisions about land use are at the centre of the debate about the future of peri-urban regions. Resources in these regions often continue to be used unsustainably. Only integrated strategic decision-making which looks to the far distant future can solve existing problems and prevent serious new ones from emerging. Considerations of the future of peri-urban areas need to include the full range of interacting social, natural resource, agricultural, economic, land use and environmental trends that are evident in these contested landscapes. This should extend to considering the adequacy of institutional, legislative, policy and other instruments which can be put in place to manage these trends.

Yet there has probably never been a time of more fragmented governmental institutional and policy responses, nor a greater need for integrated policy development for the management of peri-urban land and water resources. Policies relating to the social, environmental and economic dimensions of human settlement in peri-urban areas, and to their impacts on soil and water quality, catchment management, marine environments and other natural resources, are usually developed as sectoral responses to problems. ­Inadequate strategic thinking, an absence of cross-sectoral policy integration, and the lack of effective protective measures, are normal. This status quo reflects the institutional structures in government and is leading to ongoing conflict and management failures.

The national and international literature identifies a wide range of options available to planners and policy-makers to manage peri-urban areas. There is a continuum of potential policy responses ranging from regulatory measures through to incentives, market-based instruments and voluntary initiatives. Experience strongly suggests that an integrated range of complementary policy initiatives involving all levels of government will be required to protect vital peri-urban resources. With few exceptions, largely deregulated land use planning systems coupled with fragmented sectoral policies dominate decisions about the future of Australian peri-urban areas. There is convincing evidence that leaving decisions on the future of these areas to market forces leads to high social, economic and environmental costs, and a legacy of serious public problems.

Billions of people enjoy the values and use the resources of peripheral areas. The significance of the gradual loss of these areas is often only fully understood when they are fully gone. If we allow this future to eventuate, then we condemn future generations to never knowing what they have lost because of our failure.

Until this century, peri-urban areas remained understudied and undervalued. This book attempts to redress this relative lack of attention in Australia. It seeks to build on an extensive body of research into peri-urban areas conducted over the past 20 years at RMIT, Griffith, La Trobe (Bendigo) and Melbourne Universities, and to integrate the important work of other researchers from Australia and other countries. The RMIT University-led research has resulted in the publication of 11 major monographs, numerous refereed articles, book chapters and other publications. It has contributed to policy development by several Australian governments on urban growth boundaries, green belts and rural zones, has influenced governmental responses to bushfire, and has raised the level of academic and community debate. Many academic and consultant researchers have contributed to this body of work, including Michael Buxton, George Tieman, Darryl Low Choy, Robin Goodman, Jan Scheurer, Kath Phelan, Lucy Groenhart, Andrew Butt, Trevor Budge, Amaya Alvarez, Melissa Kennedy, Sarah Bekessy, Stephen Farrell, Bill Fish, Liz Taylor, Albert Llausas Pascual, Rachel Carey, Danny O’Neill, Dave Mercer and Matthew Coote. The work has also led to a body of post-graduate research. Other RMIT researchers have made important contributions to peri-urban research, such as staff in major program elements led by Billie Giles-Corti and Sarah Bekessy in the Centre for Urban Research, and Marco Amati who has undertaken research into green belts.

This book consists of two Parts comprising 11 chapters, which describe and analyse Australian peri-urban landscapes and related issues, and place them in an international context. It provides reflection on themes and issues in both peri-urbanisation as a process and as an area of policy, with an emphasis on approaches to land use planning through various contexts and examples.

Part I, comprising the first six chapters, addresses international peri-urban policy, practice and related concepts and issues. It draws on extensive international literature primarily from the US, Canada, the UK and Europe, though with some emphasis on developing countries. Part II, comprising Chapters 7–11, specifically examines Australian sectoral issues, drawing from this international literature.

Chapter 1 provides a brief historical context, introduces the concepts of place and scale and offers ways to interpret peri-urban regions.

Chapter 2 provides an introductory theoretical context and presents different conceptual ways to understand peri-urban change, in particular, spatial relationships, productive and consumption landscapes, counter-urbanisation and the notions of structure, function and resilience.

Chapter 3 examines green belts and urban growth boundaries internationally and in Australia with particular emphasis on the UK, the US and Australia. It analyses contentious issues such as the debate between advocates of multi-functional or homogeneous land uses in green belts, the effectiveness of urban growth boundaries, and methods of protection.

Chapter 4 analyses the particularly contentious issues of land supply and price arising from debates about the effects of green belts and urban growth boundaries on land markets. It draws on lessons from the national and international literature to examine related issues such as the influence of location, city type and developer activity on both land supply and price, and the effectiveness of regulatory policy.

Chapter 5 places peri-urban development in the broader context of regional trends internationally and in Australia. It examines the history of Australian regional development and the issues of development beyond the borders of green belts into regions, rural residential development, and the impacts internationally of urbanisation and subdivision on peri-urban agriculture.

Chapter 6 is concerned with the concept of liveability as applied to peri-urban areas and related concepts of attractiveness, well-being and rural amenity. The chapter examines risk and vulnerability of peri-urban areas to climate change, flooding and bushfire. It compares the Australian and US experience with bushfire and asks whether some peri-urban areas will become uninhabitable in coming decades due to their inability to adapt to change, with profound implications for future liveability.

Part II examines Australian policy and practice on the use of green belts and urban growth boundaries, and policy in three Australian peri-urban sectors: population, agriculture and biodiversity.

Chapter 7 examines the history of Australian green belts and urban growth boundaries, illustrates Australian trends with case studies of Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne and draws lessons from the Australian experience.

Chapter 8 provides demographic detail on the population characteristics of peri-urban areas including numbers of residents, their age, origins, income, employment and education characteristics and commuting patterns. It also examines reasons for population movements to Australian peri-urban areas.

Chapter 9 demonstrates the importance of peri-urban agriculture, its locational advantages and its contribution to Australian food security. The chapter analyses the characteristics of peri-urban farming, providing details of types of agriculture and their locations and outputs, and examines the factors affecting peri-urban farming in Australia.

Chapter 10 is concerned with the biodiversity and natural resources of peri-urban areas. It demonstrates their importance nationally and the contribution they make to nearby urban areas. The chapter shows the important contribution that peri-urban public land reserves make to biodiversity conservation and explains that the threats to species are increasing, particularly on private land, because of the inadequacy of land use planning measures.

Chapter 11 examines the operation of strategic planning and planning systems in Australian peri-urban areas through two case studies of planning practice, one planning for growth in the south-east Queensland region, and the other planning to contain growth in the Victorian Upper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges region. The chapter compares two approaches to the issues of land supply, subdivision and protection of landscapes and natural resources.

The book ends with a Conclusion chapter, which discusses the critical role that peri-urban areas will play in the future of urban settlements in a time of radical change. It argues that a return to more regulated spatial planning systems and integrated cross-sectoral governance arrangements, in place of the dominant neo-liberal governance model, will be essential for the maintenance of peri-urban values.

PART I

PERI-URBAN CONCEPTS, POLICY AND PRACTICE

1

Understanding the peri-urban

City and countryside

Cities have always maintained relationships between urban areas and open spaces inside and outside urban boundaries. Historically, cities developed up to a defined limit. The boundaries of ancient and medieval cities were often determined by a wall enclosing a range of uses and urban spaces, such as squares and entertainment areas. Girouard (1985) and von der Dollen (1990) have shown how the edges of the built-up areas of cities were progressively transformed in Europe from the Middle Ages by the relocation of uses, such as monasteries, hospitals, noxious industries or palaces, and by the spread of housing. New towns often grew out of settlements on the fringes of old towns, and were enclosed by a second wall. Ribbon developments tended to radiate along arterial routes from the town gates as precursors to suburban developments. The transition from urban to suburban to peri-urban spaces marked the types of changes in social and economic life in cities and in transport technologies.

Strong relationships existed between town-dwellers and countrysides arising out of the physical proximity of the town to surrounding rural areas. As towns developed up to and outside their walls, they increasingly relied on agricultural produce from farms in the countryside. Mumford (1961:333) described the ‘persistently rural character of the medieval town’, which arose from both quick access from town to country for recreation and a range of other activities, and the large areas of open space within town and city limits. He argued that up to the 19th century many European towns which had not grown significantly from medieval times retained gardens and orchards. ‘The typical medieval,’ he stated, ‘had a far higher standard for the mass of the population than any later form of town, down to the first romantic suburbs of the 19th century’. Von der Dollen (1990:328) supported this argument, claiming that in medium-sized towns and large cities ‘usually, sufficient space was enclosed within the second town wall circuit to cope with growth up to the inaugural phases of industrialization’. For example, of 405 ha enclosed within the walls of Cologne in 1815, over a quarter was still in agricultural use (Stoob 1979 cited in von der Dollen 1990). Much of Rome was used for vineyards or grazing well into the 18th century, including the Forum and Colosseum which were used for sheep grazing (Haskell and Penny 1981).

Open spaces within medieval urban areas generally comprised private gardens, public spaces such as markets, squares and parks, royal parks and areas of land such as open areas around cathedrals (Mumford 1961). During the 17th and 18th centuries, European cities, such as Paris, London, Berlin and Vienna, developed promenading spaces for citizens. City and town walls began to be pulled down and their footprint used as open space or developed as parkland, particularly through tree planting. Large areas of formerly royal parkland became available for public use, or were subdivided into farms. The Bath model of combined housing and parkland developments, first seen in Royal Crescent in 1767–1774, was widely imitated. It first appeared in London in the early 19th century through the St John’s Wood, and then in John Nash’s Regent Park developments. This ‘mixture of city and country’ led to the combination of villas and parklands that spread all over Britain from c.1820 (Girouard 1985:279).

The setting aside of large areas of parkland within cities arose from a desire to perpetuate the union between countryside and city. The 19th-century parklands movement was aided by the 19th-century Romantic preoccupation with nature, and a growing concern with public health and the overcrowding and diseases associated with cities. Parks were established for public benefits. They were seen as places which could provide for a range of natural and recreational uses, help break up polluting industrial uses and clean the air. In many new cities, including those created in Australia, large areas of parkland were set aside, often in inner parkland rings, as in Melbourne and Adelaide. Melbourne’s extensive network of inner-city parkland was originally conceived by Robert Hoddle as a parkland ring for the city. Similarly, expanding old European cities, such as Berlin, often provided extensive areas of parkland and lakes for recreation inside the cities and on their fringes.

The 19th-century concern for the countryside and its protection emanated mainly from an intellectual and affluent minority. However, increased social and spatial mobility in the 20th century expanded the connections between city and country, creating today’s global spaces ‘where city and country folk meet’ (Friedmann 2010:152). Increasing numbers of people have been able to live in regional or rural locations and work in cities, or to live in cities and gain easy access to rural locations for recreation and other purposes. These trends were assisted by a romanticised view of the countryside and a rising middle class, and have led to increasing conflict between land uses. The result was ‘a breakdown of the division between town and country, and the gradual erosion of the power base of rural landowners, as urban populations extended their influence into the countryside’ (Blacksell and Gilg 1981:1).

Nevertheless, a long tradition in western countries conceptually separates city from countryside. The city has often been viewed with suspicion, as has its capacity, whether real or imagined, to change the countryside. This tradition draws from many sources, including the Enlightenment, the Romantic Era and the 1960s Counter-culture movement. It is also based practically on the desire of large numbers of people to protect lifestyles and agricultural, environmental and other rural values. Bourne et al. (2003) summarised such positions: ‘Leo Marx contrasted the country and the city as two worlds, one identified with rural peace and simplicity, the other with urban power and sophistication:’ (1964:18–19). Williams (1973) wrote that the image of the country versus the city was one of the deep paradoxes of western culture. The strong historical and personal connections between urban dwellers and nearby rural areas have perhaps best been captured by literary expressions. Herman Melville wrote of this connection in Moby Dick:

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon … Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries … But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster – tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone?

To Ishmael, the main character in Moby Dick, only a return to timeless nature outside cities, represented by oceans, could regenerate individuals and enable them to discover life’s meaning. The renewing power of nature and its links to personal identity are captured in modern arguments about the importance of rural areas around cities for human health, urban liveability and mental well-being. This message has particular resonance in a world where already over 50% of us live in cities, a figure predicted to rise to 70%. Such vast urban agglomerations are the antithesis of nature, obliterating all signs of