Urban Containment And Sustainable Water Supplies: A Critical Analysis Of The Australian Bourneville Case Study

Do a critical analysis of the Australian Bourneville model community case study as a basis to discuss urban containment and sustainable water supplies.

The Relationship between Sustainability and Urban Form

  The relationship between sustainability and urban form is a topic of discussion that has raised concern on the international environmental agenda. Essentially individuals and societies are defined by the political beliefs, social networks as well as the place they live, or they were raised. These factors determine what they believe and what they need to coexist efficiently. Studying the settlements provided for people can serve as a basis to gauge the level of respect for human rights, the desire to conserve and enrich the environment as well as maintain good economics. To ensure that urban settlement areas are well contained and several sustainable factors have to be considered, (Davoudi and Sturzaker, 2017). The United Nations has put in place sustainable development goals and the second goal purposes explicitly to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and durable.

Placemaking principles are very crucial in urban containment and sustainable water supplies for both urban and rural living in Australia and all over the world in general. What a town feels and looks like in the street, and the neighbourhood level is an essential factor in determining the people, the business and the investment in the area. The resilience and the health of any city are also highly dependent on the physical setting of that city, the activities taking place in the town and the quality of a home in general. This paper is a critical analysis of the Australian Bourneville model community case study as a basis to discuss urban containment and sustainable water supplies.

The sustainability concept is very complicated especially when it comes to the urban context. Sustainability involves economic, social and environmental issues and for urban areas to achieve sustainable development all these three issues have to be considered and be well balanced. The planning and development of cities have an impact that directly affects the economic and social sustainability since it affects the depletion of the resource. Water is one of those resources that any urban city needs to sustain its population as well as the various activities , therefore, ensuring sustainable water supplies is crucial in future urban planning. Industrial philanthropy and placemaking main aim is to improve the quality of life by establishing viable settlement areas for employees.

In 1920 January, Cadbury company representatives William Cooper and Quakers Thomas met in Sydney with a mission to build a new factory and Bourneville seemed to possess all the location factors the company was looking for. The climate was cool, and the beauty of the site was irresistible even though the new location would increase logistic cost through extra transportation costs. This decision was the genesis of Garden cities surrounding factories since the imported employees to the factory would require quality settlements with supporting social facilities.

Placemaking Principles in Urban Containment and Sustainable Water Supplies

  The size of cities has always been a concern since towns began to grow. Rome is one of the first cities that had a population of more than one million people in the ancient times. There are series of Imperial edicts issued during the first and second century that aimed at limiting the spread of this city. The courts of Tudor Kings and Queens made similar pronouncements in the sixteenth century to limit the range of London city. However, during the middle of the 18th century, the industrial revolution began, and it contributed to the rapid growth of cities in Britain, (Batty et al., 2003). Urban growth used to be considered as a sprawl; however, in the modern days, urban growth is deemed to be the unplanned and uncoordinated expansion of community regardless of its social, economic and environmental impact. Whenever the population in urban areas grows the new population is accommodated around their suburbs, and this contributes to urban growth.

According to Franz et al., for us to understand urban growth and find the appropriate solution to urban sprawl we have to study and understand its causes. There are several existing literature that gives the reasons for the urban growth and research all those factors will help us formulate and implement the appropriate mechanisms for urban containment and sustainable water supplies. The factors affecting urban growth are numerous, and this makes it mplicated to identify the element with more significant influence. It is also worthwhile to note that the factors contributing to urban growth differ between regions, cities and countries, (Christiansen and Loftsgarden, 2011). These factors are highly dependent on the economic, social and political conditions existing in specific cities.

It may be difficult to classify the factors behind urban growth, but they can be categorised into three categories namely micro reasons, meso reasons and macro reasons. The micro reasons involve individual actions and decisions such as leisure, place of work, retailing and the nature of personal housing investments. The second category, that is, meso reasons involves all the space-specific aspects such as local geography, local government, migration, social and cultural condition, local demography and many more. The third category entails all the political and economic issues and trends such as household price, rising income, transport costs, cheap energy as well as globalisation. These factors are evident from the case study where the Cadbury company had to make a compromise to ensure that the company will still make the profit as well as cater for the social welfare of its employees in the settlements.

Factors Contributing to Urban Growth

Considering the three categories of reasons behind urban sprawl we can discuss the following as the factors contributing to urban growth. Population growth is the first factor that contributes to the growth of urban areas. Population growth in urban areas is mainly as a result of migration to the metropolitan area and natural increase in population. Both internal and international movement highly contributes to population growth in urban areas.  For instance, the Cadbury company had to create a new factory in a new location, and this implied that employees coming from various parts had to settle in places near the factory. The company had a suggestion of the preferred settlement designs but had to make a compromise to ensure that the profit margins are not reduced. As a result, this leads to the establishment of low-quality settlements that are poorly planned and this causes strain to the natural resources such as the water supplies. The population growth in urban areas is the main factor to the rapid growth of cities in Europe, and thus urban planning must be done considering the appropriate population estimates.

  Economic growth and globalisation is also considered t be another factor behind the rapid increase in urban areas. Economic growth is closely related to population growth since it attracts people to migrate to urban areas to find employment opportunities and engage in commercial investments. The establishment of the Cadbury company in Bourneville created employment opportunities for both the local people as well as for people outside the area. The increase in per capita income and the number of working persons creates demand for housing and the need for more housing space. This demand calls for the rapid construction of houses by the developers to meet the demand.  However the early development in this urban areas due to the increased demand results into lack of planning and coordination among developers and the government as well as it producing discontinuous events. For the case of the Australian Bourneville case study, the proposed plans were rejected because they seemed too costly for the Cadbury Company. However, the population kept on increasing, and this led to the growth of the town to its suburbs unplanned and uncoordinated leading to strain in the available water supplies in the area.

   European integration is another factor that contributes to the growth of urban areas in Europe since the European Union aims at reducing the economic and social regional differences all over Europe. The European Union not only does it desire to promote economic and social development but also wants to achieve sustainable development. One way of reducing the social and economic difference in the region has been through improvement of accessibility and mobility investments in the long-distance transport network, (EEA, 2006). These transport networks enhance accessibility between member states, but future urban planning should consider the impact of these networks in the growth of a metropolitan area. The Trans-Europe Transport Networks (TEN-T) was designed to achieve accessibility and connectivity in the region, but this encourages migration which highly contributes to the challenges in urban containment and sustainable water supplies.

Population Growth

Competition between municipalities and the price of land also contribute to the growth of urban areas. Land use zoning is a responsibility that entirely lays under the local authorities throughout the European Union member states. The local authorities are therefore responsible for safeguarding and protecting of natural and agricultural land from commercial development and housing, (EEA, 2006).  However, these local authorities need to create revenue, and one way is through encouraging investment in the areas and the long run they become too lenient on reinforcing the urban containment policies kept in place. Land prices in the urban areas are generally high for both housing and development. This makes developers to such low priced land within the peripherals of cities, and this leads to encroachment of land set aside for agriculture and other public use. The competition among local areas to attract investors and create revenue contributes to the uncontrolled and unplanned growth of urban areas.

  Transportation cannot be ignored as one of the factors that contribute to the growth of urban areas. Better transport facilities from the centre of the town to its peripheries encourage cities to expand within their suburbs, (Batty et al., 2003). The development of transport in cities such as metro, buses, train and cars allows people to work in the central business district of the town and conveniently live in the suburbs and this eventually makes a city to expand due to the increase of settlement within its suburbs. The same happened for the Cadbury factory where some workers chose to stay in the neighbouring towns such as Hobart. Regulatory policies also play a critical role in the growth of urban cities. Countries with strict and effective land use policies and a government that implements these policies are more likely to control the growth of its towns well.

The unplanned and uncoordinated growth of urban areas has so many effects that are why it has become a topic of discussion in modern philanthropy and placemaking.  These effects have economic, social and environmental impacts for both the urban areas and the rural suburbs.

Understanding these effects will shade light on the importance of urban containment policies and sustainable water supplies for present and future urban plans. The most common effects of uncontained urban growth include air pollution, increased energy consumption, increased traffic congestion, increased stress on natural resources such as water sources as well as the waste of rural area meant for agriculture and other public use. The uncontrolled growth of urban cities contributes to the increase in the social disparities between the people who leave in the surrounding rural areas and those leaving in the urban centre, (Jehling, Hecht and Herold, 2016). Furthermore, urban growth is closely associated with the increase in costs of development of public infrastructure to take care of the high population. All these effects contribute to reducing the quality of life for the people living in both the rural suburbs and those who leave in the urban cities.

Economic Growth and Globalization

  The growth of urban cities has to be controlled since it directly affects natural resources and energy. Sustainable development entails the efficient and effective use of the natural resources which are non-renewable so that future generations can also benefit. It is an issue of corporate responsibility for organisations such as the Cadbury Company to ensure that their activities and decisions contribute to establishing a sustainable society, (Youn, 2006). The business organisations have to ensure that the quality of life of their employees is preserved as they offer them settlement schemes. Establishment of settlements in the rural suburbs is very costly since the developers have to ensure roads and other social amenities are provided for quality leaving standards.

The growth of urban centres threats the natural environment in the peripherals of these cities. The rural areas are designated for agriculture to ensure food security as well for sustaining the various natural ecosystems, (Marcotullio, 2017). The land in the rural plays a significant role in preserving native species of trees and animals, water retention and storage as well as for recreation purposes. The growth of urban cities increases stress on the natural ecosystem through the invasion of such land for settlements and also causing air pollution that negatively affects the natural ecosystems. The loss of these reserved lands for settlements leads to displacement of animals such as birds and loss of native species of plants. This process also disrupts the local farming activities in the area thus contributing to food shortages and more demand for water and fertilisers to sustain the increased population, (Roon, 2007). For instance, in the Australian Bourneville case study, the site that was chosen for the settlement of new employees for the factory was supporting plants and animals, and they had to be destroyed to pave the way for developers to establish housing units for settlement.

Apart from the environmental and economic impact of the growth of urban cities, there is a social implication of this phenomenon. There is a difference between the income and the purchasing power of the people living in the rural areas and those who leave in cities. Therefore, there is going to be a gap between the people staying in the suburban areas and this will cause the social imbalance in the society, (Nelson and Dawkins, 2016.) Social interaction is significant to establish a cohesive society that will encourage coexistence of its members.

European Integration

As much as the growth of urban areas has several contrary social, economic and implications, it also has some positive effects. One of the positive results is that the people residing in the rural areas have more space since they are low-density areas. The level of pollution both noise and air pollution is low compared to the urban cities, and there is also no traffic congestion. Establishing settlements in these areas is also advantageous to both the developers and the residents. The developers acquire land at a lower cost thus the cost of development becomes low, and even the residents can enjoy low rental and mortgage rates.

In Europe and all over the world land use and planning is under the national government and the local government in those areas, (Bengston and Youn, 2006). To prevent the loss of valued land resources to the development and growth of cities, several urban containment policies have been formulated to safeguard the land and the natural resources.

The urban containment policies are among the more efficient mechanism used to manage the growth of the metropolitan cities globally. The legal framework, the degree of aspiration and the policy instruments in the urban containment policies in various countries are different, but the primary objective is to safeguard the valued land resources and ensure sustainable development, (Hague, 2007).  The urban containment policies are formulated for two purposes. The first purpose is to facilitate and promote accessible and contiguous development with all the necessary facilities. The second purpose is to preserve environmentally sensitive areas, agricultural land and open space that is currently not seemly for any form of development.

The zoning system is widely applied in the European countries Australia included, and this system is similar to the American systems. This system contains detailed plans created for local areas, and these plans give an outline of the kind of developments allowed in a specific area. The zoning system is very efficient in managing the growth of urban cities since it precisely shows the regions where settlement development are permitted and those explicitly designated for agriculture and other natural resources. The zoning system is efficient for urban containment since it clearly shows the limits for urban and non-urban zones thus it becomes easy to implement the policy for sustainable development. The municipal service boundaries, the urban growth boundaries and the greenbelts are the three primary forms of urban containment policies in Europe, (The mayor of London, 2011).  The greenbelt is the most restrictive containment policy among the three, and it has been the most efficient in the areas it has been applied. Therefore if the local authorities had implemented this policy may be the Cadbury factory could not have been situated at that location, and this would not have brought the issue of urban containment and sustainable water supplies.

Competition among Municipalities and Land Use Zoning

Access to safe water supply and sanitation is very important, and the design of urban centers should put this into consideration.  The growth of urban cities to the suburbs puts the available water source under pressure, and this can affect the health conditions of the residents as well as cause social and economic despair, (Shuster and Garmestani, 2015). The unplanned and uncoordinated growth of urban cities is a threat to the sustainable development. In order for the urban and the rural areas to be sustainable, there must be a balance between the population in the area and the available sources of water to prevent depletion of the resources. For instance, in the case study, the establishment of the new factory increased the demand for the available water by the  increased population, and no mechanisms were put in place to ensure that there is a balance between the demand and supply. In order to achieve sustainable development, the government

Conclusion

  Essentially individuals and societies are defined by the political beliefs, social networks as well as the place they live, or they were raised. These factors determine what they believe and what they need to coexist efficiently. The size of cities has always been a concern since cities began to grow. The unplanned and uncoordinated growth of urban areas has so many effects that are why it has become a topic of discussion in industrial philanthropy and placemaking.  These effects have economic, social and environmental impacts for both the urban areas and the rural suburbs. Understanding these effects will shade light on the importance of urban containment policies and sustainable water supplies for present and future urban plans. Countries in Europe which are developing very fast have put policies in place to limit urban sprawl in order for them to achieve sustainable development. In order for countries to achieve sustainable development, they have to ensure these policies are effectively and efficiently implemented.

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