The urban villages project in Victoria: a critique

Abstract

A few years ago, the State of Victoria embarked on a project, the Urban Villages Project, aimed at making Melbourne environmentally sustainable. A document called the Urban Villages Report was published in 1996, outlining the strategies for overcoming automobile dependence and reducing transport-generated greenhouse gas emissions and other atmospheric pollutants. This thesis examines the strategy, contained in the Urban Villages Report, for overcoming Melbourne's overdependence on the automobile and curbing transport-generated emissions. The study has found that the Report seems to support the interventionist strategy of urban compaction and mixed use, advocated by Newman and Kenworthy. However, the computer modelling technique used to forecast the anticipated savings on fossil fuels and greenhouse gases used the economic rationalist strategy of job self-containment, advocated by Brotchie and O'Connor. The thesis argues that while the urban compaction and mixed-use strategy makes sense and is supported by trends in Melbourne's development, the economic rationalist strategy of job self-containment does not seem to be supported by trends in Melbourne's development. The study has found that job self-containment in Melbourne has not necessarily led to the existence of urban village-structure developments, and is not positively related to a modal shift towards the more sustainable modes of urban transportation, i.e. public transport, cycling and walking. This brings to question the efficacy of the strategy for I overcoming automobile dependence and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Melbourne.