Urban plans, density and the middle class

Noel Pearson's 2010 John Button Oration (highly recommended - listen here) got me thinking about the relationship between urban plans (such as Melbourne 2030) and the relationship between it and various economic classes (especially the middle class).

To summarise, the intellectual middle class says what ought to be built and the capitalist landowning class goes off and builds, taking a risk in return for a possible profit. While planning regulations (largely drafted and interpreted by the middle-class) have some influence, the capitalist can apply the ultimate sanction, ie choosing not to build if they see no profit. This puts a limit on the strictness (or 'unworkability') of planning regulations, otherwise undersupply will be the result.

Urban planning can be seen as a tussle between a portion of the middle class (either as bureaucrats, academics or activist residents) and the capitalist upper class. The working class has a role as consumers through housing and shopping preferences. There is thus a consumer-producer relationship between the working class and the capitalist (if buying a project home for example), but the relationship between the working class and middle class is very limited.

I previously described Melbourne 2030 as a plan that favours the grouping of certain land uses (cafes, galleries, educational establishments and higher density housing) around transport hubs.

Favoured land uses represent the interests of the humanities-educated portion of the middle class plus some perceived working-class wants (or should haves). The latter being desirable to foster 'diversity' and 'inclusion'. Certain other land uses, such as bulky goods retail, fast-food and (especially) light industrial, are not part of the academic's world so tend not to feature prominently in their plans. Ignoring them does not make these uses go away, instead they go to the periphery without public transport or pedestrian access (Tullamarine and Laverton North spring to mind).

Lacking capital, the interested middle classes (especially academics, bureaucrats and council planners) use plans to advance what they see as the public (or is it their?) interest against the capitalist landowning class. To the extent that they are implemented they advance the former group's quality of life and aesthetic sensibilities. A Marxist analysis would also see city planning as part of a broader contest between intellectual and capital, with each group wanting their strength to prevail.

The middle class, even its humanity educated portion, is not homogeneous. As often played out in The Age, it is deeply split on the question of housing density.

There is what I would call the 'technocratic' or 'urbanist' middle class which favours higher densities for a more compact, less sprawling city better able to be served by public transport and other services. A substantial proportion of this group would have lived in or visited overseas cities with higher densities than ours. Some may work in planning. Their arguments are both environmental and economic, with the economic one being an echo of Le Corbusier's vision of cities as being 'machines for living in'. While it is another debate, this group may be quite relaxed about the city's capacity to house a higher population (though being quite well paid they will always be able to afford to live in the city's 'better' areas).

There is common ground between this group and developers (whose profit increases with density, since fixed costs can be spread across more units). The developers need this group to argue their case, while the urbanists need the developers to allow their preferred city form to be built.

Opposed to densification (at least in their backyard) is another faction of the middle class. 'Suburban protectionists' are less enamoured with high-rise and go by names such as 'Save our Suburbs'. This group professes a wish to preserve their neighbourhood's quiet streets, leafy verges and an always-free parking spot in front of the house. High-density is also thought by residents to be associated with crime, especially if 'outsiders not like us' (eg public housing tenants) move in. Hence NIMBYs ('Not in My Back Yard') are vulnurable to accusations of xenophobia or selfishness. While another (though related) debate, protectionists often question the benefits of continued population growth in our big cities, and may propose decentralisation (for others of course) to lessen pressures on our bigger cities.

As homeowners,suburban protectionists' key economic interest is their house value.

This is especially so for the middle-class.

The biggest determinant of wealth in Australia is whether you live in your own home or rent (those who both rent and invest are a small, savvy minority). Poor people are by and large not homeowners, so values are irrelevant to them. Then there's the rich. While they may live in nice homes the genuinely financially independent hold most of their wealth (80 - 99%) in other assets, such as their own businesses, rental properties, shares and the like. In contrast the middle-class person's home is their biggest asset, with most of their other wealth (superannuation) being untouchable until retirement. Hence concern that a development may lower house values is quintessentially a middle-class concern.

The relationship that high density leads to better public transport is also disputed. 2004 - 2008 for instance saw a train patronage boom but no commensurate service increase. And if higher traffic slows buses and trams, their efficiency will fall without priority. Academic support (in the sense that successful public transport is more a function of service planning than density) is offered by Paul Mees of RMIT.

To conclude, planning and the argy-bargy that goes with it, is a game between a protectionist middle class and a capitalist class (legitimised by a technocratic middle class). The middle class has brains but no capital. The capitalists have money and can co-opt as many middle-class minds as necessary. The middle-class itself is divided. Hence we generally get a largely market-oriented plan with some urbanist features such as denser activity centres and protectionist features such a (movable) urban growth boundary.

Behind the clocks: Sights and sounds of Flinders Street Station

Thousands pass through Flinders Street Station each day. However most try to spend as little time there as possible. And hurried daily users have little reason to go beyond the platforms they need.

Flinders Street Station turned 100 this year. Its condition has also been raised as an election issue, with the Liberal opposition promising a design competition to redevelop the station.

It's worth taking a leisurely wander to appreciate this grand old building. Walkers are exhorted to keep right - indicating that pedestrian congestion was high. 'Do not spit' tiles are testament to the early 20th century hygiene movement and influenza plagues. And carved signs indicate a single-function permanence absent from newer buildings.

Sounds are equally important. Water run-off, the varying character of manual announcements and the horns of trains indicate movement or intended movement. The steps of commuters provide a dull, uneven beat to buskers, whose notes bounce off hard subway walls.

See and hear all this and more in the video below.

Some high quality historical pictures of Flinders Street Station appear at Melbourne Curious.

Connectivity mapping and the interisland ferry

To date Melbourne on Transit has not covered ferries. This is because, unlike Sydney, Brisbane or Perth, they are not an established part of city public transport. And while proposals for commuter ferries are sometimes made, all trials of them have been unsuccessful.

This may be because Melbourne has an extensive rail network that largely follows the populated coast, serving areas such as Williamstown, Brighton, Frankston and Geelong that might otherwise support a ferry service. In addition the narrow Yarra does not divide the city like the much wider Sydney harbour, so land modes dominate travel to every suburb, with ferries strictly for tourists.

Outside Melbourne

However outside Melbourne there are two ferries that provide a service more direct than is possible by road. These are Portsea to Queenscliffe across the mouth of Port Phillip and the Interisland Ferry between Stony Point, French Island and Phillip Island. The operators of both these services are granted an exclusive licence to serve these routes by the Department of Transport.

The Interisland ferry serves three locations; the mainland outpost of Stony Point, the uninhabited nature reserve of French Island and the tourist and motor racing hub of Phillip Island.

The timetables are presented in tabular form on the Interisland website, with tables for each island. Only departure and travel times are shown, so arrivals must be estimated. Trips mostly operate beween Stony Point and Phillip Island via French Island, but sometimes the order is different, or services only serve two locations.

Transport operators normally provide a tabular timetable and separate map to help passengers plan their trips. This suits the whole range of service levels; from a weekly bus to an intensely served tram line.

However if only a few trips run per day and route variations exist, as is often true for country services, it’s sometimes more informative to combine the map and timetable on the one sheet. Each trip would have its own line between locations, like a train graph. And instead of being on a table the arrival and departure times would be written near the end of each line.

As well as being good for spacial thinkers, a graphical timetable tells much more about how the service works. The user can follow each vehicle around its run and identify relationships between trips, such as what forms what or how many vehicles are used, that are not disclosed on a table.

Below is a timetable-map made from departure lists on the Interisland ferry website.

I have arbitrarily seperated trips into six runs (not all daily) operating from Stony Point. These show how one ferry can run a variety of trips around the islands from morning until night.

The most common trip is between Stony Point and Phillip Island via French Island. However there is also a direct Stony Point – French Island return service and a trip from Stony Point direct to Phillip Island and then French Island.

Other transport

The only other public transport serving Stony Point is the train to Frankston. This is a country-style diesel service that connects with electric trains to Melbourne. Both the train and ferry have uneven intervals between trips; in the train’s case due to a single track, and for the ferry because the operating pattern includes several trip variations.

The ferry runs a basic 7-day timetable, with extra or deleted services depending on the day of the week. In contrast, like most land transport routes, the train has different times for weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

As well as the ferry, Phillip Island (whose east is joined to the mainland by road) has a coach service operating to several locations including Melbourne CBD. Although longer as the crow flies, this involves fewer changes than the two trains and ferry route via Frankston and Stony Point.

Showing connectivity

A full multimodal timetable-map for the area would have at least three versions – one for each day pattern. This would show connectivity in a more graphical form and make analysis of it easier. Each train and ferry trip could be shown graphically, with waiting times given for each connection.

The map above takes some short-cuts including showing all days on the one map and listing rather than drawing train arrivals and departures. Connectivity from Melbourne CBD is also not shown; potentially an issue on Sunday mornings where the service that feeds the first train to Stony Point is not a Metro train but a NightRider Bus.

Nevertheless having all times on the one sheet allows easier comparisons of connections. And by being able to see where a train or ferry is at a particular time, including dwell times, a graphical format should make it possible to check if any proposed time changes would increase or lessen connectivity.

Limitations

Even the best timetable presentation method may not necessarily correspond with how services are actually run. An example is the habit of some schedulers to round travel times down in the early part of the trip but add the minutes back between the second last and last timepoints. The benefit here is that though the service may appear a couple of minutes late when passing some timepoints, it arrives at the destination on time. This may lessen early running and waiting at timepoints. Early running, in particular, is objectionable, and performance standards treat it more harshly than minor late running.

In the case of the ferry, the first Sunday train arriving at Stony Point (arriving 8:01am) would appear to just miss the ferry (timetabled departure 8:00am). However my understanding (gathered when researching this piece) is that although pasengers are asked to be at Stony Point well before the departure time, in practice the ferry will wait for the train, making an apparently impossible connection work.