Brisbane's urban planning 'average' and making residents sick, expert Brent Toderian says
Brisbane’s urban sprawl and the over-reliance on cars is slowly killing us, an international expert in urban planning warns.
One-time Vancouver chief city planner Brent Toderian said Brisbane’s planning is average — at best — and the city needs to lift its game.
Mr Toderian is in the River City to meet with designers and health specialists about how to come up with a “cure”.
Tactical urbanism
- Street scapes
- Turning car parks into public spaces
- Walkability
- Connecting bike paths and foot paths
- More green space
“The most generous I can be is to call Brisbane average, maybe even below average in the context of Australian cities,” he said.
“I would probably give Brisbane a rating of just four or five out of 10.
“[It] is resting on its laurels a bit.”
Mr Toderian was brought to Australia by the Heart Foundation, which is championing a change in the way we design our cities so that we can live healthier, happier lives.
He said “a lot of the good things” were done quite a while ago, like investing in busways, pedestrianizing down town and the South Bank development.
The most liveable Australian cities 2017
- Sydney (no.10)
- Melbourne (no.15)
- Perth (no.21)
- Adelaide (no.27)
- Canberra (no.28)
- Brisbane (no.36)
(Mercer’s global survey ranking in brackets)
“Sitting is one of the worst things you can do for your public health,” he said.
“By building sprawl, we are still building fundamentally sick environments.
“We have designed exercise out of our daily lives. Whereas we used to design both cities and suburbs in a way where exercise was a part of your daily life.”
Source
Lexy Hamilton-Smith
ABC News
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