Learning Log
Simone Healy
2714055
San Francisco Bay, November 2007
Activity 1.1
The text was; Chapter One of Planning Australia
What was the reading about? It was an overview of what planning is, according to each different person that writes a chapter in the textbook. They go into a basic overview of the terminology used in the discipline, from Neo Liberalism to the different stakeholders involved in each project.
What are some points that you did not understand very well? I found the whole chapter rather painful; sometimes there were ten or fifteen words that I had to look up in one page. The reading is written solidly but I find it hard to read, whether that be to my lack of concentration at the time on a bus or the lack of active reading.
3. What are some of the new terms and phrases you learned? There were words that I knew but not in the context that the book used them in. For example I knew what modernism meant but not in the right context. I learnt such words like incumbent as well as the phrases like ‘balancing constricting interests’ and ‘having a methodological approach to environmental planning’.
4. Why is this reading important to HOW WE PLAN? Mainly because it gives a summary of each chapter throughout the book discussing what each author considers planning to be. It obviously shows many views and understanding, as most of the writers are academic. It was interesting to see other points of view.
Personal Reflection
To be honest, when I started this course, I had no idea what I was in for. I had no prior recollection of ever knowing what an urban planner did. At highschool I answered a few questions about what I should do with my life in regards to my career, the results revealed an urban planner and a person that makes hats. As you can tell I did not choose the latter option, I spent a year doing a B.A at Southern Cross then transferred to here.
Through this week I have grasped a basic understanding of what planning is. Certain words that I have taken as mine are as follows, which came out of Jason’s lecture. Research, relevance, time management, key concepts, SQ3R and focus points. Jason is different to the Paul Burton and Michael Howes, they all have their strengths and weaknesses although I find Jason’s constant reminders to do the readings amusing as is his professionalism.
With Chris on Friday he looked at the basic aspects of the readings and grouped us in threes to try to get to know other people, which I found reassuring to know that the university wants us to know other people outside our social circles and to try to develop the ‘Group Work’ skills that I am told that are needed in this course. He cleared up some of the questions that I did not understand from Jason’s lecture.
I believe that I know more about this now then I did at the beginning of the week, which is always a good thing when you are stepping on uncertain rocks.
Exercises
In relation to the New Town Video;
What is a planningg system? Planning systems are portrayed in a way that people such as planners, look and delegate resources and areas in order to make the town or place sustainable.
2. How does this cartoon portray planning? The cartoon shows planning as something that the important people come together and look into what the options are, weighing up the pros and cons of each option and coming to a decision. There were options such as building an agricultural area outside the town as somewhat a fence to keep the population inwards and to have the people of the town relocate outwards.
3. Do you think it represents a planning system? Of course it does, but it represents a planning system of a certain time and developmental stage. The video would have been made probably in the seventies or eighties, whereas in this day and age the technological developments are far greater as is the ideas in planner’s heads that can be brought into action. If you compare the Musee k’Dorsay in Paris architecture, below, to the projects that are being brought to life now, such as the sky scrapers of New York, they are of totally different purposes, yes, but the definition of time and place are totally different.
Above: Musee k’Dorsay, Directly Above: Streets of New York
4. Who are the key players involved in planning? The key players are directly related to the stakeholders, as they are roughly the same people. Stakeholders will differ in each state, town and country. For example, if you took into consideration the Tugun Bypass, who would have been the stakeholders in that development?
Tourists – who use it to get to other places
Motorists – who would use it everyday to get to work, avoiding the traffic at Tugun
Animals – as they already live there and cannot stand up for themselves and are sometimes overlooked
Developers - who see the benefits of joining the Elanora/Tugun highway with the bypass, making it easier on motorists, for time and direction
New South Wales state government – who supplied some of the money to build the bypass, three kilometres in N.S.W and four in Q.L.D
Queensland state government – who supplied the rest of the money to finish the project
Tax Payers – N.S.W and Q.L.D, as the money in the other towns paid in tax is distributed throughout the state
Local Community – some may see it as a bonus getting traffic out of Tugun, whereas other business’ may see it as a loss of customers and profit
Plus many, many more that could be discussed.
The Tweed/Gold Coast area, for tourism?
5. What are their roles and responsibilities? Each body of stakeholder or key players have something that they want to do, say or overcome. Motorists want a quicker way to get to work everyday, their role is to advocate for something, whether it be a bypass or something else. Tourists want to see the Gold Coast whether it be passing it by on a highway or having the option to look at the coastline, the tourism industry places pressure to keep both states in pristine condition for the multi million dollar business.
Both state governments have a responsibility to make practical decisions with the help of other stakeholders for what is best overall.
Taxpayers have a role to keep active in knowing and keeping up to date on what is going on in the area. If they are not happy with what is going on where they are then they need to tell someone, how can the council, developer or other body know that they are doing something wrong if they do not know?
6. Is anyone or anything missing from this portrayal? From the video, I would most likely say that what is missing is them factoring in the environment. The clip does not make a link to what they could be doing to the environment that is detrimental, for example they explain the reasoning for moving the industrial estates further away, so the smoke is downwind from the town but they do not make allusions to what they could do to stop the smog. Nor in the new town do they have an agriculture are that is discussed or planned.
Activity 2 Week Two
Exercise 2.1
Review your assigned readings for the past two weeks using the review sheet provided in the assessment folder. Come to the tutorial session prepared to discuss your review. You should be able to answer the following questions:
1. What was the reading about?
2. What are some points that you did not understand very well?
3. What are some of the new terms and phrases you learned?
4. Why is this reading important to HOW WE PLAN?
Looking at Chapters two and three, it discusses what planning is and what it involves. It wasn’t that I did not understand what some of the things meant, it was more that I learned things, for example I did not know how planning dabbles in many disciplines, making it multidisciplinary.
There were many words that I did not understand that I have listed at the end of each week with the definition that I found, to help with my understanding of the topic.
This reading along with what we discussed in the tutorial has made many things clearer in my mind. These are the things mainly I now know. How we plan – we use devices and ideas to plan example; zoning, IPA regulations, visions, grants, domains and communication. We use these to provide a certain aspect of living for the people that we ascertain to be living in the areas that we are building for.
Planners prevent deaths by using land efficiently, for example placing sewerage pipes underground and having the local tip away from the housing district. Queensland planners use domains or zoning to break up the areas that they are planning and allocate where people should live, where business’ should go and where the roads provide transport stops.
Write a 1 page summary for your learning log.
Exercise 2.2
Design a concept map to explain how planning works. What we are looking for is YOUR understanding. For example, you might consider what are the processes that a developer has to go through to get a development approved. Or you may think about how you plan your weekend activities.
Paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.
Escher was a Dutch artist whose lithographs and woodcuts depict imaginary metamorphoses, geometric distortions, and architectural impossibilities.
Pragmatic is dealing or concerned with facts or actual occurrences usually are practical.
Utopian usually mean given to impractical or unrealistic schemes of such perfection.
Homogeneity is the quality of being of uniform throughout in composition or structure
Postmodern (In relation to Planning)is referencing the architecture that was produced in the late twentieth century. It was and still made up of interesting and imaginative forms which alluded to the 1960 historical styles.
Marxism is the system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, esp. the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society.
Deregulation is the ability to remove government regulatory controls from (an industry, a commodity, etc.)
Neo-liberalism is a political orientation originating in the 1960s; blends liberal political views with an emphasis on economic growth
Entropic is a measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
Centralisation is the accumulating all power into one area or control
Week Three
Questions
1. What are the steps that are followed in a typical development?
Planning, surveying, studying the land and looking at the considerations of the environment. Considerations could involve, highways, transport, leisure, jobs and how far it is away from everything.
2. How does this video portray the role of the planner?
The planner is seen as the God figure, he has the ultimate say in the development, although he is a scientist and therefore is not good at predicting the future.
3. How does this compare to the portrayal of a developer?
The developer is seen as the hero that will come and save the town.
4. Is the planner really an expert, or just one of the players?
The planner is certainly just a key planner in the whole scheme of things, the planner could only be the expert if they knew everything about all aspects of the business.
5. How does the process portrayed in this video compare with the process used in Queensland called the Integrated Development Approvals System (IDAS) as described in the Department of Infrastructure and Planning's webpage information which can be accessed through the link below?
Both are completely different, as explained in question one, there was not enough structure to see the flaws in the processes, it is straightforward with what the scientist wanted, now there is a process that you have to go through. IDAS has the strategy to
1. Apply to the council or state
2. Be referred to other sources, eg – planners
3. Notification
4. Decision
5. Administration
6. Ministerial IDAS Powers
7. Plans of subdivision
