Small urban: Against the grain of bigness

In Australia, the pursuit of “fine grain” in the built environment emerged alongside the rise of the urban design profession during the 1980s and can now be found enshrined in planning codes across all our cities. The benefits of preserving and fostering smallness in our cities are intuitive: small tenancies provide opportunities for small businesses, result in more stimulating and vibrant streetscapes and dramatically enhance the attractiveness of walking. If we accept Laura Harding’s assertion that “design regulation tries to compensate for the absence of a culture,”¹ then we should unpack why these intuitive qualities are not being delivered by business-as-usual development. Why is development in our central city areas consistently trending toward bigness?

To understand our current condition, we need to reflect on the colonial settlement pattern of our capital cities and their transport and economic drivers. The grid plans applied to unceded Aboriginal land were principally mercantile in their intent, despite our post rationalization of their urban ambition or grandeur.