Everyone’s talking about cities

Image source: Future of Cities - www.gov.uk 

Last week planners and urban designers gathered in NSW for the 7^th Making Cities Liveable Conference, while this week the focus is on Build Environment Meets Parliament (BEMP) – a great initiative by the Australian Institute of Architects and other key industry peak bodies.

With the aim of bridging the gap between politicians, the built environment sector and the wider public, the BEMP summit has run for five years now, tackling a range of issues. Let’s hope the built environment gets some airtime in a week when all the focus is likely to be on the carbon tax!

While BEMP runs in Canberra, the Victorian State Planning Conference will take centre stage in Warrnambool looking at how our industry needs to transform to thrive.

It seems all around us there are options and opportunities to talk about planning and shaping our cities.  And that is what we love to do.

There are definitely some clear trends emerging from all this considering, collaborating and conversing:

• Design for people first in a way that makes it easy for them to get around and access what they need to live well
• Make sure what we design is sustainable and leads to resilience
• Liveability, inclusivity and health at any age are key goals for cities.

The Sydney Morning Herald is running a compelling series of articles exploring the development of places and cities that is well worth a read. Check out the latest in the series here: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/vision-for-city-needs-three-things--wow-factor-ownership-by-the-people-and-reality-20140703-zsudw.html

And for some further inspiration, the ABC has been running The Human Scale: In Five Chapters. You won’t want to miss it, so if you did, you can catch up on iView.

Tell us what you think are the most important aspects of a well-designed city?