Urban growth strategy in Greater Sydney leads to unintended social and environmental challenges

This study examined how urban planners think about an urban area, how they plan a city, and how the resulting policies and strategies have impacted societal well-being over time.
Urban growth strategy in Greater Sydney leads to unintended social and environmental challenges
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Cities worldwide face continuous pressures to cope with population growth and are expected to host 70% of world population by 2050. To support this growing population, urban planners have historically focused on fostering economic growth, investing in more infrastructure, and releasing more land for development. Over the last five decades, this growth mental model has dominated urban planning, underpinning policies and strategies targeting the continuous pursuit of economic, infrastructure and population growth. This mindset and associated strategies have dramatically changed the shape of cities worldwide through expansive urban sprawl, and have also led to numerous unintended environmental and social challenges impacting the way residents move and live within cities. The growing challenges cities face demonstrate the complexity of urban systems and the need to advance urban planning by changing policies and strategies to focus on improving societal well-being.

Societal well-being includes economic, social, and environmental dimensions and our study examined how the urban planning process has impacted societal well-being in Greater Sydney. We focussed especially on how urban planners think about an urban area, how they plan a city, and how the resulting policies and strategies have impacted societal well-being over time. Policymakers’ perceptions about causal relationships were captured using causal maps to make their mental models, policies and strategies explicit1,2.

Approach

We analyzed 500 pages from three Greater Sydney urban planning reports. Greater Sydney is recognized for its quality of life, but residents also face multiple challenges stemming from rapid growth over the last five decades3-5. Rather than focusing on individual parts of the urban system in isolation (e.g., housing, transport, land, economic, population, environmental and infrastructure), our research analyzes how these parts interact and how policy action can be coordinated6-12. Our findings highlight the interdependence among the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of societal well-being.

Arrows indicate the direction of causality. Signs at arrowheads ('+' or '-') indicate the polarity of the relationship. A '+' sign denotes that an increase in the independent variable causes the dependent variable to rise above what it would have been, ceteris paribus (and a decrease causes a decrease). A '-' denotes that an increase in the independent variable causes the dependent variable to decrease beyond what it would have been. The loop label “R” indicates reinforcing (positive) feedback and The label “B” indicates negative (balancing) feedback15.

Figure 1. Causal map of economic and infrastructure growth strategy of urban policymakers. Arrows indicate the direction of causality. Signs at arrowheads ('+' or '-') indicate the polarity of the relationship. A '+' sign denotes that an increase in the independent variable causes the dependent variable to rise above what it would have been, ceteris paribus (and a decrease causes a decrease). A '-' denotes that an increase in the independent variable causes the dependent variable to decrease beyond what it would have been. The loop label “R” indicates reinforcing (positive) feedback and The label “B” indicates negative (balancing) feedback13.

Key findings

Our research findings show policymakers adopted a dominant growth strategy over the last fifty years to pursue economic and public infrastructure growth. Figure 1 illustrates the three reinforcing feedback loops of this growth strategy. While this dominant growth strategy has been effective in advancing the economic prosperity of Greater Sydney, the strategy has also led to numerous unintended social and environmental challenges that negatively impact societal well-being. The social challenges include: traffic congestion, urban sprawl, reduced housing affordability and longer commuting distances. The environmental challenges include: pollution, waste, reduced green space, heat island effects, reduced water reliability, and increased risk of other climate hazards. Figure 2 illustrates the ten balancing feedback loops depicting these social and environmental challenges.

Figure 2. Combined causal map of relationships in Greater Sydney Urban Plans 1968, 2005, and 2018.

Instead of continuing to improve the quality of life in Greater Sydney, the dominant growth strategies have exacerbated the social and environmental challenges over the last several decades. The causal maps identified in our research reveal the interconnections among urban policies and strategies discussed separately in the literature9,14-16 and highlight the importance of shifting from primarily pursuing economic growth to urban strategies emphasizing sustainable development with a broader conceptualization of societal well-being17.

Overall, our research highlights that policymakers did not aim to cause these negative social and environmental challenges. Nevertheless, misperceptions about the feedback structure of the urban system allowed these social and environmental challenges to grow and become more urgent over time. Policymakers became more aware of these challenges over time, yet they continued to prioritize and pursue economic and public infrastructure growth. Although the urban plans discussed the causal links between the dominant growth strategy and increased social and environmental pressures, we find no evidence that policymakers ever adjusted their thinking or fundamentally changed to an alternative strategy.

Reference

1            Salvia, G., Pluchinotta, I., Tsoulou, I., Moore, G. & Zimmermann, N. Understanding Urban Green Space Usage through Systems Thinking: A Case Study in Thamesmead, London. Sustainability 14, 2575 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052575

2            Rich, K. M., Rich, M. & Dizyee, K. Participatory systems approaches for urban and peri-urban agriculture planning: The role of system dynamics and spatial group model building. Agricultural Systems 160, 110-123 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2016.09.022

3            Bubathi, V. et al. Impact of Accelerated Climate Change on Maximum Temperature Differences between Western and Coastal Sydney. Climate 11, 76 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11040076

4            Bangura, M. & Lee, C. L. The differential geography of housing affordability in Sydney: a disaggregated approach. Australian Geographer 50, 295-313 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2018.1559971

5            UN-Habitat. World Cities Report 2020. The value of sustainable urbanization. 418 (UN-Habitat, 2020).

6            Webb, R. et al. Sustainable urban systems: Co-design and framing for transformation. Ambio 47, 57-77 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-0934-6

7            Sachs, J. D. et al. Six Transformations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability 2, 805-814 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0352-9

8            Sager, T. Neo-liberal urban planning policies: A literature survey 1990–2010. Progress in Planning (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2011.09.001

9            Haase, D., Kabisch, N. & Haase, A. Endless urban growth? On the mismatch of population, household and urban land area growth and its effects on the urban debate. PLoS One 8, e66531 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066531

10          Davidson, K. M. & Venning, J. Sustainability decision-making frameworks and the application of systems thinking: an urban context. Local Environment 16, 213-228 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2011.565464

11          Keith, M. et al. A new urban narrative for sustainable development. Nature Sustainability 6, 115-117 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00979-5

12          Viguié, V. & Hallegatte, S. Trade-offs and synergies in urban climate policies. Nature Climate Change 2, 334-337 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1434

13          Sterman, J. D. Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World.  1008 (McGraw-Hill Education, 2000).

14          Shukla, V. & Parikh, K. The environmental consequences of urban growth: cross-national perspectives on economic development, air pollution, and city size. Urban Geography 13, 422-449 (1992). https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.13.5.422

15          Camagni, R., Capello, R. & Caragliu, A. One or infinite optimal city sizes? In search of an equilibrium size for cities. The Annals of Regional Science 51, 309-341 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-012-0548-7

16          Zandiatashbar, A. & Kayanan, C. M. Negative Consequences of Innovation-Igniting Urban Developments: Empirical Evidence from Three US Cities. Urban Planning 5, 378-391 (2020). https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v5i3.3067

17          Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A. & Fitoussi, J.-P. Mis-measuring Our Lives Why the GDP Doesn't Add Up.  (The New Press, 2010).

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