How to build intelligent suburbs

There is now a general understanding that we need to use land better and to plan better in order to sustain our cities. if you visit European cities today, you can see evidence of that change in the city centers. 

If you travel just a few blocks from revitalized city centers, you can see shoddy housing and wasteland, which shows how many problems remain. in future, priority must be given to development on brownfield sites. This approach to land use is important in strengthening the social and economic vitality of cities and protecting the beauty of the surrounding countryside. 

Good urban design is about paying attention to the spaces between buildings as well as the buildings themselves. Well-designed streets, parks, squares and pavements are the scene for the synthesis of urban life. if you make streets attractive, then you improve quality of life and security: 

busy streets police themselves. Citizens should be able to enjoy well-designed public spaces of all sizes. Small quiet gardens, squares, parks and the countryside should all be easily accessible on foot or by public transport. 

Most of out city center population growth consists of young and single people. To bring families back to cities, we need to create beautiful and family-friendly suburbs too. Architects and planners have often neglected suburbs. They may not have the urban vitality and mix which many of us enjoy, but they provide a quieter, greener environment for families and can improve the mix of housing that a city can offer. The best suburbs - linked to the city by good public transport - already offer a model for a different style of environmentally sustain able urban living. We need to bring all of them up to this standard, through intensification and new infrastructure. But to make our suburbs work, you need intelligent planning. 

The debate over the use of greenfield and brownfield land is not really about saving green space from development, but about the future of out cities, and about saving them from physical, social and economic decline. We must continue to choose a more sustainable urban form of development, which minimizes car use and maximizes access to local shops and services within walking or cycling distance - and must provide good public transport to enable change makes urban renaissance crucial to the survival of our planet as well as our cities.

Lord Rogers, chairman of Richard Rogers Architects and the UK government's Urban Task Force (text adapted)

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We at Waldron & Schuster have many years of experience in planning and property development. When choosing a location, you need to consider the following issues:

1. Local planning policy ensures that land is used in a compatible way. A school and an industrial site should be separated from each other and this will benefit the users and society in general.

2. Uses which may be a danger to health and safety or produce noise and dirt, are separated from other land use zones.

3. The market alone will not be the only determining factor for the type of land use. Land should be made available for schools, hospital, green areas etc., even if there is no profit involved.

4. A development that generates traffic needs to be located close to communication links. A shopping center should have easy access to major roads. In terms of future needs, it is also important that the development plan provides adequate infrastructure and that all the utilities that are required by modern society are available, such as water, gas and electricity.

5. The density and the design of the development must be compatible with planning policy. This ensures that land is not overdeveloped and the local environment is not affected in a negative way. For example, planning permission might not be granted for a high-rise project in a mainly low-rise area.

Land use zones separate uses that are not compatible.

The market always determines the type of land use.

Communication links are required where a development creates an increase in traffic.

A densely designed project can lead to overdevelopment.

Planning permission is always granted.