ARTICLES
Dormancy and the outer west town centres
of the Sydney Basin - by Jonathan Drane
posted 03.02.2018
The outer west centres of the Sydney Basin including Picton (Wollondilly), Camden, Campbelltown, Penrith and Richmond are emerging from their historical role of food bowl to the Sydney basin to include modern contemporary centres of employment, housing, innovation, trade and wealth. The future ‘little big smokes’ of the Sydney Basin, they are fueled by their own city development strategies along with State stimulus in the form of new metro, rail and road corridors, massive housing projects along with the Badgerys Creek airport. In the south west MacArthur region tens of thousands of new houses are planned and in progress in Camden/Oran Park and (New) Wilton for example. The State government has also designated the new employment zone (Broader Western Sydney Employment Area, BWSEA) of the basin around the new airport.
Such wholesale stimulus does not always translate into equitable, diverse or desirable activation of development across these historic town centre precincts and they can affect or precipitate dormancy. Large scale shopping centres implanted near to existing town centres suck the life out of old high streets and retail strips. Massive new housing developments create new suburban housing in dormitory precincts previously occupied by dairy or market farms. Meanwhile old town centre areas remain in varying states of vibrancy and dormancy whilst just down the road thousands of new houses are built creating whole new populations which form their own retail and town offerings.
With such forces at work, the new dilemma arises of knowing ‘what is the centre of town’ and ‘what is the economic centre of gravity’ of these new city formations. These two dynamics are at the heart of understanding the likely future formations of these new cities and the future of not only their development profiles but the incidence and likelihood of the perpetuation and advent of vibrancy or dormancy in their city and suburban areas.
The Western Sydney University ‘Outer West Dormancy Project was created in 2017 at the School of Business by Dr Jonathan Drane. It reaches out to the outer west centres, to understand the growth dynamics of the region and to assess the town centres’ potential vulnerability to dormancy. The research attracted a 2017 seed grant from within the Urban Living Society Theme of WSU and is now the recipient of a 2018 ECR fellowship grant.
The research project also provides a view of the potential dynamics of dormancy and how dormant city areas in regional settings, if given the appropriate stimulus, can proliferate massive new development zones. The research is designed to assist in the assessment and achievement of balanced outcomes that support vibrant cityscapes involving both housing, trade and employment. The study covers existing town centres as well as new housing/town formations. The term ‘housing/town’ refers to new town formations which provide housing accommodation and associated offerings such as supermarkets and shops/offices but not necessarily focusing on employment specific zones within the formation.
An initial research engagement workshop was held in October 2017 at the University’s Werrington Launchpad building which provides resources and encouragement to new incubator and start-up businesses in the west. The workshop included two key speakers on the 25th October 2017 who presented case examples of regional dormancy/rejuvenation precincts: Townsville’s Palmer St, by Dr Jonathan Drane, and Newcastle’s Honeysuckle Precinct, by Angus Dawson. There were 22 participants including those from industry and local councils; Penrith, Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly.
The councils discussed their issues related to both growth and dormancy. From the workshop a network/cohort of interest in the research was created. A research web page was created to support further networking and a workshop outcome web page included (below). This article is an initial sketch of the outcomes of the workshop and research to date and is a companion article to a conference paper published at the State of Australian Cities Conference (SOAC) in Adelaide (Nov 2017) (below). It draws on sections of the SOAC article for some text passages.
This article firstly covers the State led dynamics of the Sydney basin and how they conflict with the historic town centres of the outer west basin. What is called here ‘the giant swing’ which explores the relationship between the ‘historic centre of town’ and the new ‘economic centre of gravity’ is reviewed. Then the curious dynamics of proliferation of dormant cityscapes is covered with a brief reference to regional examples in Newcastle’s Honeysuckle and Townsville’s Palmer Street Precinct. Finally what all this might mean for the outer west town centres and some directions for the research moving forward.
Queen Street Campbelltown. The Little Big Smokes: East meets west or is it vice versa?
The policy engine rooms of infrastructure, employment, affordability and urban consolidation guide the growth of Sydney towards its burgeoning population centre; the outer west. However, ‘wholesale city basin’ planning approaches guided by economic and demographic meta-data do less to understand the reluctance of the city’s outer west centres to respond in automatic support of this stimulus. Especially when their own city growth and development plans can often focus on their dormant and semi-dormant city areas as a source of renewal of their city and its new diverse offerings.
Dormant city areas and dead spots continue to haunt many of our burgeoning, high growth cities and the outer west centres do not escape the same phenomena. Across Australia former port lands, ‘brownfield’ sites and degraded suburban areas persist in these states for what appears to be decades without any apparent revival. Despite the usual forms of planning, zoning and controls, they appear to display obstinacy over large time periods that continue to confound local and state planning authorities and leaders. At city basin planning level there is an often urgent political reliance on lineal, visible change using ‘meta-views’ along with the predominant use of the economic/demographic lens to view our cities.
The Sydney basin and its finite boundaries, mean, however, that the growth of the city continues to be confounded by a series of sometimes conflicting growth phenomena which operate in different ways. If we were to enter a helicopter and hover above the Sydney CBD and look out to the Blue Mountains we would see the most obvious clearly; the monotony of historical suburban sprawl and peri-urban areas up to the base of the mountains interrupted by the vertical outcrops of cityscapes like Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith. The vertical high rise apartment complexes that are stimulated by the forces of urban consolidation spring across the basin and add another complexion and species. Bamboo among the wheat fields if you like.
Such wholesale stimulus does not always translate into equitable, diverse or desirable activation of development across these historic town centre precincts and they can affect or precipitate dormancy. Large scale shopping centres implanted near to existing town centres suck the life out of old high streets and retail strips. Massive new housing developments create new suburban housing in dormitory precincts previously occupied by dairy or market farms. Meanwhile old town centre areas remain in varying states of vibrancy and dormancy whilst just down the road thousands of new houses are built creating whole new populations which form their own retail and town offerings.
With such forces at work, the new dilemma arises of knowing ‘what is the centre of town’ and ‘what is the economic centre of gravity’ of these new city formations. These two dynamics are at the heart of understanding the likely future formations of these new cities and the future of not only their development profiles but the incidence and likelihood of the perpetuation and advent of vibrancy or dormancy in their city and suburban areas.
The Western Sydney University ‘Outer West Dormancy Project was created in 2017 at the School of Business by Dr Jonathan Drane. It reaches out to the outer west centres, to understand the growth dynamics of the region and to assess the town centres’ potential vulnerability to dormancy. The research attracted a 2017 seed grant from within the Urban Living Society Theme of WSU and is now the recipient of a 2018 ECR fellowship grant.
The research project also provides a view of the potential dynamics of dormancy and how dormant city areas in regional settings, if given the appropriate stimulus, can proliferate massive new development zones. The research is designed to assist in the assessment and achievement of balanced outcomes that support vibrant cityscapes involving both housing, trade and employment. The study covers existing town centres as well as new housing/town formations. The term ‘housing/town’ refers to new town formations which provide housing accommodation and associated offerings such as supermarkets and shops/offices but not necessarily focusing on employment specific zones within the formation.
An initial research engagement workshop was held in October 2017 at the University’s Werrington Launchpad building which provides resources and encouragement to new incubator and start-up businesses in the west. The workshop included two key speakers on the 25th October 2017 who presented case examples of regional dormancy/rejuvenation precincts: Townsville’s Palmer St, by Dr Jonathan Drane, and Newcastle’s Honeysuckle Precinct, by Angus Dawson. There were 22 participants including those from industry and local councils; Penrith, Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly.
The councils discussed their issues related to both growth and dormancy. From the workshop a network/cohort of interest in the research was created. A research web page was created to support further networking and a workshop outcome web page included (below). This article is an initial sketch of the outcomes of the workshop and research to date and is a companion article to a conference paper published at the State of Australian Cities Conference (SOAC) in Adelaide (Nov 2017) (below). It draws on sections of the SOAC article for some text passages.
This article firstly covers the State led dynamics of the Sydney basin and how they conflict with the historic town centres of the outer west basin. What is called here ‘the giant swing’ which explores the relationship between the ‘historic centre of town’ and the new ‘economic centre of gravity’ is reviewed. Then the curious dynamics of proliferation of dormant cityscapes is covered with a brief reference to regional examples in Newcastle’s Honeysuckle and Townsville’s Palmer Street Precinct. Finally what all this might mean for the outer west town centres and some directions for the research moving forward.
Queen Street Campbelltown. The Little Big Smokes: East meets west or is it vice versa?
The policy engine rooms of infrastructure, employment, affordability and urban consolidation guide the growth of Sydney towards its burgeoning population centre; the outer west. However, ‘wholesale city basin’ planning approaches guided by economic and demographic meta-data do less to understand the reluctance of the city’s outer west centres to respond in automatic support of this stimulus. Especially when their own city growth and development plans can often focus on their dormant and semi-dormant city areas as a source of renewal of their city and its new diverse offerings.
Dormant city areas and dead spots continue to haunt many of our burgeoning, high growth cities and the outer west centres do not escape the same phenomena. Across Australia former port lands, ‘brownfield’ sites and degraded suburban areas persist in these states for what appears to be decades without any apparent revival. Despite the usual forms of planning, zoning and controls, they appear to display obstinacy over large time periods that continue to confound local and state planning authorities and leaders. At city basin planning level there is an often urgent political reliance on lineal, visible change using ‘meta-views’ along with the predominant use of the economic/demographic lens to view our cities.
The Sydney basin and its finite boundaries, mean, however, that the growth of the city continues to be confounded by a series of sometimes conflicting growth phenomena which operate in different ways. If we were to enter a helicopter and hover above the Sydney CBD and look out to the Blue Mountains we would see the most obvious clearly; the monotony of historical suburban sprawl and peri-urban areas up to the base of the mountains interrupted by the vertical outcrops of cityscapes like Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith. The vertical high rise apartment complexes that are stimulated by the forces of urban consolidation spring across the basin and add another complexion and species. Bamboo among the wheat fields if you like.
Along the way we would see other lesser but nonetheless dynamic formations; the regional shopping centre, implanted into the former fields of red brick triple-fronters and historical streetscapes, felling them to rise with fantastic new offerings within; from large module supermarkets to entertainment precincts and exotic international fashions. These in turn suck the life out of the historical streetscapes.
We view these formations with wonder and horror, as towers soar and familiar landmarks are felled; the streetscapes of our childhood are rendered unrecognizable. Yet while these cityscapes undergo a dynamic change from a long, stable, former use to slowly become museum pieces which then precipitate new zonings and development, some city areas seem obstinate; never to recover or transition to another use.
These are often historical formations which presaged the bold industrial eras of our cities; but then they were levelled or faltered in the wake of other growth patterns that surrounded them. The dormant city area that seems stuck in this state confounds us and in some cases sits almost defiantly right in the middle of a city centre. Surrounded by the forces of change of the city but refusing, often for decades, to recover and rejuvenate. Planners create maps and plans, politicians deploy policy and funds while professionals draw brave new concepts that envision their new uses. Little it seems will defibrillate the seemingly dead heart of these lands.
Historically, the Sydney basin has been subject to an ‘east to west’ urban sprawl punctuated with city centres which decrease in scale and size as one heads west toward the Blue Mountains. Parramatta, which sits half way along this continuum is now termed the ‘second city’ and ‘river city’ whilst the South West Sydney district around the new Badgerys Creek airport has been anointed ‘The Western Parkland City’ (Greater Sydney Commission 2016). The western region is also the subject of being targeted as the ‘Broader Western Sydney Employment Area’ depicted in the ‘Plan for Growing Sydney’ (NSW Planning and Environment 2014) due to the disproportionate number of people travelling west to east for work each day. The west is also the target for new housing growth and population in the basin.
THREE CITIES, GREATER SYDNEY COMMISSION 2016
Greater Sydney will be a global metropolis of three productive, liveable and sustainable cities: Western Parkland City, Central River City and Easter Harbour City. www.greater.sydney
The vast western precinct is the province of smaller town centres yet to become ‘little big smokes’; the likes of New Wilton, Picton (Wollondilly Shire), Camden and Campbelltown. Penrith sits adjacent to the new airport and is at the gateway to the Sydney basin when driving from the west.
These town centres are the subject of intense state and local stimulus resulting in the likes of the massive new housing estates of Oran Park and the upcoming New Wilton. This region, forged out of a mixture of peri-urban lands and old towns with former sometimes tiny populations is the inheritor of the new and unbridled growth patterns of the city basin.
The Giant Swing: The pendulum of growth and dormancy
But with growth comes adaptation (and possible dormancy) when it comes to cities. In the rural history of this area, the old center of town was also the (economic) ‘centre of gravity’. But in the new orders the old center of town and the center of gravity can become geographically separated and distanced due to burgeoning housing developments with their own mini-town centres in the form of new shopping centres or through the remote implanting of Regional Shopping Centres.
Each of these outer west town centres has challenges related to both coping with growth and dormancy. Camden with its distinct geographical separation of its old town centre from its massive new housing /town Oran Park and Narrellan town centre. Campbelltown with Queen street which has remained in a state of semi-dormancy for many decades as Macarthur Square Shopping centre rose in an outer paddock and the banks abandoned the old high street. Penrith similarly has been ‘implanted’ with a Westfield’s Shopping centre which has effected the old ‘High Street’ with secondary retail offerings and dead spots. Its central car park area is part of this and has its own master plan for creation of an inner village with hundreds of apartments.
The vast western precinct is the province of smaller town centres yet to become ‘little big smokes’; the likes of New Wilton, Picton (Wollondilly Shire), Camden and Campbelltown. Penrith sits adjacent to the new airport and is at the gateway to the Sydney basin when driving from the west.
These town centres are the subject of intense state and local stimulus resulting in the likes of the massive new housing estates of Oran Park and the upcoming New Wilton. This region, forged out of a mixture of peri-urban lands and old towns with former sometimes tiny populations is the inheritor of the new and unbridled growth patterns of the city basin.
The Giant Swing: The pendulum of growth and dormancy
But with growth comes adaptation (and possible dormancy) when it comes to cities. In the rural history of this area, the old center of town was also the (economic) ‘centre of gravity’. But in the new orders the old center of town and the center of gravity can become geographically separated and distanced due to burgeoning housing developments with their own mini-town centres in the form of new shopping centres or through the remote implanting of Regional Shopping Centres.
Each of these outer west town centres has challenges related to both coping with growth and dormancy. Camden with its distinct geographical separation of its old town centre from its massive new housing /town Oran Park and Narrellan town centre. Campbelltown with Queen street which has remained in a state of semi-dormancy for many decades as Macarthur Square Shopping centre rose in an outer paddock and the banks abandoned the old high street. Penrith similarly has been ‘implanted’ with a Westfield’s Shopping centre which has effected the old ‘High Street’ with secondary retail offerings and dead spots. Its central car park area is part of this and has its own master plan for creation of an inner village with hundreds of apartments.
City growth dynamics are not always about growth however and often act like a giant swing which oscillates between massive growth in one place and loss of town life in another. The loss of town life is the essence of dormancy. The research project seeks to understand dormancy in all its forms. The existing dormancy, that which is likely to become dormant and that which is emerging from dormancy. For this it turns to examples of dormant cityscapes in regional settings and two in particular which led to massive proliferation of new developments in Newcastle’s Honeysuckle Precinct and Townsville’s Palmer St Precinct.
Dormancy and Proliferation in Regional Examples: Case Studies:
Newcastle (Honeysuckle Precinct) and Townsville (Palmer Street Precinct)
To help us navigate this complex space we have collected a number of case studies, but two are reviewed briefly here to help understand the propensity for dormant city areas to proliferation large scale development.
Honeysuckle Precinct is known for its activation from a dormant port rail yard to its current multifaceted form of foreshore development. Palmer Street in Townsville is less known but in the lead up to the GFC in 20008 spawned half a billion dollars worth of developments out of the semi-dormant heart of the city’s port related lands.
Both Newcastle and Townsville are regional port cities with long histories related to mineral resources. In the Newcastle case it is coal and the (then) town was once called Coal River due to the rich coal resources which formed mines which led to the pattern of the current city layout. Later discoveries extended into the now Hunter Valley also known for its vineyards and wineries.
With Townsville the minerals are iron ore and nickel amongst others; dug and transported from the inner regions of Queensland from areas like Mt Isa. The map below shows Townsville in far north Queensland and Newcastle 160km north of Sydney. Townsville’s historical importance and also great distance from the capital Brisbane meant it has been called the ‘capital of the north’. Both regional cases, have seen stable historical growth based on these central resource economies, along with the vagaries of reliance on mineral resources as a primary source of income.
Both have seen city areas within their port precinct turn dormant; in the Newcastle case it is the old port rail goods yard area originally named for the Honeysuckle vines that lined the shores of the Hunter River. In Townsville’s case it was the original port area from the tall ship and steamer era of the town which allowed such ships to sail up to the centre of the town along Flinders Street.
Dormancy and Proliferation in Regional Examples: Case Studies:
Newcastle (Honeysuckle Precinct) and Townsville (Palmer Street Precinct)
To help us navigate this complex space we have collected a number of case studies, but two are reviewed briefly here to help understand the propensity for dormant city areas to proliferation large scale development.
Honeysuckle Precinct is known for its activation from a dormant port rail yard to its current multifaceted form of foreshore development. Palmer Street in Townsville is less known but in the lead up to the GFC in 20008 spawned half a billion dollars worth of developments out of the semi-dormant heart of the city’s port related lands.
Both Newcastle and Townsville are regional port cities with long histories related to mineral resources. In the Newcastle case it is coal and the (then) town was once called Coal River due to the rich coal resources which formed mines which led to the pattern of the current city layout. Later discoveries extended into the now Hunter Valley also known for its vineyards and wineries.
With Townsville the minerals are iron ore and nickel amongst others; dug and transported from the inner regions of Queensland from areas like Mt Isa. The map below shows Townsville in far north Queensland and Newcastle 160km north of Sydney. Townsville’s historical importance and also great distance from the capital Brisbane meant it has been called the ‘capital of the north’. Both regional cases, have seen stable historical growth based on these central resource economies, along with the vagaries of reliance on mineral resources as a primary source of income.
Both have seen city areas within their port precinct turn dormant; in the Newcastle case it is the old port rail goods yard area originally named for the Honeysuckle vines that lined the shores of the Hunter River. In Townsville’s case it was the original port area from the tall ship and steamer era of the town which allowed such ships to sail up to the centre of the town along Flinders Street.
In both case studies, the cities were the recipient of a grant from the Federal ‘Building Better Cities Programme’ of the early 1990s which was precipitated by the nation building policies of the Hawke-Keating Federal government and inspired originally by Whitlam. The grants were won based on the creativity of concept for the rejuvenation of inner city areas.
For Newcastle the Honeysuckle precinct and its publicly owned port lands, which had lain dormant and gated for decades, it was to become a vibrant new mixed-use precinct which was to include apartments, hotels, restaurants and corporate offices that would line the long port river front and finally (and still stubbornly) open up the city which sat behind it to the river itself.
For Townsville the old port properties along Palmer St which were predominantly privately owned were to become a new inner city village initially. This would expand in concept to become a burgeoning new ‘eat street’ precinct with new restaurant offerings, hotels and serviced apartments which rose out of a strange mix of old port industrial/warehouse uses and local restaurants.
In the Palmer Street case, so vividly represented in the Townsville Bulletin 2008 news article below, a proliferation of property developments in the order of half a billion dollars sprang to life in the hitherto sleepy port street which were to march toward the GFC. The proliferation was both precipitated and interrupted by this with a number of casualties in the property development sense.
For Townsville the old port properties along Palmer St which were predominantly privately owned were to become a new inner city village initially. This would expand in concept to become a burgeoning new ‘eat street’ precinct with new restaurant offerings, hotels and serviced apartments which rose out of a strange mix of old port industrial/warehouse uses and local restaurants.
In the Palmer Street case, so vividly represented in the Townsville Bulletin 2008 news article below, a proliferation of property developments in the order of half a billion dollars sprang to life in the hitherto sleepy port street which were to march toward the GFC. The proliferation was both precipitated and interrupted by this with a number of casualties in the property development sense.
In both cases the BBC grants precipitated new visions and plans. For Newcastle a Concept Master Plan and for Townsville a new city plan. Both experienced interesting commonalities however in the delayed physical development responses to the BBC stimulus and also to transitional influences caused by surrounding city stimulus developments. After this ‘transitional phase’ both then saw an eventual dis- proportionate, massive proliferation over a relatively short period which was then interrupted dramatically by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008.
These regional examples may be far away from Sydney but the key elements of their formation, dormancy and transformation have key relevance to regional town centres and in this study the outer west region. The research uses an analytical model and framework which charts these factors and allows for assessment of other regional town centres and their dormant precincts.
Sydney as a metropolitan basin also enjoys a rich history of rejuvenation and redevelopment of dormant city areas of which the inner harbour areas from Woolloomooloo through Darling Harbour and to Pyrmont are prominent and now historical. The research and analytical model also builds on studies of the City West Development Corporation along with several cases and vignettes through other dormant areas of the city.
Moving Forward in the Outer West Town Centres
The models and analytical tools arising from this research will be applied to undertake a micro-study of four key outer western city centres: Penrith, Camden, Campbelltown and Picton. The results are designed to assist these centres to understand the dynamics of wholesale urban growth toward the outer west as well as the impacts this may have on their own town centre formations.
The broader research provides a relative model and matrix which can be used to chart the dormancy and proliferation status of dormant areas in the Sydney Basin with a particular focus here on the outer west region which is the object of wholesale State and local stimulus. The research also addresses the growth dynamics and conflict between ‘centres of town’ and ‘centres of gravity’.
Although not predictive, the model organizes the complexity of large scale city areas and provides a lens through which our city planners, developers and politicians can chart a more certain view of how development might be stimulated and controlled so that more measured development replaces proliferation as a natural outcome.
The model also allows planners to monitor the status of dormant precincts in terms of not only visible stimulus but also invisible forces that are always at work in the city. Such forces precipitate the change from old uses to new uses, and therefore the changing face of our city formations.
The research enhances our understanding of dormancy and the historical timelines that they operate under. In this way a revisionist view of this phenomenon informs planners and city leaders to understand dormancy and its revitalization, which goes beyond political urgencies.
As ‘Little Big Smokes’ of the outer west Sydney basin, these town centres are emerging from a long history as being viewed on the ‘rural fringe’ of the basin to being a dynamic counter force to the east west growth continuum that is evident in the State led growth pattern toward the Blue Mountains. As such the research is important to understanding its dormancy dynamics and resultant planning and development futures.
For more information on the outer west research project:
Project Web Page: www.jondrane.net/research/outer-west-dormancy-study-sydney-basin/
October 2017 Initial Research Workshop Outcomes Web Page:
http://www.jondrane.net/research/outer-west-dormancy-study-sydney-basin/workshop-to-define- research-october-2017/
Concept Paper Web Page:
www.jondrane.net/research/outer-west-dormancy-study-sydney-basin/concept-paper-for-outer- west-dormancy-research-project/http://www.jondrane.net/research/outer-west-dormancy-study-sydney-basin/concept-paper-for-outer- west-dormancy-research-project/
Drane 2017, Dormancy in two regional cities and its relevance to the growth of Sydney, (The cases of Honeysuckle, Newcastle; Palmer Street, Townsville and Penrith). Paper submitted for SOAC 2017: the abstract has been accepted and is in peer review stage.
Related Papers:
Drane 2014, The Seed in the Cityscape: The Property Development Mechanism and its influence on the growth of cities, doctoral thesis, UNSWorks.
Drane 2015-6 blog web page: www.jondrane.net