Over the last few decades Australian Urban Planning has been dominated by the “Village” approach. The idea that communities are broken up into small villages in which people can walk to get their daily needs from a neighbourhood store or gather together and socialise in the local park etc.

The original intent of this philosophy has been lost and it is destroying communities in regional towns.

Townsville is an excellent example of how this theory has been taken out of its original context and is spreading the consumer dollar far too thin and is not supporting local businesses or creating wealth for residents.

In European cities and regional towns they predominately all have a “Centre”. A place where people gather, shop, and socialise. It creates vibrancy through the number of people who gather together and through those numbers it creates a strong consolidated spending base which supports business and encourages further investment.

Using Townsville as an example, what has happened here and in many regional towns is that every new master planned subdivision has had a regional or sub-regional shopping centre approved as part of its overall plan. This means that people tend to use their local shop for their daily needs and to socialise, exactly as the Village approach dictates. BUT the ratio of these regional and sub-regional centres, to the people who utilise them, has dropped well below sustainable levels. The impact this has in our communities is that the only people who can sustain businesses in these areas are the large multi-national chains. The local entrepreneur and small business owner has been pushed out because there are simply not enough people in his “Village” to sustain a small business.

We need to look to increase the ratio of people in the ‘Village” to the associated retail and amenities, so that a greater concentration of spending can be achieved.

The Village