Infrastructure Planning in Perth: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

Infrastructure planning is essential for any city. Cities throughout history can be observed planning roads, sewerage and water supply (Kostoff, 1991). Without infrastructure the city is only informal, i.e. a series of slums. There are many cities made up of more than 80 per cent informal building and they survive, but with great inequities and huge problems apparent in correcting their infrastructure (UN, 2003). So it’s better to plan for infrastructure. Perth has a long history of planning that goes back to the early colonial surveyor John Septimus Roe, who laid out Perth and Fremantle in the 1830s (Seddon, 1970). But the most significant era began in the 1950s with the planner Professor Gordon Stephenson who was brought from Liverpool University to do the first Metropolitan Plan, which included a full outline and framework for the provision of infrastructure. This chapter will trace the history of infrastructure planning in Perth from that time and will emphasise transport and land-use planning, along with some consideration of energy, water and waste. The dominant planning paradigm of the time is used to frame the discussion and see how that has influenced the resulting infrastructure outcomes.