Master Planned Estates: Pariah or Panacea?

TLDR

Master‑planned estates in Australia stem from attempts to correct 1970s suburbanisation and from government–developer initiatives, a concept with 19th‑century utopian roots that is seen as both utopian and authoritarian, leading to perceptions of them as both pariah and panacea. Research and experience indicate that master‑planned estates are far more panaceas than pariahs.

Abstract

Master planned estates in Australia emerge from two major directions: one aims to address the inadequacies of 1970s suburbanisation and the other comes from governments and developers seeking to realise alternatives. The very idea of master planning has a longer history, one that arguably dates back to 19th-century Utopian Socialism and Baron Haussmann's redesign of Paris, which involved a large-scale, comprehensive alternative vision realised by a sanctioned authority. Master planning thereby partakes of both utopianism and authoritarianism. These associations have infused the discussion and construction of Australian master planned estates rendering them both pariah and panacea. But research and my own experience suggests that they are far more panaceas than pariahs.