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For at least thirty years urban growth management policies in Australian cities have focused on increasing residential densities as a method of addressing environmental issues. This view has been supported by a number of researchers who hypothesise that to achieve reductions in transport emissions individuals need to be encouraged to use public transport, and the most appropriate method of increasing public transport use occurs predominately from building residential areas at high densities around public transport nodes. This notion is integral to recent urban growth management policies in Sydney, which have sought to increase residential densities under the rubric of urban consolidation. There are a number of researchers who have promoted the benefit of increasing urban densities as a way of increasing public transport use. In Australia, the most cited research in this area is that of Newman and Kenworthy. Nonetheless, there are a number of commentators who have criticised the emphasis of density in increasing public transport use. These commentators assert that factors other than density, particularly socio-economic factors, are more important in influencing public transport use. Nevertheless, a major gap within this concept is that the research is conducted at the macro-level with minimal analysis at the meso or micro level. This thesis attempts to fill a gap in our knowledge by assessing the relationship between urban density and public transport use, particularly trains, at the macro, meso and micro level. The analyses used data across the Sydney metropolitan area and by geographical location to assess the implications of the density-public transport debate, and its articulation in urban consolidation policies. Such an analysis also has implications for other Australian cities who have promoted urban consolidation. The study concludes that residential density is not as important as socio-economic factors in influencing one form of public transport use, namely trains. Variables such as car ownership, country of origin, housing tenure, and the type and location of employment are more important in influencing train use than density. The study concludes that at the macro level the notion of increasing densities increases public transport use is plausible, yet at the micro level the relationship between high density housing and public transport use (in this case train use) is more complex. This suggests that the promotion of urban consolidation policies as a means to increase public transport use needs to be re-assessed. Importantly, there is still much research to be conducted to fully comprehend the relationships between housing and transport in order to better inform urban growth management policies in cities, including Sydney.

A continuing issue in metropolitan strategic plans is how much of them will be implemented. This appears to depend on how far planners are able to understand and shape the future of the city; whether appropriate planning and decision-making frameworks and mechanisms exist or can be put in place for making proposals happen; and what kind of methodology, content and process is used in preparing a plan. These themes are employed to analyse the way four of the major issues attending the future of Sydney are dealt with in the recently released metropolitan strategy ‘City of Cities’. These are economic development and its spatial representation, housing, water management and use, and transportation. The first two of these represent innovative exercises in the linking of economic activity and living with land use, density and location. The second two reflect more abstract challenges in framing proposals to acknowledge the increasing constraints of natural resources upon which the city depends. The review ends by suggesting that changes to the planning process would improve the chances of implementation, and the effectiveness of the outcomes., City Futures Research Centre Issues Paper No. 2

This study shows how estimates of energy consumption can be extracted from existing data sets and efficiently related to characteristics of the real property making up the discrete areas of the city. The study suggests that embodied energy consumption may be more significant than previously thought and suggests how estimates of embodied and operational energy may be used as a development control tool in the planning system.