Robust City

Tony Hall is an Adjunct Professor within the Urban Research Program at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Since his move to Australia in 2004, he has published a number of significant works on sustainable urban form, including his 2010 book on the demise of the Australian backyard which won the PIA national award for cutting-edge research in 2012.He was previously Professor of Town Planning at Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK where he is now Emeritus Professor. A specialist originally in transport planning and later in urban design, his 30-year academic career in Britain produced notable publications in the field of design guidance. Rather unusually, he also served as a local councillor and led the City of Chelmsford’s planning policy for seven years. He was instrumental in raising the general standards of design resulting in a government award to the City for the quality of the built environment in 2003.

• Preface, Introduction, 1. The Persistence of Form, 2. What Shall We Do with the Private Motor Vehicle? 3. Cities Have Not Been Designed for Expansion, 4. Deriving Form – A Goal-Driven Approach, 5. Deriving Form – A Robust Typology, 6. Beads on a String, 7. A Model for a New City, 8. Application to City Expansion and Intensification, 9. Implications for Development Plans, Conclusion

This is an important, challenging and fascinat­ing book. In nine chapters spread over 165 pages Tony Hall provides a template for how growing cities could be planned and re-designed in a more effective way than at present. [T]he author devel­ops a sophisticated argument with impeccable logic in making a persuasive case for change in the philosophical basis of dealing with expanding cities and improving our capacity to deal with such expansion. Michael Barke, Department of Geography, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, Urban Moprhology, 2017