Masterplanning the Suburbs: Research and Discussion for Practitioners

Those who masterplan suburbia such as consent authorities, urban designers, and developers, have long worked in isolation from the opinions of the consumers who inhabit suburbia. This research presents interesting findings from detailed surveys with almost 200 residents across three new masterplanned suburbs in Western Sydney. It engages with overall satisfaction levels, and with attitudes to more specific design aspects like roads, open space, privacy, architecture, safety, the environment and experiences of Community Title. It employs simple statistical analyses to show predictors of consumers' views and values, through their personal data and opinions. This research does not critique the entire experiment that is suburbia, but instead simply tries to spark interest in opportunities to advance the masterplanning practice and built outcomes. The report also engages with some of the theory that influences design outcomes in suburbia. It argues that a lot of design fads are instituted dogmatically, and instead suggests an open-minded and analytical approach to design palettes.