With a great sense of irony, Western Australia has growing pains as well as city vacancy problems.
Most 9am-5pm work centres are barren buildings at night. Weekday hubs are empty canyons on weekends.
We have vacant shops awaiting tenants, floors of empty office space, under-used council and government buildings and expansive city foyers, empty out of working hours.
Despite our exploding population, we lack over-arching plans or a vision for our cities. And WA, with all its space, is in the nation’s development firing-line.
Australia’s population is projected to reach 53 million by 2100 – the equivalent of 13 more Perth’s (ABS).
Western Australia has only 11 per cent of Australia’s population and, with a third of the nation’s land, is ripe for city development.
Australia is confronted with the prospect of becoming a continent of cities, as predicted by Julian Bolleter, director of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre at the University of Western Australia in his timely tome, Planning for a Continent of Cities.
How best to make the best use of our cities, old and new? What to do about vacant and wasted space in our cities?
“There’s not a single solution, but a series of interconnected principles,” according to Perth’s Sarah Booth, awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to travel internationally to look for solutions.
“Over six weeks, I travelled through Europe, meeting with policy makers, innovators, urban professionals, creatives and advocates to study how different cities are responding to vacancy and how they’re aligning policy with people.”
Sarah’s extensive report should be required reading by our planners and politicians.
It advocates an overarching Urban Renewal Authority, bringing together State agencies, local governments and the private and creative sectors to co-ordinate and implement long-term city renewal.
It would be led by a peer-selected ‘city choreographer’ to direct and conduct the delivery of long-term city transformation.
“They would be supported by a peer-selected, cross-sector, professional board, informed by experts and with decision-making guided by rigorous data and evidence-based research,” she says.
The world’s most vibrant cities were not simply wealthy or well-planned but constantly, strategically evolving with intention.
Sarah’s report said: “Western Australia now faces a choice: to continue treating vacancy as an unfortunate market condition, an issue to turn away from, or to approach it as an opportunity to re-imagine what a city is for.
“Lively, populated centres attract investment, support small business formation, increase land productivity and reduce the public costs associated with vacancy and social fragmentation.”
Sarah power-walked nine cities in six weeks, “simply walking, listening and observing.”
She saw opportunities in everything “from solar-lit basketball courts, to private spaces that had opened up as community spaces, libraries with hundreds of desks open from early morning until late at night, art galleries that had desks within gallery spaces, public work spaces in hotel lobbies and full-city Wi-Fi coverage in the public realm.
“I saw young people relaxing, studying and hanging out in these places.”
She referred to shipping containers transformed into student housing apartments with kitchenette and bathroom, plus shared, weather-protected courtyards and proximity to university and public transport.
“If we designed our city renewal with young people front of mind, we would also ensure our centres remain sustainable, resilient and relevant,” she said.
Traffic congestion in Perth is worsening with the annual economic cost projected to be $3.1 billion by 2031.
Sarah said property owners might blame council for the struggling high street, but in the same breath hold out for higher rents, refuse pop-up activation or sit on property as an appreciating asset.
Local and state governments owned property sitting vacant, underused or poorly maintained.
“My experience working in the sector in WA is that, at every level of authority, there is an unwillingness to take responsibility for the problem of vacancy, making it an impossible problem to solve… We can no longer accept this,” she said.
“If you own, buy, or inherit property in a CBD or high street, there should be a legislative obligation to maintain or activate it. Responsibility should accompany ownership.”
Sarah Booth was Citizen of the Year in Fremantle 2024 and on the Board of Fremantle Chamber of Commerce www.churchilltrust.com.au/wa/fellow/sarah-booth-wa-2024/.
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