by 
With
a
great
deal
of
success,
urban
development
elites
have
been
able
to
sustain
the
illusion
that
Central
Business
Districts
or
downtowns
are
still
the
functional
metropolitan
centres
they
were
five
decades
ago.
In
The
New
City’s
new
feature
report,
Rise
of
Luxury
Urbanity
as
a
System:
Sydney
CBD,
we
set
out
to
explain
how
the
truth
is
different.
Opinion
leaders
seem
content
for
people
to
assume
CBDs
have
changed
in
only
cosmetic
ways,
essentially
the
same
but
with
taller
skylines.
But
since
at
least
the
1980s,
they
have
drifted
far
from
the
standard
functional
definition
proposed
by
geographer
Raymond
Murphy
in
1971:
a
region
“draw[ing]
its
business
from
the
whole
urban
area
and
from
all
…
classes
of
people.”
The
mid-twentieth
century
was
a
time
of
tensions
between
booming
suburban
peripheries,
driven
by
mass
motorisation,
and
stagnating
post-industrial
inner-cities.
After
the
1980s,
however,
these
former
industrial-mercantile
junctions
or
‘classic’
CBDs
were
fitted
up
as
global
high-amenity
enclaves.
Some
call
this
a
“shift
from
the
city
as
a
site
of
production
to
one
of
consumption.”
Over
recent
decades
Sydney
CBD
has
evolved
in
a
more
exclusive
and
upscale
direction,
hosting
around
a
tenth
of
metropolitan
jobs
compared
to
nearly
half
in
the
1950s.
The
pandemic
forced
some
belated
acknowledgement
of
this
reality
but
notions
of
natural
centrality
persist.
In
today’s
post-material
economy,
the
CBD’s
status
comes
from
a
disproportionate
share
of
public
infrastructure
rather
than
any
inherent
productivity
advantage.
Where
the
spatial
order
of
the
old
industrial-mercantile
CBD
was
arranged
around
functions,
the
contemporary
‘centre’
is
laid
out
for
amenities.
Called
‘luxurification’
by
some
scholars,
the
new
urban
logic
takes
form
as
an
upward
spiral
of
amenity
enhancements
feeding
off
surging
land
values,
gentrification
and
‘sustainable
urbanism’.
Scaled
up
amenities
make
premium
grade
development
more
feasible
as
they
amplify
the
capital
that
developers
can
substitute
for
land
on
high-priced
sites.
Luxurification
is
thus
sweeping
through
most
features
of
the
CBD
landscape,
including
all
types
of
building
stock
and
the
streetscapes
in
between.
Using
concepts
proposed
by
urban
geographers,
at
least
five
internal
trends
have
been
converging
to
make
Sydney’s
‘post-CBD’:
-
Breakdown
of
the
unipolar
‘core-frame’
structure
made
up
of
service
and
industrial
functions
arranged
in
concentric
rings,
and
rise
of
multipolar
high-amenity
precincts,
each
resembling
a
walkable
resort-style
campus. -
Spread
of
the
upmarket
‘primary
retail
core’
as
a
general
feature
beyond
the
‘Peak
Land
Value
Intersection’
into
other
functional
zones. -
Decline
of
the
downmarket
‘secondary
retail
zone’
in
conjunction
with
gradual
restrictions
on
motor
vehicle
access
and
confinement
of
entry
to
passenger
rail
corridors
and
bicycle
paths. -
Reshuffling
of
workspace
across
emerging
precincts,
inside
and
outside
the
traditional
office
core,
offering
amenities
like
harbour
views,
landscaped
foreshores,
green-rated
buildings
and
revamped
streetscapes
around
transit-hubs. -
Penetration
of
residential
development
into
the
CBD,
even
the
former
retail
and
office
cores,
from
the
peripheral
‘zone
of
transition’.
The
classic
CBD
was
functionally
and
socio-economically
diverse
In
the
wake
of
advancing
post-war
suburbanisation,
there
was
a
surge
of
interest
in
the
CBD
amongst
American
geographers
during
the
1950s.
Based
on
their
field
work
in
nine
mid-sized
US
cities,
researchers
Raymond
Murphy
and
James
Vance
conceived
the
Land
Value
Method
of
delimiting
outer
CBD
boundaries.
They
pinpointed
the
district’s
Peak
Land
Value
Intersection
(PLVI)
and
traced
the
values
of
lots
or
blocks
spreading
outwards
in
concentric
circles
until
values
declined
to
five
percent
of
PLVI
value.
In
most
cases
the
PLVI
was
“located
within
a
few
hundred
feet
of
the
[district’s]
geographic
center”,
and
from
there
“land
values
decrease
rapidly
at
first
as
one
leaves
the
peak
intersection.”
A
city’s
“maximum
pedestrian
concentration
and
…
greatest
vehicular
congestion”
were
typically
found
at
the
PLVI.
Read
the
rest
of
this
piece
at
The
New
City
Journal.
John
Muscat
is
a
co-editor
of
The
New
City
Journal.
Go to Source
Author: John Muscat
