|
The Central Business District (CBD) of a city is its commercial and business
core. It is the heart of a city – and usually the place where the most
important business and government decisions are made. Most often, in an effort
to maximise available space, CBDs are characterized by high rise buildings:
the instantly recognisable ‘skyscrapers’ that dominate the skyline of cities
around the world. The CBDs of three Australian State capitals are shown on various
pages of the Heinemann Atlas 3rd edn – Perth (page 40), Brisbane
(page 66) and Melbourne (page 92).
However, the focus of this Atlas Update is the land adjoining the CBD. Usually
this area is a zone of mixed land use, often fulfilling residential, recreational,
retail, and industrial functions. In view of its proximity to the CBD and its
multitude of land use functions, this zone is referred to as the Inner Mixed
Zone (IMZ). It is a zone of transition between the CBD and the outer zones surrounding
the city. Due to their mix of non-uniform land uses, IMZs tend to develop a
haphazard appearance.
The haphazard appearance of the IMZ can be augmented by the fact that buildings
within the IMZ sometimes become run-down, derelict or abandoned due to the relocation
of land uses away from the IMZ. In the capital cities of Australia, this type
of relocation is particularly true of long-established, space extensive land
uses such as brickworks, breweries and in more recent times, docklands and power
stations. Some of these land uses date from the time of initial settlement and
were originally located on the edges of a small settlement such as the Swan
River Colony in Western Australia or the colony at Port Phillip in Victoria.
Eventually however, these land uses have been overtaken by an expanding CBD,
and put under pressure by competing land uses. Consequently, some land uses
tend to relocate away from the inner city area to the outer suburbs, where there
is room for expansion and where major transport routes tend to be more easily
accessed.
As a result of relocation or replacement of land uses from the IMZ, land becomes
available in this zone for other land uses. The Heinemann Atlas 3rd edn
shows an excellent example of this process in the Melbourne Docklands photograph
on page 92. The Docklands Stadium is an example of a recreational land use that
has replaced industrial land uses in the land bordering the CBD of Melbourne.
In this way, 'renewal' of a formerly run-down area has begun. As a net result,
Victoria now has a state-of-the-art sporting facility with ample parking and
that is well serviced by public transport on the doorstep of the CBD. On the
same page of the Heinemann Atlas 3rd edn, the redevelopment of Southbank
(also on the edge of Melbourne’s CBD) is another excellent example of the type
of urban renewal that can occur in the IMZ.
A similarly named area exists in the IMZ of Brisbane. Close examination of
the picture of Brisbane on page 66 of the Heinemann Atlas 3rd edn reveals
the area of South Bank, a prime recreational and leisure precinct offering extensive
areas of parkland and a number of major cultural institutions within minutes'
walk of the CBD. In Perth (see page 40 of the Atlas) urban renewal projects
in East Perth and Northbridge have created new residential and commercial precincts
in areas that were becoming very run-down.
The inner mixed zone continues to be one of the most interesting and highly
diverse areas of the Australian urban environment. This Atlas Update focuses
on urban redevelopment that is occurring in the IMZs of Perth, Brisbane and
Melbourne, and considers the processes that are taking place to transform these
environments.
|
