Urban policy transfer and paradigm shift: the City of Sydney Strategic Plan 1971

Into the 1960s central area planning in Australian cities was a rudimentary exercise driven by two-dimensional zoning. Progressive planners lamented the lack of holistic, long-term, flexible thinking and inattention to place-making. American cities inserting more design sensibility into urban policy-making became touchstones for reform. This paper reveals the influence which US theory and practice had on the origins, ambitions, and even format of a landmark Australian city plan of the late twentieth century: the City of Sydney Strategic Plan 1971. The influence is framed through the lens of urban policy transfer. The American influence on chief consultant George Clarke and his team was notable as they reinvented the town planning paradigm based on legalistic controls into a more objectives-based, design-led, people-centered consultative approach. The plan was generally welcomed, albeit circumspectly by developers. Direct implementation was hampered by outdated statutory planning procedures but a benchmark for strategic urban planning was achieved.