The Relevance of Traditional Town Planning Concepts for Travel Minimization

The ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘self-containment’ are longstanding town planning concepts aimed at travel minimization. While they remain central to practice, the transit-oriented development concept brings into question the relevance of planning for self-containment. Instead, the intention of transit-oriented development is to provide for travel both within the neighbourhood and within the sub-region. By examining the extent to which Perth residents actually minimize travel, we show that the planning concepts of ‘neighbourhood’ and of ‘self-containment’ need refinement. For the neighbourhood there is a question of scale. For self-containment there is a need to concentrate employment destinations around railway stations and to resist locations that do not meet this criterion. ‘Self-containment’ is an ill-defined concept that must be given clearer focus.