Sustainable urbanization: four stages of infrastructure planning and progress

Urbanization has accelerated in the 20th century. This paper will try to examine the stages we have gone through in this past half century and where we seem to be going on infrastructure planning in this century. It will trace the history of infrastructure planning from the modernist period that began in the 1940’s to the postmodernist period from the 1980’s, followed by the emerging sustainability period in the early 2000’s and now as we face an uncertain future, the disruptive innovation period. The paper emphasizes transport and land use planning along with some consideration of energy, water and waste and uses the dominant planning paradigm of the time to frame the discussion and observe how that has influenced the resulting infrastructure outcomes. Illustrations are used from the author’s home town of Perth based on practical experience in the planning system.