Principle five: efficiency

The principle of efficiency promotes a balance between the consumption of resources such as energy, time and fiscal resources, with planned achievements in comfort, safety, security, access, tenure, productivity and hygiene. It encourages optimum sharing of public land, roads, facilities, services and infrastructural networks, reducing per household costs, while increasing affordability, productivity, access and civic viability.

A major concern of this principle is transport. While recognizing the convenience of personal vehicles, it attempts to place costs (such as energy consumption, large paved areas, parking, accidents, negative balance of trade, pollution and related morbidity) on the users of private vehicles. Good planning practice promotes clean, comfortable, safe and speedy, public transport, which operates at dependable intervals along major origin and destination paths. Such a system is cheaper, safer, less polluting and consumes less energy.

The same principle applies to public infrastructure. Compact, high-density communities result in more efficient urban systems, delivering services at less cost per unit to each citizen. There is an appropriate balance to be found somewhere on the line between wasteful low-density individual systems and over-capitalized mega systems. Costly, individual septic tanks and water bores servicing individual households in low-density fragmented layouts, cause pollution of subterranean aquifer systems. The bores dramatically lower ground water levels. Alternatively, large-scale, citywide sewerage systems and regional water supply systems are capital intensive and prone to management and maintenance dysfunction. Operating costs, user fees and cost recovery expenses are high. There is a balance wherein medium-scale systems, covering compact communities, utilize modern technology, without the pitfalls of large-scale infrastructure systems. This principle of urbanism promotes the middle path with regard to public infrastructure, facilities, services and amenities.

Unit 15 Principles of Intelligent Urbanism (Part II)

1 Introduction2 interface

1.1 Read the text title and hypothesize what the text is about. Write down your hypothesis.

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2. What do you know concerning this issue? List your ideas in the table left column “I know”.

I know that…	I have learnt that…

2. If you know answers to these questions write them down in the space given after each question.

1	What should public spaces be integrated into?
2	How can human-scale design be achieved?
3	How does Intelligent Urbanism see an urban plan?
4	What services and facilities does the regional infrastructure include?
5	Where should capital intensive transport systems move?
6	What do Architectural Guidelines specify according to PIU proponents?
7	Ho How does Intelligent Urbanism view plans, urban designs and housing configurations?