Managing New Zealand urban streetscape design: Understanding people's preferences

Urban design is conducted at scales and across timeframes that are much broader/longer than those of conventional, time bound projects.  Indeed, as noted by Christopher Alexander, the aim of urban design is to orchestrate the outcomes of discrete projects such that they each contribute to a more coherent whole.  In most cases the coherent whole is centred on public streets, the spaces that people use every day as they conduct their lives.  Increasingly, researchers and public space managers are renewing their interests in streets.  How can they best be designed and managed to ensure they meet with people’s needs and desires?  The challenge is of course that, while the publicly owned space may be controlled effectively by local authorities, it is the privately-owned properties that line streets that have the greatest influence on their character.  The paper contextualises a recent empiric study of people’s streetscape preferences.  After identifying the building and street characteristics that people find most attractive, the paper speculates on the means by which these can be interpreted and articulated in the instruments and processes used by local government to manage development.  The paper challenges the laissez faire approaches that have arguably diminished the spatial qualities of many contemporary streets, arguing for proactive approaches to designing and managing urban streets.  The research contributes to knowledge about facility management at an urban scale.