‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

Has planning contributed to negative space and, if so, why and how?
Absolutely. This is partly because there has been little analysis of how people feel about life in dense, 
high-rise developments, because this does not lend itself to linear-reductionist research norms.
14
Conventional planning and urban design approaches (as opposed to transdisciplinary ones) have been 
limited by a narrow conception of the ‘tools of the trade’. These tools are land-use policy, regulation 
and design 
control
– as opposed to social and ecological value 
adding
. By and large, density has 
been seen as the solution, because land-use regulation has been the major means of implementing 
planning policy. Density, after all, is something at least notionally in the control of planners. Thus 
planners use density to try to reduce energy and fuel consumption. Some problems of using land-use 
regulation to control density are:
•
Land-use controls or other forms of regulation, and even market measures such as taxes and
trading schemes, transfer wealth or benefits directly or indirectly. While some individuals
benefit from high-density developments, many others get only leftover ‘dead’ spaces: dark
alleys, tiny side yards and treeless plazas.
• 
Many new green field suburbs have extremely small blocks for detached dwellings (eg in 
Australia). This mean that trees cannot be planted to reduce the urban heat island effect,
there is inadequate space for food production and environmental amenities are sacrificed.
15
• 
Regulation will often be resisted because it aims to reduce production or consumption.
Accordingly, it constrains both suppliers and consumers, and can create ‘losers’. Positive
Development would stimulate good behaviour – not simply prohibit bad behaviour [Box 2].

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48
Positive Development
• 
Land-use planning often proves to be an expensive, long-term process, and market responses 
to land-use controls are uncertain at best. Planning history shows that many unanticipated 
market factors can intervene over time to subvert the intended outcomes.
16
• 
Even well-targeted land-use policies can be effectively overruled by the actions of other 
functional departments in government, such as treasury or transportation departments with
different agendas (not to mention politicians in the lead up to elections).
• 
Land-use regulations only set a framework for development. Major public and private sector
investment is still required for their implementation. Private investment down the track
cannot be guaranteed, as it is largely driven by speculation.
Value-adding to the public estate through 
design
should attract less resistance from industry than 
regulatory or even market-based measures [Box 49].
17
It also allows for more creativity and flexibility 
on the part of industry.