you don't have to look far to see planning failures. But also, often councils and the like do get it right.
2 examples come to mind. Launceston Tasmania - there is a development called Seaport - which has been very good for Launceston, helping it to become a modern lovely small city, transformed from a commercial dreary old fashioned aussie town.
But - the Tamar River on which Launceston is built is flood prone - and hence there is a levee bank and it seems to work rather well.
Only thing with Seaport is though - that the development is built actually outside the levee - between the levee and the river???????? Why would you do that? Why would you allow that?
On another hand - I have been looking extensively at the Nearmap photos of the Brisbane River flood - and really if you stand back and look at it (or zoom up more accurately) - then you see large tracts of land on which there is no development at all - and indeed is covered by water in the flood --------- from that I have to say that lga's have done a pretty good job.
It is very easy to say when something goes wrong and you can see damage - it is much harder to look at where there is no damage because the risk has been calculated and development has been not allowed -------- people don't notice these things. We only see what is there, we almost never see what is not there.
