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Canberra was built in harmony with its landscape setting, creating a legacy of urban form well-connected to the natural environment. Its urban design and planning not only amplified the surrounding natural landscape such as forested hills and mountains but also created a human-made green urban character. However, plans for future development as a compact city pose a challenge to conserving the city's green spaces. A green infrastructure plan is necessary to consider the city's green space design heritage and the linked socio-ecological values while minimising the urban footprint. The paper employs a historical literature review to understand the factors and characteristics that shaped Canberra's green character and the socio-ecological values of its green spaces. The research found the influence of historical and modern design and planning concepts in consolidating green infrastructure and creating ecological corridors and social infrastructure. One of the essential conditions for maintaining the unique character of Canberra is the preservation of the socio-ecological values of its existing green spaces. A trade-off study must be conducted to balance green infrastructure planning while considering these values, in light of development changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the Australian capital city of Canberra's representation through official, government-sponsored, Australian documentary films made between 1900 and 1945. Through a small sample of selected films, that are well preserved and held in the national film archives, we discuss their filmic intention, form, technical production and reception. In these forty plus years which end prior to the advent of technicolour, there was a progression in technical sophistication of the genre from silent to sound, and from newsreel-style reportage of pomp and ceremony towards more informal, aspirational pictures that attempt to conjure how everyday lives could be lived in the fledgling city of Canberra. We suggest that these kinds of films, that might be dismissed as mere propaganda, are useful in adding to our understanding of how documentaries became a tool in the representation and communication of a rapidly shifting national identity, that was advanced concurrently through the planning and building of a new capital city and the evolution of documentary films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public relations scholarship has only briefly mentioned George Fitzpatrick, an Australian industry pioneer. This paper -- based largely on archival material, contemporary articles, and other published primary sources -- seeks to redress this gap in PR historiography. It examines Fitzpatrick's family background, business networks, and diverse career, which included PR and government lobbying activities at a time when publicity practice in Australia was thought to be confined to the film sector. From journalist origins, Fitzpatrick moved into consultancy and pro bono PR work on behalf of governments, business, and charitable organisations. His PR campaigns, grounded in research trips to America and Europe in the 1930s, reflected considerable understanding of the 'science of persuasion' to influence public opinion. Fitzpatrick's strategies included editorial, direct mail, advertising, events, and lobbying. In 1946 Fitzpatrick faced sensational allegations concerning his gambling businesses, from which he does not appear to have recovered. This paper concludes that although Fitzpatrick's reputation was strongly damaged, his earlier charitable and political campaigns encapsulated PR practices well prior to the professional PR era in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines images of nationhood in the capital cities of the USA and Australia – Washington, DC (hereafter referred to as Washington) and Canberra, respectively. The images examined have generally originated from the plans of architects, yet they have been endlessly replicated via images in brochures, websites, postcards and other forms of tourism promotion. This paper examines architectural signifiers of these two national capital cities by undertaking an analysis of significant landmarks and monuments in Washington and Canberra (and how these represent the nation and national identity). Textual analysis, in particular, semiotics (examining how signs generate meaning), is a suitable methodology for deconstructing representations of national imagery. A combination of observational research, secondary research and semiotic analysis is undertaken to analyse the ways in which national identity has been communicated to tourists in the similar capital cities of the USA and Australia. This paper focuses on ‘Representation and National Image/Identity’ and ‘The Role of the Built Environment in Image and Representation’ – two of the research themes identified for this ‘Global Change and Tourism in National Capitals’ special edition of Current Issues in Tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the role of a school kitchen garden in the lives of its volunteers. The garden, located at the Majura Primary School in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Australia, is the first Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden (SAKG) in the ACT. Since its launch on 25 March 2010, it has acted as the demonstration site for SAKG in the ACT. While other schools in the ACT have kitchen gardens, they do not operate under the management of a formal programme such as the SAKG scheme. Literature on school kitchen gardens provides some empirical evidence on the benefits of school kitchen gardens for children (primarily from the pedagogical, environmental and health perspectives), but there is scant literature on the various ways in which a kitchen garden may affect the various stakeholders involved in its community. These stakeholders include parents and volunteers associated with the establishment and ongoing support of the school kitchen garden. This paper begins to address this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of adult volunteers associated with the Majura Primary School kitchen garden. A key finding was that volunteers experienced unexpected benefits, as well as challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the ambiguous place of Canberra within the political geography of Australia, through exploring the place of the city among a particular category of political actors—lobbyists. Drawing on a series of interviews with lobbyists working for interest groups, government relations firms, or as freelancers, the city is presented as a central site of lobbying within the national polity through two key (and related) dimensions: the city as a site of localised political knowledge, or metis; and Canberra as a place of 'urban buzz' or situated communicative interaction. The paper concludes both with a discussion of how these concepts may help us to better understand the political behaviours of lobbyists, and how the observed spatial imaginations and practice of lobbyists in Canberra interacts with the theorisation of 'urban buzz'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Woolshed Creek fossil site near the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Canberra, contains brachiopods Atrypa duntroonensis (early Homerian, early Silurian, ca 430.5 Ma) within a mudstone of the Canberra Formation. Their discovery in 1844 by the Reverend William B. Clarke ("the Father of Australian Geology"), and subsequent comparison with other fossil collections from around the world, contributed significantly to the nineteenth century debate about the oldest rocks in Australia. The fossil site is now on the ACT Government Heritage List and recent site improvements make it readily accessible via a pathway from the sports grounds of the Royal Military College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides our first forensic quartz grain surface texture analysis of soils from the southern hemisphere. Sediment and soil samples were collected from a simulated crime reconstruction in the environs of Canberra, Australia, which comprised a murder site, an alibi site and a body deposition site. Following the successful application of quartz grain surface texture analysis from many case locations in England1 and more recently in Switzerland2, this paper examines the potential for the application of this technique from areas around Canberra. The very specific geological history of the Australian continent provides new challenges for forensic reconstruction techniques. The quartz grain surface textural analysis undertaken indicates that clear differences between the three locations can be identified, enabling the successful differentiation of samples taken from the three distinct sites. This provides a means of undertaking exclusionary analysis and disproving an alibi location as being a possible source for material derived from the murder site or the body deposition site. These findings indicate that this form of geoforensic analysis has great potential for crime scene investigation of mixed-source physical trace geoforensic evidence in Australia. It also has the potential to provide an independent line of enquiry to other well established geoforensic techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Warren Denning's Caucus Crisis (1937) is widely regarded as one of the earliest and most influential works of contemporary political history to be authored and published in Australia. This paper details how and why Caucus Crisis was written. It finds that Denning originally contextualised the travails of the Scullin government in an autobiographical history of Canberra in order to advocate for the ideals with which Canberra had been founded. It suggests that Denning's treatment of the Scullin government and his diagnosis of its problems reflected a personal disappointment. It also suggests that Denning's revisions, which largely excised these autobiographical elements, were motivated by a desire to depict the personalities as he had observed them first-hand, and thus produced a book indebted to dramatic tragedy, establishing a form prevalent in Australia today — where narrative drive is strong, characters loom large, and where action is tightly circumscribed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canberra Airport, until recently, was an aviation backwater. The state of the airport masked its importance to Australia's aviation infrastructure network as the gateway to the nation's capital and the only unrestricted major airport along the most populous stretch of the country's eastern seaboard. Canberra Airport is now being transformed through an AUS$1bn investment programme, with its centrepiece, a new AUS$420m terminal, scheduled for completion in early 2013. This major investment programme, however, was all but abandoned in the face of regulatory failure that stymied investment in airport infrastructure in Australia. The subsequent introduction of lighter-handed economic regulation has seen airport infrastructure investment in Canberra, and Australia, flourish to meet the demands of users. This paper highlights the regulatory hurdles faced by Canberra Airport and how they were ultimately overcome on the way to delivering Australia's newest international airport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At 9.30pm on 28th February, 2007, a supercell storm hit Canberra, causing major damage to the city and the Australian National University, which has its main campus located on the western fringe of the city centre. As a consequence, the university was closed for five days, while the buildings were checked for structural/electrical damage caused by hailstones and flooding. This paper provides a case study on the emergency management strategy employed by the university in response to damage caused to campus facilities and consequent disruption to academic activities. It focuses on the immediate response, with particular emphasis on organisational arrangements and communications. While the response strategy was largely effective, several gaps in procedures were identified, including broadcast communications to the campus community, controlling access to 'closed' buildings and managing the impact of the campus closure on new students in residential halls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plans for Ottawa and Canberra were implemented in the 1950s and 1960s after a half century of frustration and delays. This paper compares the post-war plans for the two cities, and considers the political, financial and urban design factors that led to the implementation breakthroughs. The federal governments of Canada and Australia made repeated attempts to plan and develop their capitals over the past century. The planning histories of Ottawa-Hull and Canberra therefore make good case studies for considering the implementation of plans. The research method for the paper is a comparative case analysis, using extensive archival research and pattern-matching. The paper considers ten examples from the two cities. It concludes that effective implementation requires political support, long-term financing, planning skills, administrative expertise and a powerful champion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban densification agenda for the Australian Capital Territory announced in 2012 as well as the climate-related impacts (such as flood and rising temperature) have made the role of green infrastructure in this city more critical than at any other time. The Living Infrastructure Plan for Canberra was proposed by the local government in 2019 and it is currently being developed. However, there is a lack of understanding of the variety of urban green infrastructure characters, associated urban green space types, and their contributions to the green infrastructure plan. Therefore, this research aims to study the existing types of urban green infrastructure and green spaces in Canberra and investigate their potential sociocultural and ecological contributions that need to be considered in developing green infrastructure plans. To achieve this, we employed a socioecological approach and a mix of methods including a literature review, a review of policy documents, semi-structured interviews with experts, geospatial data, and field observation. Ten main urban green infrastructures were identified in Canberra and associated green spaces and their ecosystem services were discussed. Finally, a framework was delineated to suggest recommendations for the identified urban green infrastructure types with the aim of improving the green infrastructure planning practice by enhancing, preserving, and reinforcing green spaces. The findings provide a foundation for coordinating green infrastructure decision making and suggest a framework for designing high-quality and multifunctional green spaces. The study concludes that further investigation is required to comprehend the diversity of urban green infrastructures and their ecosystem services, co-benefits, synergies, and trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores nation-making at the intersection of the imagination and practice of national capital cities, portraiture, and the politics of recognition. Specifically examining Canberra's National Portrait Gallery as a national cultural institution, it seeks to account for the development of the Gallery as a place of portraiture and the Australian national politics of historical recognition. After situating the Gallery generally in the context of the development of national cultural institutions as a practice of national capital city and nation-state production and reproduction, it then briefly examines the role of particular contingencies and the specific imagination of national portrait galleries in the 'Anglosphere' in producing the Gallery. I subsequently then explore the development of the Gallery as a visual-material national centre through its built accommodation and its discursive framing, along with its practice in the field of portraiture intersecting with the building of a Australian national history through the recognition of individuals. The article concludes by emphasising that while the Gallery is a place of national pasts, presents and futures, it should be stressed that it, and Canberra's other national cultural institutions, are also very much spatial products (and producers) of particular spatial imaginations and practices of nationality and the urban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its 50 years, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs (and later Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) has become a great department of state. Foreign is an important conglomerate, doing diplomacy, trade, aid, and spying. In the Canberra system, though, Foreign has an 'anaemia' problem caused by chronic underfunding. Measured as a proportion of the Commonwealth budget, spending on diplomacy is halving in only three decades. Anaemia is the effect; the causes are a formidable set of forces pressing against the department over those 50 years: the evolution and empowerment of Australia's presidential prime minister; the birth of ministerial minders; public service managerialism; Canberra's national security system—and mindset—in the twenty-first century; globalisation and the digital era: every government department has its own bit of foreign policy; political choices: Australia's two parties of government— Liberal and Labor—often buy something other than good foreign policy. Plus, important bits of the Liberal Party see DFAT as ideologically tainted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marking the Aboriginal Tent Embassy's fiftieth anniversary in 2022, this article adopts a historical perspective to examine the challenges encountered by Australian heritage regimes when attempting to recognize this site as a heritage place. First established in Canberra in 1972 on Ngunnawal land, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy reveals the material-discursive limits of Australia's Burra Charter-derived values-based heritage regime in recognizing and respecting Indigenous rights, sovereignty, and protest. Recent attempts have been made to include the site on the Commonwealth Heritage List (2005), the National Heritage List (2008) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Heritage List (2015). That these nominations have not yet been successful suggests that heritage regimes of governance and management express settler-colonial ideology. Consequently, heritage becomes imbued with narratives of national identity and power and becomes a mechanism in maintaining settler-colonial dominance. This article proposes centralizing Indigenous agency as an alternative way towards formulating post-colonial heritage regimes and values-based conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1960–70s, there was a proposal to expand the administrative border of Canberra into the neighbouring state New South Wales to accommodate long-term population growth and urban development. However, this attempt failed ultimately. This study investigates this 'remaking' of the border, and revisits the same issue in the planning and development context of the twenty-first century. It employs three conceptual constructs – 'bordering', 'debording', and 'rebordering' – to draw insights into the nexus between the border's (re)making, dominant planning thinking, and emerging development process. It uses a mix of primary and secondary sources of data and information collected from the National Archives of Australia, newspaper clippings of The Canberra Times, interviews with planners involved, Australian Census data, and planning literature. It finds that the border expansion proposal was driven by a political advocacy out of a modernist technocratic planning vision for a linear city, and was based on an over-optimistic and mechanical population projection. However, as a highly political initiative, its failure was doomed by political strains and changes, and local community's concerns. Knowing this history contributes to tackling a similar issue in today's paradox of a planning paradigm for compactness and sustainability and an emerging development expansion onto the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centennial city of Canberra, the Australian capital, has been developed following stringent planning concepts to deliver liveable neighbourhoods. The built environment of Canberra was strongly influenced by the Garden City concept in the early days and the New Town Development model in the 1960s and 1970s. While enhancing quality of life (QoL) is increasingly emphasised in urban planning, little empirical research has been done to assess how urban planning underpins this better QoL. This research examines the relationship between urban policy and QoL in Canberra by applying an integrated policy evaluation tool. The neighbourhoods of Canberra have been divided into seven districts for spatial analysis. The QoL level in each district was compared and the Belconnen and Tuggeranong districts were identified as achieving a lower QoL than other districts. Key indicators that were closely linked with the QoL level in these districts were identified. Using scenario analysis, the article identifies the changes to QoL in the two districts which could result from improving these key factors. The article proposes a method of mapping the interdisciplinary issues with the related urban policy and concludes with the implications for urban planning and further analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celebrated architect and city planner Daniel Hudson Burnham enjoyed a rise to fame in the aftermath of his widely acclaimed achievement as Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition, held in his adopted Chicago in 1893. Roughly in parallel with Burnham's rise, town planning movements were coalescing in Australia, and it would not be long until the Chicagoan's name was circulating in Australian professional circles. This is a pilot study broadly aimed at chronicling and interpreting Australian awareness of Daniel Burnham at the turn of the twentieth century. More specifically, it is concerned with the reception of Burnham's civic design ideals and why some believed them to be of antipodean relevance. Their Australian impact, however, is beyond the present study's scope. Reciprocally, this essay also surveys Burnham's knowledge of Australia. Special emphasis is given to Burnham within the context of the Australia's Federal Capital competition (1912), arguing that although the Chicagoan did not compete, he profoundly, albeit vicariously, impacted the capital's design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A number of important city-building projects across the early 20th century drew on the utopian ideas of the City Beautiful movement, an architectural response to the poverty and social dysfunctions generated by urban industrialism. This was also a moment in which the imperial connections and imperial ambitions of settler capitalist societies coincided with national projects. The curious co-existence of these ambitions was embodied in the capital city projects of the time – simultaneously imperial and national, and developed through an exchange of utopian ideas about architecture, planning, nature and modernity. Of these, Canberra is exemplary; the most fully realized. A hundred years later, its story is still largely told in narrow terms, as a parochial tale of incomplete nationalism. Shifting focus to explore Canberra in relation to other capital city building projects during the period offers a better understanding of the complex overlays of imperialism, nationalism and regionalism at play in new world settler societies, and the cultural traffic across the Anglophone world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The National Capital Canberra as a planned city has a unique system in Australia with direct federal planning controls combined with Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government administration integrating state and local functions. The immediate surrounding border of NSW is also a significant consideration in planning and land management. In its Centenary year, Canberra is reflecting on its planning heritage and in doing so exploring the planning challenges for the next 100 years. Key issues being discussed include climate change, renewable energy, public transport, regional development and demographic change. Recent initiatives include the introduction of light rail, green precincts and strengthening Canberra as a knowledge economy capitalising on the universities and national research institutions. The voices of the community are developing strongly and the planning system is being challenged to accommodate this change. This article will outline the major reforms in the planning system in the ACT in recent years and discuss whether these have provided a platform for a more sustainable future for Canberra as a national capital, a regional capital for the south-east NSW and as a local community expected to grow to half a million population by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious communities have historically posed distinct challenges for urban governance in their accommodation within the built environments and social landscapes of cities. Looking to the future, this article examines two broad religious trends: increased pluralisation driven by the processes of secularisation and transnational migration; along with the emergence of the 'mega-church' as an organisational and built phenomenon, and their expected impacts on planning practice. This article particularly considers the impacts of these changes within Canberra, however, it is anticipated that the issues identified will resonate elsewhere in urban Australasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emphasizing bureaucracy as a communicative phenomenon involving localized knowledge--or metis--this article examines the place of the national capital city of Australia, Canberra, within the geographies of the Australian Public Service. First, drawing on research into knowledge clusters, the city is viewed as a key place of certain forms of communicative interaction. Second, drawing on the concept of metis, Canberra is discussed as a place potentially out of touch with the rest of Australia in terms of this form of knowledge but also as an essential site of accumulating metis essential to career progression within the national bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the role of national capital cities in the imagination and practice of nationalism and nationalisation, this article explores contemporary national Anzac Day commemorations and Australia Day Live as spectacular events marking national days in and of the space of Canberra as the national capital of Australia. After situating these two events in the context of contemporary trends in the governance of national capitals and the two national days that they mark, the article in turn explores how the place of Canberra is mobilised and reproduced by these events as a stage, and the content of these events as moments in the politics of recognition within the Australian national mythscape.[image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets forth principles for assessing betterment under a public premium leasehold system of land tenure. Canberra, Australia, is employed as a case study. Recovery of the betterment which results as the city grows has been an important objective of public land ownership in Canberra. Up-front premiums and betterment charges replaced land rents in 1970. Betterment charges are applicable when permission to change land use is granted and there is an increase in the value of the lease. Different definitions used over time have failed to measure betterment correctly. A correct definition is derived, and it is argued that a 100% charge should be levied to maintain the government's ownership of development rights. Such a charge would not stifle redevelopment but would remove the subsidy it currently receives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]