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Background: Recent rapid growth in urban areas and the desire to create liveable neighbourhoods has brought about a renewed interest in planning for compact cities, with concepts like the 20-minute neighbourhood (20MN) becoming more popular. A 20MN broadly reflects a neighbourhood that allows residents to meet their daily (non-work) needs within a short, non-motorised, trip from home. The 20MN concept underpins the key planning strategy of Australia's second largest city, Melbourne, however the 20MN definition has not been operationalised. This study aimed to develop and operationalise a practical definition of the 20MN and apply this to two Australian state capital cities: Melbourne (Victoria) and Adelaide (South Australia). Methods: Using the metropolitan boundaries for Melbourne and Adelaide, data were sourced for several layers related to five domains: 1) healthy food; 2) recreational resources; 3) community resources; 4) public open space; and 5) public transport. The number of layers and the access measures required for each domain differed. For example, the recreational resources domain only required a sport and fitness centre (gym) within a 1.5-km network path distance, whereas the public open space domain required a public open space within a 400-m distance along a pedestrian network and 8 ha of public open space area within a 1-km radius. Locations that met the access requirements for each of the five domains were defined as 20MNs. Results: In Melbourne 5.5% and in Adelaide 7.6% of the population were considered to reside in a 20MN. Within areas classified as residential, the median number of people per square kilometre with a 20MN in Melbourne was 6429 and the median number of dwellings per square kilometre was 3211. In Adelaide's 20MNs, both population density (3062) and dwelling density (1440) were lower than in Melbourne. Conclusions: The challenge of operationalising a practical definition of the 20MN has been addressed by this study and applied to two Australian cities. The approach can be adapted to other contexts as a first step to assessing the presence of existing 20MNs and monitoring further implementation of this concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's natural capital is under growing cumulative pressure from land use change and intensive agriculture, fishery, forestry, and urban sprawl. This consequently reduces the benefits and services that it provides. This paper firstly assessed how current trends of land-use change have an impact on the natural capital loss in South Victoria, Australia during 2006-2016. Then in order to increase natural capital inherent value and to ensure that natural capital is multifunctional, a system of Blue-Green Infrastructure is designed within the current natural capital of Tarwin Lower, in Victoria. Given that natural capital area is declining in Australia, incorporating designed elements into existing natural capital to create multifunctional natural capital, enables maximising the supply and value of ecosystem services in order to meet the demands of a growing population. Here, three ecosystem services (stormwater abatement, water quality improvement, and water supply services) were compared in terms of existing natural capital or with integrated Blue-Green Infrastructure elements to create multifunctional natural capital system. The results indicate that planning Blue-Green Infrastructure will enhance multiple aspects of regional sustainability and resilience in the Tarwin catchment and will maximise the multifunctionality of the natural capital. Finally, the paper simulates the cost-benefit analysis for the implementation of Blue-Green Infrastructure to show that it is a cost-effective and sustainable solution to cope with the current demographic, economic and agricultural trends, which affect natural capital. This paper confirms that in order to provide ecosystem services for extra demands of growing inhabitants, Blue-Green Infrastructure networks require to be extended in the Victoria State of Australia to compensate natural capital and ecosystem service losses due to the regional and urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Two hubs are designated to provide endovascular clot retrieval (ECR) for the State of Victoria, Australia. In an earlier study, Google Maps application programming interface (API) was used to perform modeling on the combination of hospitals optimizing for catchment in terms of current traveling time and road conditions. It is not known if these findings would remain the same if the modeling was performed with a large-scale transport demand model such as Victorian Integrated Transport Model (VITM). This model is developed by the Victorian State Government Transport has the capability to forecast travel demand into the future including future road conditions which is not possible with a Google Maps based applications. The aim of this study is to compare the travel time to potential ECR hubs using both VITM and the Google Maps API and model stability in the next 5 and 10 years. Methods: The VITM was used to generate travel time from randomly generated addresses to four existing ECR capable hubs in Melbourne city, Australia (i.e., Royal Melbourne Hospital/RMH, Monash Medical Center/MMC, Alfred Hospital/ALF, and Austin Hospital/AUS) and the optimal service boundaries given a delivering time threshold are then determined. Results: The strategic transport model and Google map methods were similar with the R 2 of 0.86 (peak and off peak) and the Nash-Sutcliffe model of efficiency being 0.83 (peak) and 0.76 (off-peak travel). Futures modeling using VITM found that this proportion decreases to 82% after 5 years and 80% after 10 years. The combination of RMH and ALF provides coverage for 74% of cases, 68% by 5 years, and 66% by 10 years. The combination of RMH and AUS provides coverage for 70% of cases in the base case, 65% at 5 years, and 63% by 10 years. Discussion: The results from strategic transport model are similar to those from Google Maps. In this paper we illustrate how this method can be applied in designing and forecast stroke service model in different cities in Australia and around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, a planning application for a McDonald's ‘convenience restaurant’ in Tecoma, Melbourne's Dandenong Ranges region, was approved at Victoria's planning tribunal. Although generating a high-profile backlash, the Tecoma McDonald's was far from being Australia's, Victoria's, or even the immediate region's first to encounter a campaign of place-protective opposition. The Tolstoy truism holds that ‘every happy family is alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’. Franchised ‘family restaurants’ are premised on and perhaps defined by being recognisable alike. Yet as Massey argues, seemingly aspatial phenomena are always mediated by local context. This paper argues that local statutory planning has been central to the expansion of fast food chains, with globalisation tending to be accompanied by increasingly defensive legal boundaries. To demonstrate this, the paper explores a group of fast food outlets that experienced some form of local ‘unhappiness’ – 37 planning appeals involving opposition to fast food outlets in Victoria over 1969–2012. The paper explores how planning provisions applicable to fast food developments have shifted and how these shifts, in turn, have determined the permissible boundaries of planning decisions around them. Hall once reported finding himself describing the containment of urban England in ‘terminology appropriate to boxing or all-in wrestling’ (90). Here I borrow Hall's boxing analogy by suggesting six boxing-inspired rules, codified over time, applicable to the Tecoma McDonald's. These statutory details resemble the legal and physical boundaries within which, in boxing, blows are landed – but always by the book. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A distinctive feature of suburban development in Melbourne, Australia, from the late 1920s was the fully serviced cul-de-sac subdivision in which houses, gardens, streetscape, and infrastructure were conceived as a planned entity. The typology can be linked to the Californian bungalow court concept, transmitted via professional journals, trade magazines, and study tours. While the standard American model evolved toward denser clusters of urban apartment buildings, the Melbourne paradigm remained resolutely suburban. The first planned estates in the 1920s featured detached, middle-class houses fronting handsome public streets. Later developments were less bespoke and connect to the rapid expansion of the cul-de-sac form in postwar suburban housing estates. In mass production, the holistic, collective integrity of the Pasadena prototype proved difficult to discern. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During construction of a new freeway in Melbourne, it was found that tonal wind-induced noise was being generated by the finned balustrades of architecturally-designed pedestrian overpasses which had been installed at several locations along the route. As the level of wind-induced noise was unacceptable at residences in the vicinity of the overpasses, a solution to reduce or eliminate the noise had to be developed. The solution needed to be practical to retrofit to the existing structure, while satisfying strict project constraints in relation to urban design, design life, and safety in design rules. This paper outlines the investigation that was undertaken to determine the wind-conditions under which the noise occurred, discusses the noise-generation mechanisms that were established to be causing the noise, and presents a summary of the potential solutions that were identified through theoretical analysis, wind tunnel modelling and field trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1990s, urban planning in Melbourne changed from prescriptive regulation to a place-based performance framework with a focus on existing or desired 'urban character'. This paper is a case study of a contentious urban project in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy: a highly valued place characterised as an irregular and transgressive mix of differences: between building types, functions, forms, heights and people. Contrasting conceptions, experiences and constructions of 'character' are explored from the viewpoints of residents, architect/developer and the state. To what degree does the regulation of 'character' open or close the city to creative innovation? Can it become camouflage for creative destruction? How to regulate for irregularity? The paper concludes with a discussion of theories of place (Massey vs Heidegger) and the prospects of concepts such as habitus (Bourdieu) and assemblage (Deleuze) for the interpretation of a progressive sense of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Development of water sensitive urban design (WSUD) in Australia is rapidly changing urban landscapes by incorporating engineered stormwater management systems such as bioretention basins. Despite these landscape changes, little is known about their effect on urban biodiversity. The biodiversities of six bioretention basins and six corresponding paired greenspaces (divided into two subgroups) in the Melbourne area were compared using ground-dwelling terrestrial invertebrates as biodiversity indicators. Overall, the number of species, species richness and diversity displayed a decreasing trend from bioretention basins to gardenbed and lawn-type greenspaces. This trend may reflect the possible decreasing habitat resources. Species composition was significantly different in these landscape types. The differences in low-stratum vegetation, pH, leaf litter depth and gravel were the main habitat factors influencing the invertebrate communities of these landscapes. The transition from traditional urban greenspaces to bioretention basins potentially promises to enhance urban biodiversity. Landscape planning at the urban-design scale should consider reducing lawn as environmentally unsustainable urban greenspaces. At the streetscape scale, a combination of bioretention basins and gardenbed-type greenspaces may provide ecologically robust and aesthetically pleasant urban streets. This study was conducted in a summer season only and caution should be taken in generalizing the outcomes over an entire year. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper argues that a recent resurgence in Australian spatial planning has been superseded by a resort to infrastructure to address urban problems. The paper uses case studies of the Melbourne and South East Queensland (Brisbane) metropolitan regions to chart the renewal of new spatial planning, after a period of neglect. This paper then shows this spatial planning renewal has given way to a new emphasis on urban infrastructure planning as the primary mode of intervention in these cities. The infrastructure turn raises important questions about the spatial planning and infrastructure of cities within a new era of global strategic challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the climatic effects of urban planning in Melbourne, Australia, through a regional climate model. The study involved the use of an improved version of The Air Pollution Model (TAMP) to determine the impact of long term urban planning. TAMP was able to replicate the surface energy balance, as compared to an observational flux tower in Melbourne. Results of a future urban heat island (UHI) scenario was able to show specific areas that need planning intervention that can improve local climates.

In this article, the author discusses the future of Sydney, New South Wales and Melbourne, Victoria regarding the world of megacities. He mentions that Australian cities are now becoming more ethnically Asian. He further discusses the role and character of Australian cities and the challenge posed by the rise of Asia's cities to it which even indicates that Sydney and Melbourne cannot claim to be big cities in their region.