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Urban governance in Melbourne is a relative outlier compared to the recent experience of austerity politics in many European and North American cities, which has produced extreme programmatic reductions linked to deepening social crises, such as worsening health outcomes. Instead, the Australian experience post the global financial crisis (GFC) demonstrates the enduring normalization of fiscal conservatism and targeted social protectionism in the national political economy but also illustrates the power of urban contexts to generate policy positions and collaborative institutions in support of local conditions in this case study of cultural pluralism. The article brings a singular perspective to comparative international scholarship on austerity urbanism by illustrating how commitment to these principles in one Australian city center combined with the adoption of collaborative governance and attention to multiculturalism can forge a distinctive approach to urban revitalization.

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith School of Environment, Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, Manifestations of climate change are already creating significant stress in many parts of the world. On-going increases in greenhouse gas emissions are tracking the upper level scenario forecasts proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This indicates a high probability that climate change stress will intensify over the coming decades. Consequently, responding through climate adaptation must become a central tenet of successful urban governance and management. Climate change adaptation is defined as an imperative in this thesis. The institutionalisation of climate adaptation is identified as a key institutional challenge for urban and metropolitan planning. Institutionalisation refers to climate adaptation becoming established, codified and implemented as a central tenet of planning governance. This thesis develops conceptual understandings of climate adaptation as an institutional imperative. It identifies the intersection of this problem with planning and examines how planning regimes, as institutions, can better manage climate change stresses impacts in human settlements. Institutional transformation is identified as central to this process. Planning regimes must transform in order to institutionalise new rules of governance, which are designed to better respond to climate change stress through climate adaptation. A new conceptualisation of institutional transformation is presented in this thesis, focused on a new typology of stressors, referred to as ‘transformative stressors’. This is based on an argument that institutional scholarship does not adequately articulate the idea that certain stressors can create such severe stresses that institutional transformation must follow, or the institutions charged with responding risk failing or becoming redundant. A transformative stressor is characterised as a chronic, large-scale phenomenon, which triggers a process of institutional transformation, whereby institutions seek to re-orientate their activi

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith School of Environment, Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, Over the past 20 years governments in Australia have been experimenting with spatial targeting as a way to address disadvantage. Spatially targeted programs are distinct from traditional functional programs in that they are geographically based and focus on working with communities and across governments to address multiple problems at the local level. In this context NSW and Queensland stand out as two states that adopted explicit spatial responses to urban disadvantage in the form of place management programs. Place management programs were cast as innovative attempts to address concentrated disadvantage in discrete local communities. Why these two states adopted spatial targeting is the central question of this research. The research uses in-depth case study analysis of place management programs in Western Sydney and Brisbane to uncover the multiple factors that led to this form of spatial targeting. Analysis of the decision-making and implementation process for these programs provides insights about the policy process in Australia and the prospects for spatial targeting to tackle complex social policy issues. Place management programs are comparable with examples of spatial targeting in other Western democracies, for example area-based initiatives in the UK. Area-based initiatives sought to address the concentrated disadvantage that arose from restructuring and deindustrialisation, with targeted intensive interventions in local areas. Drawing on the international literature, this research extends the concept of spatial targeting by applying it to the Australian case. Whilst some of the international features are identifiable here, other aspects of spatial targeting are unique to the Australian institutional context. In this thesis it is argued that from the 1980s onwards, economic restructuring and urban redevelopment in Australian cities contributed to the emergence of complex problems. Existing governance arrangements were unable to respond to these problems a

Since its national debut in 1987, Fresh Air with Terry Gross has been a highly acclaimed and much adored weekday magazine among public radio listeners. Each week, nearly 4.8 million people turn to Peabody Award-winning host Terry Gross for insightful conversations with the leading voices in contemporary arts and issues. The renowned program reaches a global audience, with over 620 public radio stations broadcasting Fresh Air, and 3 million podcast downloads each week. Fresh Air has broken the mold of 'talk show' by weaving together superior journalism and intimate storytelling from modern-day intellectuals, politicians and artists alike. Through probing questions and careful research, Gross's interviews are lauded for revealing a fresh perspective on cultural icons and trends. Her thorough conversations are often complemented by commentary from well-known contributors. Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR., (1.) HENRY LOUIS GATES is Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University where he also teaches. He's written many books. And he wrote and produced the PBS documentaries African American Lives which used genealogy and DNA to trace African American descent. His latest book and PBS special is Black in Latin America about the millions of Africans who were sent to the Caribbean and Latin America in the Middle Passage. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW). (2.) Irish actor BRENDAN GLEESON. His films include Braveheart, I Went Down, In Bruges, The General, and the Harry Potter films. He played Michael Collins in The Treaty, and won an Emmy for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the film Into the Storm. In the new film The Guard he co-stars with Don Cheadle, and plays an eccentric cop battling drug dealers in the west of Ireland. (INTERVIEW BY DAVE DAVIES).

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith School of Environment, Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, Since the mid 1980s performance-based planning has been actively promoted as a way of achieving more sustainable land-use planning outcomes in Australian cities and regions. The benefits of a more integrated, flexible approach to land-use planning appear to offer a compelling alternative to the rigid and blunt silo style of land-use planning that has shaped and defined the (increasingly unsustainable) morphology of Australian settlements since federation. In theory at least performance-based planning offers the possibility of achieving more sustainable planning outcomes by engendering innovation, creativity and a customized approach to urban and regional areas. In practice however, the ‘performance-based turn’ to planning emerges as an ill-understood concept that struggles to live up to professional and community aspirations. Yet, despite these concerns performance-based planning has held only a ‘shadowy presence’ in urban planning that warrants more critical research and public policy attention. This thesis develops and applies an institutional framework to better understand and learn from the mobilisation and practice of performance-based planning as a strategy for sustainability in Queensland under the Integrated Planning Act 1997 (IPA). Within Australia this case is significant as the first statutory attempt to embed both ecological sustainability and performance-based planning at the heart of state-wide land-use planning amidst a pervasive political agenda of micro-economic reform. The methodological framework utilized for this study draws on a combination of two key institutional learning approaches: 1. The spatial strategy-making approach outlined by Healey (2007); and 2. The key principles around institutional change for sustainability put forward by Connor and Dovers (2004).

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Griffith School of Environment, Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, This thesis examines the role of risk in framing confinement and spatial control in contemporary mental health policy. It argues that geographers’ focus on ‘post-asylum’ geographies has meant that the continued role of confinement in mental health has not been sufficiently examined. While deinstitutionalisation resulted in a change to the spatial configuration of care for people with mental illness it did not mean that confinement of people with mental illness ceased. Indeed, as the thesis shows, there has been a renewed emphasis on confinement in a number of jurisdictions. The thesis argues that the concept and language of risk has been used in mental health policy to support this renewed focus on confinement. The thesis a) provides evidence for the continued and/or resurgent significance of confinement, b) explains how this resurgence relates to the increasing framing of mental health policy by risk and c) explains what this means in relation to the spatiality of social control of people with mental illness. The methodological approach is shaped by an emphasis on understanding the historical context of the use of risk in public policy. There are two key aspects of the methodology. First, the importance of ‘the history of the present’; this is a concern to understand the historical conditions of existence upon which contemporary practices exist. Second, a discursive analysis of public policy broadly framed around critical discourse analysis. The continued role of confinement and how it relates to risk in contemporary mental health systems is examined in two case studies, one England and Wales, the other Queensland, Australia. The thesis demonstrates that there has been a renewed focus on confinement in these jurisdictions, driven by a policy concern to exert greater control over risk and uncertainty. It rejects the argument proposed by Castel (1991), and other governmentality theorists, including Deleuze (1992) and Rose (2002), that moves towards decentralised cont

This chapter examines the appliction of performance-based planning at the local level in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. A review of the literature finds that there have been few evaluations of performance-based planning, despite its being used by many governments. The authors provide a comparative review of the experiences of various jurisdictions in implementating this form of zoning and present observations on its relative strengths and weaknesses. Findings suggest that many of the jurisdictions that adopted performance-based planning subsequently abondoned it because of the heavy administrative burden required, and where performance methods survived, they were typically hybridized with traditional zoning. If performance-based approaches continue to be used, there is a need to better understand the administrative and implementaiton implications of this type of land-use regulation.

Our brief is to investigate the role of community and lifestyle in the making of a globally successful knowledge city region. Our approach is essentially pragmatic. We start by broadly examining knowledge-based urban development from a number of different perspectives. The first view is historical. In this context knowledge work and knowledge workers are seen as vital parts of a new emergent mode of production reliant on the continual production of abstract knowledge. We briefly develop this perspective to encompass the work of Richard Florida who has, notedly, claimed: “Wherever talent goes, innovation, creativity, and economic growth are sure to follow.” Our next perspective examines concepts of knowledge and modes of its production to discover knowledge is not an unchanging object but a human activity that changes in form and content through history. The suggestion emerges that not only is the production of contemporary ‘knowledge’ organised in a specific (and new) manner but also the output of this networked production is a particular type of knowledge (i.e. techné). The third perspective locates knowledge production and its workers in the contemporary urban context. As such, it co-ordinates the knowledge city in the increasingly global structure of cities and develops a typology of different groups of knowledge workers in their preferred urban environment(s). We see emerging here a distinctive geography of knowledge production. It is an urban phenomenon. There is, in short, something about the nature of cities that knowledge workers find particularly attractive. In the next, essentially anthropological, perspective we start to explore the needs and desires of the individual knowledge worker. Beyond the needs basic to any modern human household an attempt is made to deduce, from a base understanding of knowledge work as mental labour, the compensatory cultural needs of the knowledge worker when not at work - and the expression of these needs in the urban fabric.

Low density suburban development and excessive use of automobiles are associated with serious urban and environmental problems. Master planned development suggests itself as a possible palliative for these ills. This study examines the patterns and dynamics of movement in a selection of master planned estates in Australia with the aim of developing new approaches for assessing the containment of travel within planned development. A geographical information systems methodology is used to determine regional journey-to-work patterns and travel containment rates. Factors that influence self-containment patterns are estimated with a regression model. The findings of the pilot study demonstrate that the proposed model is a useful starting point for a systematic and detailed analysis of self-containment in master planned estates.

This article examines the application of performance-based planning at the local level in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. A review of the literature finds that there have been few evaluations of performance-based planning, despite its being used by many governments. The authors provide a comparative review of the experiences of various jurisdictions in implementing this form of zoning and present observations on its relative strengths and weaknesses. Findings suggest that many of the jurisdictions that adopted performance-based planning subsequently abandoned it because of the heavy administrative burden required, and where performance methods survived, they were typically hybridized with traditional zoning. If performance-based approaches continue to be used, there is a need to better understand the administrative and implementation implications of this type of land use regulation.

Low density suburban development and excessive use of automobiles are associated with serious urban and environmental problems. These problems include traffic congestion, longer commuting times, high automobile dependency, air and water pollution, and increased depletion of natural resources. Master planned development suggests itself as a possible palliative for the ills of low density and high travel. The following study examines the patterns and dynamics of movement in a selection of master planned estates in Australia. The study develops new approaches for assessing the containment of travel within planned development. Its key aim is to clarify and map the relationships between trip generation and urban form and structure. The initial conceptual framework of the paper is developed in a review of literature related to urban form and travel behaviour. These concepts are tested empirically in a pilot study of suburban travel activity in master planned estates. A geographical information systems methodology is used to determine regional journey-to-work patterns and travel containment rates. Factors that influence selfcontainment patterns are estimated with a regression model. This research is a useful preliminary examination of travel self-containment in Australian master planned estates.

Low density suburban development and excessive use of automobiles are associated with serious urban and environmental problems. These problems include traffic congestion, longer commuting times, high automobile dependency, air and water pollution, and increased depletion of natural resources. Master planned development suggests itself as a possible palliative for the ills of low density and high travel. The following study examines the patterns and dynamics of movement in a selection of master planned estates in Australia. The study develops new approaches for assessing the containment of travel within planned development. Its key aim is to clarify and map the relationships between trip generation and urban form and structure. The initial conceptual framework of the report is developed in a review of literature related to urban form and travel behaviour. These concepts are tested empirically in a pilot study of suburban travel activity in master planned estates. A geographical information systems (GIS) methodology is used to determine regional journey-to-work patterns and travel containment rates. Factors that influence self-containment patterns are estimated with a regression model. The key research findings of the pilot study are: - There is a strong relation between urban structural form and patterns of trip generation; - The travel self-containment of Australian master planned estates is lower than the scholarly literature implies would occur if appropriate planning principles to achieve sustainable urban travel were followed; - Proximity to the central business district, income level and education status are positively correlated with travel containment; - Master planned estates depend more on local and regional centres for employment than on the central business district; - The service sector is the major employer in and around master planned estates. It tends to provide part-time and casual employment rather than full-time employment; - Travel self-containmen