Urban Design

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GUEST OBSERVERS
Peter Jackson employed an intricate approach to the stage design of Lord of the Rings. The people who inhabited Middle Earth for hundreds of generations slowly left cultural traces, alterations, artefacts and remnants of their human existence on the environment. 
For example, the cinematographic stage set for Rivendell gives the viewer the impression of use and legacy over generations. Stage designers aged artefacts and applied, erased and reapplied cultural marks and insignia to “make” Rivendell the special and legendary place that author J.R.R. Tolkien had intended.
<h2>Placemaking</h2>
Urban space turns into place in a similar way. People are natural placemakers. 
When they live in cities, they create “livehoods”, build, modify, decorate, expand and renovate. In doing so, they slowly leave their mark on the city.
In the 1960s, progressive urban planners and designers like Jane Jacobsand William H. Whyte argued that catering for slow pedestrians rather than fast cars results in better city design. 
Placemaking can make places “sticky,” so people dwell longer, customers spend more in retail shops, and students stay on campus.
Trying to accommodate sustained high levels of growth, coupled with the need to contain urban sprawl, has led to the rapid gentrification of inner-city suburbs. As construction companies are trying to keep up with the mandate to grow Australian cities, they won’t slow down easily.
Placemaking is being used to quickly breathe life into new urban developments. Speedy placemaking is of the essence when generic turnkey residential stock is sold as “vibrant communities”, “liveable neighbourhoods” and “distinctive precincts”.
<h2>Cookie-cutter cities</h2>
Accelerated placemaking poses several risks.
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Places come with history and heritage to be conserved and protected. Digital storytelling has been used as a form of digital placemaking that not only enables the study of a place’s history, but also ways of embedding and commemorating historic evidence and artefacts in place.
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To avoid making places that suit the placemakers and their funders more than the current or future occupants, inclusive practices of placemaking are needed. Marginalised and economically threatened communities should be enabled to engage with their neighbourhood on their own terms and create their own urban imaginaries. This requires transdisciplinary, participatory and action researchapproaches to placemaking.
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Placemaking can fuel further gentrification with its well-known set of associated issues and consequences. Activating places often aims at making nearby retail and residential properties more profitable. Yet genuine and slow placemaking can add further value by unlocking a city’s diversity advantage.
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Many placemaking techniques such as urban hacktivism and urban acupuncture tend to be small and hyperlocal. They have been criticised for being limited in scale and impact. Can placemaking through DIY urban design scale up from subversive citymaking to systemic change?
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Contemporary placemaking relies more and more on stereotypes. An example is the iconic architectures of kerbside coffee shops. Christian Norberg-Schulz speaks of the genius loci as a fundamental element of placemaking: the essence of a place that makes it unique. 
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This approach seems currently ignored in favour of a cookie-cutter approach. Copying success stories – Venice in Vegas, for example – is a constant in architecture and urban design. But the trends of tactical urbanism, pop-up interventions and gentrification actually risk impoverishing our urban landscape and our urban ecologies.
<h2>Slow cities</h2>
In addition to a set of ongoing challenges, there are exciting opportunities on the horizon for slowing down placemaking and for placemaking to slow down cities.
Our fast-paced world of automation and smart cities prioritises speed and efficiency. Yet the health and wellbeing of city residents can be improved by slowing down. 
This is about not only a slower pace of pedestrian flow, traffic and life in public spaces. It also relates to appreciating artisan crafts, food provenance, seasonal changes, local customs, and even boredom and getting lost. In Australia, the cities of Goolwa (South Australia), Katoomba (New South Wales) and Yea (Victoria) have joined Cittaslow – “the international network of cities where living is good.”
This “slow cities” movement promotes the use of technology. Yet this is different to how technology is portrayed in many smart city visions, which liken cities to corporations that are about growth, efficiency and productivity. However, a city is neither a business nor a computer.
<h2>Making cities collaboratively</h2>
Revisiting Henri Lefebvre’s “right to the city,” we understand placemaking as a strategy to bring about much-needed social change and urban renewal through grassroots democratisation. 
Cities often invite people as participants in urban planning decision-making. Yet why limit people to just providing feedback to city governments as part of conventional community consultation processes? Genuine placemaking regards them as co-creators in collaborative citymaking.
The exposure to diverse ideas, places and communities is crucial for innovation and the functioning of democracy. We believe placemaking can help develop a better dialogue between citizens, communities, government, businesses, civic groups and non-profits. 
Placemaking is meant to provide a close connection between people and their locale. Placemaking has to be specific and unique to urban space, taking into account its community, environment, culture, food and social practices.
Finally, cities certainly need to face up to the challenges of climate change. Placemaking provides opportunities for more sustainable ways of life not only by creating accessible, healthy, democratic and slow cities, but also by imagining the post-anthropocentric city.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/marcus-foth-199317" target="_blank">Marcus Foth </a>is professor of Urban Informatics, Director, QUT Design Lab, Queensland University of Technology.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mirko-guaralda-355387" target="_blank">Mirko Guaralda</a> is senior lecturer in Architecture, Queensland University of Technology.
Both are authors for The Conversation.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

We should create cities for slowing down

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GUEST OBSERVER
The creative industries – ranging from game development to architecture, media, design and the arts – are a hot issue in urban development.
Creative businesses, almost by definition, are innovative. They drive new ideas, people and technologies into the market from the experimental edge. It follows, then, that strategies to make a state, city or town more creative can fuel cultural development, urban regeneration and economic growth.
The logic flows: attracting creative talent is increasingly tied to competing in global markets. Places with a creative industries base attract businesses and skilled workers from other knowledge-intensive industries like health, science, engineering and technology. This realisation has prompted regional governments across the globe, including some in Western Australia, to implement policies to make themselves more creative.
Australia’s creative industries contribute A$90 billion to the economyevery year. While making a city “more creative” has obvious economic rewards, gaps can emerge between policy and reality.
Creative businesses often struggle in the face of rising rents and development pressures. They may have difficulty in accessing property, finance and business advice.
The sector is also characterised by freelance, part-time and portfolio work. This means financial insecurity, uncertain employment and demanding working conditions are real challenges for a large proportion of its workers.
What do creative industries need to thrive?
Many cities, including some Australian state capitals, have to unpick the mechanics of city regeneration, which complicate creative industry development, through investment.
This public investment is often most visible in designated innovation or cultural precincts. The large public institutions and signature buildings typically found in these areas make plain governments’ involvement.
However, iconic architecture and major events alone aren’t enough to build robust creative economies. The creative economy in Australia is underpinned by the 98% of creative businesses with fewer than 20 employees. This sector plays an outsized role in innovation, experimentation and new ideas.
When municipal or state governments join forces with these smaller creative communities to shape urban regeneration the results can be far-reaching, although government’s role is often less visible.
The creative sector feeds on affordable commercial space, physical and digital connectivity and a critical mass of like-minded but diverse neighbours.
Small-to-medium creative enterprises are often deeply embedded in their local contexts. They are also highly networked, using formal and informal platforms to match ideas with potential collaborators, as well as private, government and third-sector investors.
Creating clusters from scratch is notoriously difficult. Building on latent and emerging clusters by leveraging existing property assets and local knowledge is far simpler. It also usually works a lot better.
This approach sounds intuitive, but often doesn’t happen. The reason is a heavy stakeholder focus on building something new, as well as control over land and property use.
Lessons from Amsterdam and Toronto
Amsterdam’s municipal council has introduced economic, cultural and spatial development policies that involve partnering small-to-medium creative entrepreneurs to rehabilitate brownfield sites. Creative-led partnerships have developed clusters at De Ceuvel, NDSM Wharf and Tolhuistuin.
The municipality has ceded some of its usual powers to the sector, with responsibility for delivery and success shared.
At Tolhuistuin, the council provides the land, old building stock and a maintenance budget for a fixed period while the creatives develop the precinct themselves (under the watch of a board). The outcome is a new asset-based blueprint for sustainable mixed-use urban development.
Tolhuistuin’s early seeded clusters set the stage for larger projects. These include the Eye Film Institute, the A’DAM Toren and the redevelopment of the Van Der Pek and Overhoeks precincts.
This all builds on the municipality’s longstanding broedplaatsen (breeding ground) program. This promotes creative clustering in underutilised buildings across the city by releasing 10,000m² of studio space per year.
The creative industries are empowered to take the lead in developing these projects. Amsterdam council unlocks funding sources and offers expert advice on bureaucratic and legal processes.
In Canada, Section 37 of the Ontario Planning Act has helped transform private, government and creative sector partnerships. It allows development regulations to be relaxed in exchange for community benefit, which includes creating living spaces for creatives.
In the early 2000s, social enterprise Artscape, supported by the City of Toronto, leveraged Section 37 to develop Artscape Triangle Lofts, home to 68 creative live/work units and Propeller Gallery. An innovative affordable ownership and rental program ensures a mix of uses and incomes in the building.
Toronto’s far-sighted policy decision helped the city retain and grow its creative community in the face of rising property prices. Today the sector contributes C$9 billion a year to Toronto’s GDP and employs 130,000 people.
Get in early, start small
The takeaway from this is that constructing a creative economy means implementing long-term transitional strategies to build talent and capacity over time. This avoids the need for more interventionist, expensive and risky strategies down the line.
WA towns and cities have an enviable opportunity to set up the conditions for a healthy creative economy before regeneration of their older building stock comes to pass. Nurturing this sector through a mix of smaller policy interventions could be an affordable and effective way to kick-start sustainable creative economies.
More modest interventions allow the luxury of learning from failure and trialling more experimental ideas. These can then flow through to the wider creative ecology.
All ecologies rely on an ongoing interplay between the large, medium and small. Each brings something different to the table to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
This requires a policy mix that can support big-ticket projects along with investment in sustainable careers and spaces for small-to-medium creative enterprises. This is true creativity at work.
Bree Trevena is PhD researcher, Research Unit in Public Cultures, University of Melbourne and author for The Conversation. She can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bree-trevena-292259" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Create to regenerate: cities tap into talent for urban renewal

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GUEST OBSERVER
The suburban street setback is enshrined in most residential planning policies, including Western Australia’s Residential Design Codes.
These dictate that all dwellings are constructed at a uniform distance from the kerb. 
In low-rise suburban areas, the street setback is occupied by arid grass, wheelie bins, concrete driveways and buried conduits. Often as wide as a tennis court, it’s usually a lifeless expanse. At the property owner’s discretion, the semi-private space of the setback may be enclosed by a hedge, low brick wall or paling fence, or left to bleed out into the adjacent public “nature strip”.
Why does this space exist? What practical function or cultural role does it serve? 
In his 1983 novel Mr Palomar, Italo Calvino explains that, while the suburban lawn itself is an “artificial object”, the “lawn’s purpose is to represent nature”. 
However, according to Thomas Schumacher’s essay, Buildings and Streets: Notes on Configurations and Use (from the 1986 book On Streets), the primary purpose is not symbolic, but defensive. Schumacher writes:
"The lawn does not function to enclose or define street space but only to isolate the street from the house. It is a no-man’s land, a miniature moat and city wall preventing access or use except at intervals."
Peter G. Rowe provides a third explanation in Modernity and Housing(1993). While the front lawn of the suburban house belongs to the owner, explains Rowe, utility companies and municipal authorities usually hold easements over multiple adjoining lawns in a complex interweaving of individual and collective ownership.
The origins of the street setback are virtually inseparable from those of suburbia itself. In 1775, influential English landscape architect Lancelot “Capability” Brown was hired to work alongside his adversary, the architect William Chambers, on rebuilding Dorset’s Milton Abbey estate. Their client, Joseph Damer, had purchased the estate and adjacent 600-person town, and asked Brown and Chambers to relocate the town further away from his new home.
The new village was arrayed along a single six-metre-wide road. Broad grassy verges either side of the road created a separation of 24 metres between house facades. 
The product of a compromise between proximity and privacy, between efficient planning and the picturesque, Milton Abbas established suburban parameters that have varied little in the 240 years since.
<h2>Rethinking the ‘nature strip’</h2>
Enter Fremantle architectural practice Officer Woods and its project, Civic Suburb. 
The 2011 Think Brick Australia About Face competition invited six architectural practices to demonstrate how brick could be creatively deployed in imagining “the future of the Australian suburb”. In response, Officer Woods decided to confront the underutilised space of the street setback. 
Where others saw only a barren verge, the Fremantle architects envisioned a staging ground for suburban transformation. 
Nominally located in the Perth suburb of Melville but widely applicable, Civic Suburb proposes to insert roofed vehicular “forecourts” into the nature strip, alternating with walled communal gardens. When the cars are away, these forecourts act as flexible enclosures for impromptu neighbourhood gatherings. 
By placing the cars on the street edge, Officer Woods shows how the concrete driveways of Melville’s battle-axe blocks could be reclaimed as linear green space. Empty garages could be converted into multipurpose “front rooms” housing shopfronts, living spaces, offices or granny flats. The separation of house and car also shrewdly anticipates the eventual obsolescence of the private automobile. 
Finally, capitalising on the increased activity of commerce and street life, second-storey “suburban apartments” could be built on top of predominantly single-level homes. This would add capacity without diminishing valuable open space.
<h2>Making suburban density desirable</h2>
In line with the competition brief, the forecourts, walled gardens and front rooms of Civic Suburb are imagined in solid brickwork. These brick elements are depicted in a beguiling array of forms, patterns and hues. 
While it’s hard to imagine typical suburban denizens erecting such artful and elaborate structures, it’s important that we not miss the wall for the bricks. The significance of this project lies not in its aesthetic qualities, but rather its spatial and strategic dimensions. 
The escalating pressure of increasing populations, changing demographics and property speculation on the scale and character of Australia’s suburbs is matched only by the intensity of resident opposition. Sunlight and privacy are key concerns. 
Anticipating this “not in my backyard” backlash, Civic Suburb doesn’t challenge the suburban backyard at all: it takes on the front yard instead. Most architect-designed suburban projects are clandestine additions at the rear, hidden from the street. Civic Suburb puts the area’s gradual transformation front and centre.
The value of such an overt strategy becomes clear in light of Perth’s current predicament. According to various metrics, Perth is Australia’s least dense city. If not for a handful of low-rise North American centres, Perth might be the least dense city in the world. 
With this in mind, you might imagine how an expected doubling of Perth’s population by 2050 could transform the sprawling city into a model of dense urbanism. Instead, according to the Perth and Peel@3.5 million report, 53% of the 800,000 new homes to be built by 2050 have been allocated fringe greenfield sites. 
The future Perth will look a lot like the present one, only larger and more spread out. Evidence of both political ploys and careless inaction, Perth’s increasing expansion demands alternative visions.
It’s important to understand why greenfield subdivision is such an expedient option. Most suburban redevelopment relies on acquisition and consolidation of multiple residential lots, or rezoning of commercial land. The replacement of individual properties and local businesses with collective housing complexes can lead to a loss of communal diversity and streetscape variation. 
Furthermore, to justify the huge expense of creating larger sites out of separate titles, private developers build as big and as cheaply as possible, forever impacting neighbourhood character.
<h2>DIY urbanism</h2>
Civic Suburb is a compelling proposition. It shows how underutilised suburban land could be intensified as an alternative to greenfield expansion and how this could occur without developers and consolidated lots.
An exercise in “do-it-yourself urbanism”, the project imagines an iterative increase in suburban density at the scale of the suburban plot – individual homeowners carry out the changes. It intensifies the use of existing spaces rather than relying on the acquisition of new land. 
While Officer Woods did not specify how shared ownership of communal carports and street gardens would be negotiated (it was only a competition entry, after all), such mechanisms exist. 
So-called “cluster planning” initiatives allow for the transfer of conventionally subdivided or publicly owned land into common property, owned and maintained by a collective body corporate. 
The transfer of ownership from local government to private citizenry is no simple matter. And the atomised nature of suburbia itself embodies a general aversion to sharing, which will have to be overcome.
In the 1950s, when suburbs like Melville last underwent rapid expansion, an average household numbered five occupants. Today, that average has nearly halved. The result is a disconnect between outward appearance and inner reality. Walking down a typical suburban street, we encounter large, multi-roomed dwellings whose many windows do not reflect the number of occupants. 
In this context, greater density might not mean an increase in built area. Instead, it could involve compartmentalisation into spaces better suited to smaller households and changing living conditions. A brave incursion into the no-man’s land of the street setback, Civic Suburb offers a compelling vision for incremental suburban transformation at the scale of the individual plot.
Grace Mortlock is research assistant and tutor, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/grace-mortlock-305149" target="_blank">here</a>.
David Neustein is associate, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-neustein-305151" target="_blank">here</a>.
Both are authors for The Conversation.
 
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Reinventing density: overcoming the suburban setback

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GUEST OBSERVER
“Our Future”, a year-long consultation process about a long-term vision for the City of Geelong, has begun. City of Greater Geelong CEO Kelvin Spiller engaged the first UNESCO chair of futures studies, Sohail Inayatullah, to kick-start the project in September.
Spiller, who has produced outcomes for city visioning initiatives on the Sunshine Coast, describes Our Future as a process of “presenting new perceptions, future directions, identifying used futures and new scenarios”. In a rapidly changing world, citizens use scenario thinking to gain insights into how cities can create alternative possibilities and solutions. 
How does industry see the future?
Inayatullah helped workshops of industry professionals develop various industry scenarios: 
Geelong’s emerging futures emphasise its great coastal beauty and its people’s strengths. The city remains small compared to the Gold Coast although, with 229,000 people, Greater Geelong is still among the largest of 561 local government areas in Australia. It is attractive, scenic and touristy. The city’s tranquil bay and marina, picturesque vineyards and proximity attract holidaymakers from Melbourne. 
Artificial intelligence (AI) futures open up a journey on the digital highway to build crowdsourced ideas, new funding models and business start-ups. Geelong’s traditional motor vehicle manufacturing culture combines with a spirit of innovation and global enterprise. The city promotes, evolves and services the introduction of driverless cars, the gaming industry, smart technologies and robotics.
Geelong’s population density, growing diversity, economic mix and proximity to Melbourne’s demographic richness support it as a social and education city. Geelong increases its transport and connectedness to its unique destinations to attract wide interests, new worker profiles and residents seeking a “sea change” from Melbourne’s inner suburbs. Residents network with local business owners and workers to generate services and programs for regional neighbours and Melbourne’s markets.
What does the community want?
Guided by Inayatullah, a community interactive session used metaphors to bring home a message of continual transition. He describes the use of metaphors as being a decisive factor in shifting narrative strategy:
If you don’t innovate and create agency to shift your own narrative, then culture eats strategy for breakfast. 
Geelong’s history of innovation includes the development of the world’s first ute and the first industrial refrigerator. This history suggests Geelong could provide services to global niche markets. 
The community also suggested transitions from costly and unnatural botanic gardens to green bionic gardens – sprawling rooftop gardens, indoor gardens and rainwater systems flowing into indigenous gardens. Gardens would beautify municipal roads and infrastructure. 
Another suggested transition was from being a “dormitory of Melbourne” to being a retreat for Melbourne holidaymakers and a “hive” location for its best thinkers to create their futures.
In the community session, I outlined Gold Coast’s Bold Future initiative. My presentation featured the city’s growth, including 100 new high-rises on the Surfers Paradise skyline in five decades. 
Navigating different growth scenarios
The challenge for Geelong is to navigate through growth scenarios such as:
Sustainable growth: five new high-rises emerge to support low-level tourism, conference accommodation and a burgeoning education and health precinct.
Overdevelopment: an oversupply of residential and holiday maker apartments become difficult to fill, halting investment. Population waves are required to sustain rates and market base.
Underdevelopment: Gold Coast’s rapid growth raises questions about Geelong’s slow growth and missed opportunities to develop high-rises alongside celebratory events packages. These packages rely on transport and tourism infrastructure and include the building of stadiums. The strength of underdevelopment, however, is that Geelong remains a clean, green and historically beautiful seaside city.
Negative growth: collapse results in generations of hardship. 
An outcome of Gold Coast’s 2037 vision is its Health and Knowledge Precinct. The 200-hectare site has generated more than A$5 billion in investment and is now linked by light rail to the city’s tourism centres.
Spiller noted that Geelong’s Our Future is continuing a 175-year process of reinvention. He hailed transformational metaphors that saw the city as more than a technology hub, potentially providing a deep commitment to networking to create a Silicon Valley. These have led to visions of transforming from a “resort city” to a “city of health and wellness”, from an “industrial, agricultural city” to a creative lifestyle, and from a “sleepy hollow” to an “emerging and sustainable city”. 
Time for feedback on Geelong’s future
Our Future extends over five stages, with the final three to begin in 2017. 
From January to March, the community can comment on ideas presented to date. Stages four and five will provide vision documents and conclude with an exhibition of the foresight journey the city has created.
Spiller and his team are developing a ten-to-30-year Our Future vision and strategies, for the city’s social, environmental and community infrastructure in particular. You can have your say about Geelong’s future via the Our Future survey.
Colin Russo is futurist, University of the Sunshine Coast and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/colin-russo-267108" target="_blank">here</a>.
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From the Gold Coast to Geelong: how cities are shaping visions of their futures

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GUEST OBSERVER
Australian cities are remarkable in the sheer diversity of wildlife that somehow manages to live among us, from flocks of raucous cockatoos or noisy lorikeets to the dusk fly-out of huge numbers of flying-foxes.
But such displays of nature in exuberant abundance can be tragically misleading. For the overwhelming majority of wildlife species, relentless urbanisation has been catastrophic. Most animals simply die following the arrival of the bulldozers.
Obviously, some species are able to cope better than others. So-called urban exploiters tend to share a number of characteristics such as rapid habituation to the presence of people, a generalist diet and an ability to be innovative.
When it comes to behavioural creativity though, Australia’s marsupials don’t seem to score very well. It was thought that koalas, in particular, were not good candidates for innovation.
But our new study of koalas near roads may provide some hope for an iconic species under very serious threat from urbanisation.
<h2>Protecting our threatened species</h2>
The 2012 listing of the koala as threatened by the Australian government (in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT) specifically acknowledged the impacts of habitat loss, dog attacks and road-kill. All are especially intense in areas where residential development coincides with koala populations.
High-growth coastal areas in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland continue to sprawl unabated, while the resident koala numbers plummet.
Recent modelling of koala populations paints a genuinely apocalyptic scenario with local extinction within decades no longer simply a vague possibility.
This grim prospect may lead to resignation but also desperate action. Following yet another report in 2011 of catastrophic declines in koala numbers in southern Queensland, the Department of Transport and Main Roads sponsored a remarkably insightful project. It was designed to explore ways of reducing one of the principal causes of koala deaths: collisions with cars.
A series of sites were identified in the Brisbane and Redland Bay areas where decent populations of koalas existed alongside some of the busiest roads in the region. With the animals regularly crossing these roads at night, these were also serious koala road-kill black spots.
The first and most obvious task was to prevent the koalas and cars from mixing, a straightforward matter of erecting climb-proof fencing.
But this can also add to the already severe impacts of habitat fragmentation, with wildlife increasingly isolated in smaller and smaller patches. It is vital that animals such as koalas continue to wander widely, but without the threats posed by fast-moving vehicles.
Although a wide range of structures specifically designed for wildlife to cross roads safely have been installed over and under roads, this can only be achieved during road construction.
But large box culverts are everywhere. Unfortunately, these are almost always full of water, and most wildlife are reluctant to get their feet wet.
<h2>If we build it will they come?</h2>
Nonetheless, these square pipes offer a possible wildlife passage solution. By attaching a wide ledge to the side of the culvert leading from one side of the road to the other, animals could potentially traverse the danger zone above.
This possibility proved unexpectedly fruitful. Within only a few weeks, a remarkable suite of fauna including echidnas, wallabies, possums and goannas had found and used the ledges.
But most exciting of all were the numerous koalas captured on the monitoring cameras and tracked by various technologies. These otherwise arboreal marsupials, whose main proclivity is climbing trees or walking – quickly – to the next tree, had somehow discovered a way of avoiding the great risks of the traffic above by travelling below on an artificial ledge over water in a dark tunnel!
This was something no koala had ever been required to do before.
The simplicity of the structure and the willingness of the koalas to try something new really does offer a glimmer of hope for all. It shows that it is possible to design an urban environment where koalas can learn to coexist with people.
Clearly if the koalas and other wildlife can adapt to this new urban design there is no reason why this idea cannot be extended to other urban areas where wildlife is currently threatened.
<h2>The human factor</h2>
What might be harder to change is the behaviour of humans, in particular those driving cars through these areas. A lot of research has shown that those overly familiar road signs – the yellow diamonds with a silhouette of a kangaroo, camel or koala – have absolutely no influence on driver speed or attentiveness.
We habituate almost instantly to these static images. But what about a large illuminated sign that changes when we are travelling too fast, such as used routinely around school zones? These do appear to have a discernible effect, with vehicles slowing quickly in response to the conspicuous electronic signal.
Using this as a starting point, Brisbane City Council is about to trial an ambitious new program of specific wildlife zones, complete with speed-activated signage, highly visible entrance and exit notices, coloured road surfaces and even signals that activate when tagged koalas approach the road side.
The idea is to convince drivers that they are being monitored while they travel through a place known for koalas.
It will be interesting to see if humans learn as effectively as the wildlife how the two can coexist in an urban environment.
Darryl Jones is deputy director of Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/darryl-jones-12696" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Safe passage: we can help save koalas through urban design

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GUEST OBSERVER
Place is a crucial dimension of human meaning and relationships. It grounds us. 
Our attachments with multiple places are a significant part of our individual and group identities. At one level, these attachments reflect our values and aspirations, while at another level they capture broader social, cultural and economic trends.
Place is therefore at once very personal and collective. It connotes multiple rather than singular meanings.
In 1976, Canadian geographer Ted Relph confidently divided the two ideas in his seminal book Place and Placenessness. This work influenced a growing movement for place-based research by geographers, sociologists, psychologists, environmental planners and others. 
According to Relph, some places were real and authentic; others were bland and homogeneous. 
<h2>Place identities, a contested business</h2>
Things have got far messier since then. Places can clearly channel both dimensions depending on the beholder; others have evolved under neoliberalism in very different ways that were unforeseen even late last century. Place-making has emerged as a multi-million-dollar industry aimed at creating meaningful sites.
Place research has exploded in various and nuanced directions; there is no more black and white. As prominent place academic Tim Cresswell proclaims:
"Place is made and remade on a daily basis."
Place is political and contested. Geographer David Sibley argues every act of inclusion is defined by an act of exclusion.
This could be as blatant as physically keeping out the unwanted (such as the Great Wall of China), a shift in the ownership of “public” spaces, or applying policies that prohibit the presence of “unwelcome” activities, whether in the name of public good or otherwise. 
Such protectionist mentalities seem to be running rampant on current global political stages.
Elsewhere, much investment is made into actively changing place identity – with varying degrees of success. Regardless, branded place-making is now big business. It is part of urban renewal initiatives in transforming disused or “out of date” areas into higher-density, often boutique (and therefore premium) places.
Professional place-makers supposedly have the expertise to take downtrodden places, wave their magic wands and create new and exciting precincts for us to enjoy. But do these projects always succeed in changing urban fortunes?
<h2>The development of place-making</h2>
The concept of place-making has its origin in the 1960s, when academics and urban activists like Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte promoted a more human-centred (re)design of cities to counter the anodyne steamroller of international modernism.
Since then, however, governments and private industries alike have dreamt up big ideas – and spent big dollars – in creating “memorable” places in the service of triple bottom line sustainability, though often especially the economic dimension. Paradoxically, this global phenomenon can account for an uneasy new form of placelessness as similar solutions are adapted in diverse settings.
<h4>
The commercialisation of ‘place’ extends beyond urban design and even to clothing chains. Edgar Liu
</h4>
<div class="enlarge_hint"> </div>
Great designs help in creating a distinctive and unique sense of place, but design alone cannot solve all. As a regeneration consultant recently wrote:
"Urban design is not destiny. It alone can’t create communities, can’t address racism or affect global politics through pretty place-making."
The people and place disconnect – or what Relph termed placelessness – has changed and evolved since the 1970s and so have our interpretations, perceptions and experiences of it.
The key point is that process is as important as product. Good design must have the people at heart. And to do that one must first listen to the people. 
We all play critical roles in how place identities come to be. There is a great diversity of views but also wisdom in crowds.
So the turn is towards consultative and, better still, participatory exercises even in large-scale projects alongside small-scale, community-led projects and on to more DIY and guerrilla-style urbanism. 
The united aim is to invest nondescript places (by almost any criterion) with new attractiveness and meaning. This frequently involves respecting individual and collective memories of the past.
<h2>Disrupting placelessness</h2>
As this is played out through private development, the catch is that return on investment becomes a critical driver. New places, reinvented places and what French philosopher Marc Augé termed non-places will all tend to blend authenticity and anonymity.
Place is messier than it ever was, and our engagements with it too. That is why we set out to see how Relph’s simple binary had been disrupted in a new collection called Place and Placelessness Revisited.
This surveys our connections to place in many different settings – civic squares, playgrounds, airports, shopping malls, even public toilets. All serendipitously point to place as a fascinating multiplicity.
We invited Relph to have the last word. He declared without nostalgia that the either/or of his original formulation was “obsolete”. In the new millennium, as discomforting as it may seem, nothing about place “can be taken for granted”.
Edgar Liu is research fellow at City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Australia and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="Edgar%20Liu%20Research%20Fellow%20at%20City%20Futures%20Research%20Centre,%20UNSW%20Australia%20%20%20Robert%20Freestone%20Professor%20of%20Planning,%20Faculty%20of%20Built%20Environment,%20UNSW%20Australia" target="_blank">here</a>.
Robert Freestone is professor of Planning, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Australia and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-freestone-168551" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Sense of place: messier than it ever was, so how do we manage this shifting world?

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GUEST OBSERVERS
Are humans now an “urban species”? Do we now live in an “Urban Age”? To understand the contemporary human condition, should we all learn to “see like a city”, or even think like a smart city?
Whether the focus is on governance, climate change, infrastructure, citizenship, public space or terrorism, the turn towards the urban is unmistakable. It seems inexorable, fuelled by human migrations, proliferating technological connections, global trade and policy shifts.
This was surely a long time coming; we moderns have always cultivated a sense of The City as human destiny. So have we arrived at our destiny, the urban age? Or is it merely a new stage in the human drama?
The executive director of UN Habitat, Joan Clos, recently said: "The unprecedented confluence of climate change, population boom and the rush to live in cities means that our critical human development will take place in cities."
Clos was announcing an initiative, the UN Sample of Cities, which “adopts cities as units of analysis and studies them together to discover patterns of similarities and differences”, furthering what is increasingly called “the science of cities”. Yet surely the “urban” has always been a synonym for complexity and surprise – can cities really be reduced to scientific certainty?
Although cities are increasingly used to organise research, policy and visions of the future, the fate of Homo urbanus is not clear-cut. New debates are emerging about the urban and its place in the world. Alongside utopian images of bright green cities and a luminescent urban planet, dystopian images of the urban are also emerging, continuing another of modernism’s aesthetic and literary traditions.
Whether one feels optimistic about urban futures or not, there is a sense that a primary task of our times is making cities work efficiently, sustainably and equitably. Paradoxically, this broad social feting of the city coincides with cracks appearing in the foundational concept of “the urban”.
<h2>No city is an island</h2>
In academic discussion at least, “the city” and “the urban” are increasingly under stress conceptually as well as empirically. How coherent and relevant are these categories in a world of blurred spatial and governance boundaries?
As we discuss in a recent virtual special issue of the journal Urban Studies, unease is growing among some scholars about how useful the urban is any more as a conceptual category. Holding onto the city lens too tightly may shut out complex human and natural realities.
This includes growing environmental interdependencies, which aren’t easily contained in traditional urban boundaries. Just think of the ever-growing “food miles” that define urban consumption in Western cities.
Dense connections between “humans” and “nature”, and “urban” and “rural” or “wild”, are arguably obscured in strong city-centric thinking, sidelined as something “out there”. But to accommodate growing evidence that cities are not inseparable from nature, traditional urban concepts are being stretched, pulled and twisted.
The recent Resilient Melbourne Strategy, for example, makes the crucial point that the city is nearly completely reliant on energy produced in the non-metropolitan region of the Latrobe Valley. But the landmark strategy, despite being admirably consultative, is still the product of only metropolitan councils.
While limiting the number of voices at the table is often a pragmatic necessity, it unavoidably imposes constraints of the sort that resilience-thinking itself tries to challenge.
If South Gippsland Shire Council were to be involved in the strategy, for instance, it may contest the recommended solution to Melbourne’s reliance on its region’s energy: “reduce this reliance” by diversifying energy sources.
Such diversification can be a very positive step, especially if it reduces fossil-fuel use and its intensification of the greatest inter-linker of all, climate change. But if such a strategy is pursued in a Melbourne-centric way, one that frames Gippsland as simply a replaceable, sub-optimal source of energy, that disregards the region’s vulnerability to such an urban bias.
So although “resilient cities” and “urban resilience” are increasingly well-known policy phrases, arguably the words strain at each other if a more-than-city perspective is not taken.
<h2>A new focus on processes rather than space</h2>
Urban studies scholars have been trying to rethink what the urban actually means in a world characterised by more and more cross-boundary relations, flows and churning processes of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation.
In contrast to the growing use of “the city” and “the urban” as a self-evident policy lens, concern is growing that both categories are too static and bounded.
Philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s idea of “planetary urbanisation” is attracting renewed interest. Not without its critics, this idea emphasises urbanisation as a process, consisting of vast transboundary flows of capital, people, resources and waste that continually remake cities and – in the process – “rural”, “wild” and “global” spaces
One interpretation of this focus is that the urban is everywhere, a boundless idea expanding in our imagination as well as planet. These scholars push us to consider, for example, the ways in which the Alberta tar sands or mineral mining in the Andes might be considered “urban” phenomena, given how these extractive industries fuel the “cities”.
This interpretation of “the urban” as a “processual form”, not bounded space, challenges how we think about what makes “cities” sustainable. Are cycling lanes or allotment gardens enough to make urban life sustainable when the ecological footprint of “the city” is entangled with the planetary processes of environmental degradation?
Whether such conceptual or physical spread is a sign of “the urban’s” success or its vulnerabilities and near-demise is an open question. Both interpretations are hotly contested.
Overall, “the urban” is not a simple, self-evident, scientific concept. Rather, it is an increasingly contested, stressed idea. In a world in which we must deepen our awareness of cross-boundary interactions to achieve objectives such as enhanced resilience, we need to question as well as acknowledge our habitual city focus.
Lauren Rickards is senior Lecturer, Sustainability and Urban Planning, School of Global Urban and Social Studies; co-leader, Climate Change and Resilience Research Program, Centre for Urban Studies, RMIT University
Brendan Gleeson is director, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne
Can O'Callaghan is lecturer in Geography, National University of Ireland Maynooth
Mark Boyle is director, National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analyses, and Professor of Human Geography, National University of Ireland Maynooth
All are authors for The Conversation and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/au" target="_blank">here</a>.
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‘The urban’: a concept under stress in an interconnected world

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GUEST OBSERVER
Globally, there is intense discussion about the future of urban life through the World Urban Campaign.
The central proposition is that the battle for a more sustainable future will be won or lost in cities.
Presumably, this is predicated on the fact that 54% of the world’s people live in cities, where 70% of global GDP is generated. By 2050 the urban population will have risen to 66%.
In parallel, following the Paris climate agreemen<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-paris-climate-agreement-at-a-glance-50465">t</a>, major cities are committing to measures designed to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The poster for this campaign should read “Coming to your city soon".
It is clear 2016 will be the “urban year” as the global community prepares for the Habitat III summit in Quito, Ecuador, this October.
At Habitat III, governments will agree an urban agenda to guide global urban development over the next 20 years. The agenda is taking shape through preparatory meetings (the next one is in Indonesia in July), as well as regional and thematic meetings.
A series of 28 urban thinkers campuses has been organised across the globe, running until February 2016. One of the last of these is in Melbourne, Australia.
<h2>A world of challenges</h2>
We are all too familiar with the problems cities commonly face. These include rising house prices putting ownership beyond the reach of many, suburban sprawl, long commutes, traffic congestion, social problems, isolation and polarisation.
<div class="enlarge_hint">At the same time, Australian cities have real strengths. This is reflected in their performance in various rankings on liveability and quality of urban life. But we ought not assume that this situation is sustainable, or that we can lock in liveability.</div>
Globally, cities face even greater challenges. In the global south, if you live in a city there is a one-in-three chance that you live in a slum.
Also, despite progress on the Millennium Development Goals, poverty is still our greatest urban concern. It is not limited to the south and has been growing across cities globally since the global financial crisis. Limited financial resources constrain the capacity of city administrations to respond to these challenges, especially in the face of austerity measures.
While that may seem like a pretty glum picture, there are reasons to be hopeful.
In a survey of 20 cities last year for the UN Global Compact Cities Program we identified many examples of civic leadership and urban innovations.
Related to this, in the US, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley at Brookings have described these innovations as a “metropolitan revolution”. They argue that local leaders are doing the hard work of growing the job market and making their communities more prosperous. They cite examples in New York, Portland, Houston and Miami.
In Europe, the Norwegian city of Oslo plans to be fossil-fuel-free by 2030. Utrecht is the first of several cities in the Netherlands planning trials in which they pay citizens a universal basic income.
<h4> </h4>
<div class="enlarge_hint">Across the English Channel, Bristol is seeking to transform the economy by introducing a local currency. The Bristol pound is designed to strengthen business relationships within the city and to build trust.</div>
What these cities and their leaders have recognised is that “business as usual” will not get us to where we need to be.
Technological innovation, institutional reform, financial investment and regulatory change are all part of the answer, especially as we seek to achieve development goals while ensuring we do not undermine our environmental sustainability. However, we may need to dig deeper. Something that we neglect is the need for changes in values at both the societal and individual levels.
Twisting Einstein’s famous quote somewhat, it is possible to assert that “we can’t solve problems by using the same value system that created them".
Here is where the notion of the ethical city comes in.
<h2>What is the ethical city?</h2>
Ethics is concerned with what is “right, fair, just or good”, not necessarily what is most accepted as normal or expedient.
Most people will have heard of the term ethical corporation. It suggests that such businesses place certain key values and practices at the centre of their operations. This could include fairness, integrity, respect for the environment, elimination of discrimination, and so on.
Internationally, some of these key values are elaborated in the ten principles of the UN Global Compact. Thousands of companies have signed up. Mayors of cities and governors of regions can also sign up to these principles by sending a letter to the UN secretary-general.
Yet the term ethical city is rarely used, even though ethical considerations underpin how we plan and manage our cities. And the ethical values underpinning the vast majority of our decisions about city life are rarely made explicit.
Even so, in most cities we already see various measures designed to support ethical governance. These range from internal commissions to audit and check on performance through to measures to promote transparency and community participation in decision-making.
Urban leaders, administrators, planners, engineers and others are aware of the ethical ramifications of their work, have guidance to refer to and training when needed. Although sometimes people fall foul, the vast majority do not because they are seen to be doing the right thing.
But we must recognise that there is a dominant view of “business as usual” based on an embedded set of values. Good examples include how most cities are designed primarily to accommodate the car, how we work in the CBD and live in the suburbs, or how homelessness is seen as a fact of life in many cities.
<h2>How do we create a more ethical city?</h2>
Thought leaders like Peter Singer have done a lot to elaborate the importance of ethics in everyday life, especially with his book Practical Ethics. However, we live in utilitarian times.
More than ever, our cities need ethical leadership – good governance, transparency, public trust building and fairness. They need ethically based planning to deal with the complex challenges facing our communities. This depends on our willingness to tackle the tough questions around sustainability, resilience, economic vibrancy and inclusiveness.
There is also our role as citizens. What are our expectations of ourselves as ethical, engaged citizens? What do we expect and deserve, and what are we prepared to commit to each other in the ethical city? What kind of citizens do we need to be?
Most of all, if we end up agreeing that we need a city that cares, how do we navigate to this end in a world where private profit and consumption are kings and where the tenets of the ethical city – social inclusion, climate action, gender equity, rights of children and youth, and myriad other rights and needs – are lacking?
If this sounds like a new year dose of utopianism, think of cases that you could envisage in your city – from participatory budgeting, to crowd-funded social enterprises, to any number of people who decided “what should we do?”, then acted on it.
 
Brendan Barrett is research fellow, RMIT University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-barrett-179124" target="_blank">here</a>.
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The ethical city: an idea whose time has come

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GUEST OBSERVER
The Australian Institute of Architects welcomes Prime Minister Turnbull’s appointment of Jamie Briggs as Minister for Cities and the Built Environment. 
Announcing Minister Briggs appointment as part of the cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, Mr Turnbull said: 
‘Historically the federal government has had a limited engagement with cities, and yet that is where most Australians live, it is where the bulk of our economic growth can be found. We often overlook the fact that liveable cities, efficient productive cities, the environment of cities, are economic assets.’ 
Australia is a highly urbanised nation and as our towns and cities develop, we face a number of key challenges. From climate change, population growth and an ageing demographic, to an increasing demand for infrastructure, housing affordability pressures and traffic congestion, our cities need the right strategies, policies and processes in place to create a built environment that can sustain us into the future. 
The Institute has lobbied for the creation of such a role for many years, through its own policy activities as well as through its involvement with bodies such as the Urban Coalition and ASBEC. 
This is very welcome news. A federal champion is crucial in driving reforms that better connect built environment policies and programs across all levels of government. The federal government can now play a key role in ensuring Australia’s built environment will function as well as it can. 
This role should drive reform and champion quality design. Priorities for the department should include: 
<ul>
<li>strategic planning for our built environment to promote globally competitive, sustainable and socially inclusive urban centres and towns</li>
<li>
increasing density through design – to capitalise on the role of good design to accommodate urban growth
</li>
<li>championing world-class urban design and architecture to help solve our urban growth challenges and enhance our international design reputation</li>
<li>the adoption of an urban design policy</li>
<li>
the appointment of a federal government architect to further promote high quality buildings and public spaces, and provide expert, high level strategic advice.
</li>
</ul>
The Institute will seek a meeting with the Minister to ensure that the profession is represented in policy development.  
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David Parken is chief executive officer, Australian Institute of Architects, and can be contacted <a href="https://www.architecture.com.au" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Five necessary reforms for the Minister for Cities and the Built Environment

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GUEST OBSERVER
Enthusiasm for urban greening is at a high point, and rightly so.
Ecological studies highlight the contribution urban nature makes to the conservation of biodiversity. For example, research shows cities support a greater proportion of threatened species than non-urban areas. 
Green space is increasingly recognised as useful for moderating the heat island effect. Hence, this helps cities adapt to, and reduce the consequences of, climate change. 
Reducing urban heat stress is the main objective behind the federal government’s plan to set tree canopy targets for Australian cities. Trees are cooler than concrete. Trees take the sting out of heatwaves and reduce heat-related deaths.
The “healthy parks healthy people” agenda emphasises the health benefits of trees, parks and gardens. Urban greenery provides a pleasant place for recreation. By enhancing liveability, green spaces make cities more desirable places to live and work.
The increased interest in urban greening presents exciting opportunities for urban communities long starved of green space.
<h2>Unpacking the green city agenda</h2>
This enthusiasm for “green cities” stands in stark contrast to traditional views about nature as the antithesis of culture, and so having no place in the city. The traditional view was that the only ecosystems worthy of protection were to be found beyond the city, in national parks and wilderness areas.
We embrace the new agenda wholeheartedly, but also believe it’s important not to focus solely on instrumental measures like canopy cover targets to reduce heat stress. We should not forget about experiential encounters.
The risk with instrumental (and arguably exclusionary) approaches is these fail to challenge the divide between people and nature. This limits people’s connection to the places in which they live and to broader ecological processes that are essential for life. 
Instrumental targets in isolation also risk presenting urban greening as an “apolitical” endeavour. But we know this is not the case, as we see with the rise of green gentrification associated with iconic greening projects like New York’s High Line. Wealthy suburbs consistently have the most green space in cities.
Bringing nature into the city is one thing. Bringing it into our culture and everyday lives is another.
<h2>Understanding ecology in a lived sense</h2>
Urban greening provides an opportunity to recast the relationship between people and environment – one of the critical challenges associated with the Anthropocene.
To break down nature-culture divides in our cities, and in ourselves, we argue for the importance of embracing experiential engagements that develop a more deeply felt connection with the city places in which we live, work and play. 
We are advocating a focus that does more than just encourage people to interact tangibly in and with urban nature, by drawing attention to the way humans and non-humans (including plants) are active co-habitants of cities.
Such an approach works by recognising that human understanding of the environment is intricately wrapped up in our experiences of that environment. 
Put simply, green cities can’t just be about area, tree cover and proximity (though they are important). We need to foster intimate, active and ongoing encounters that position people “in” ecologies. And we need to understand that those ecologies exist beyond the hard boundaries of urban green space. 
Without fostering a more holistic relationship with non-humans in cities, we risk an urban greening agenda that misses the chance to unravel some of the nature-culture separation that contributes to our long-term sustainability challenges as a society.
Active interactions with nature in the spaces of everyday life are vital for advancing a form of environmental stewardship that will persist beyond individual (and sometimes short-lived) policy settings. 
<h2>No getting away from the politics</h2>
It is important to consider the policy and governance dimensions of urban greening. 
If the instrumental orientation prevails, our cities might be “more liveable” (at least for some, at particular locations and points in time), but our societies may not be more socially and environmentally just, or more sustainable.
We therefore emphasise the need to understand and critique the dimensions of the renewed interest in urban ecology. We have to consider whether this interest is associated with existing political economies, which embrace technocratic expertise to the exclusion of other voices, or whether urban greening can foster the emergence of a more transformative form of decision-making. 
We also ask how we can enhance the prospects for more deliberative and place-based responses. An experiential turn for urban greening may be one way to make green space planning and practice more democratic. 
By questioning who we might be greening for and how, we can open the way for the much-needed acknowledgment of Indigenous histories and participation in the making of urban space.
Giving urban greening an experiential focus might also help open our eyes to the needs of the more-than-human. Rather than simply cultivating green spaces for a narrow set of anthropocentric benefits, we pose the question: who are the participants in urban greening? It’s a way of acknowledging that we inhabit cities with plants and other non-human lifeforms. 
An interesting area of policy development that may be productive for urban greening is the idea of the playful commons. This is an example of a governance approach that is more open to affective and experiential interaction – the community participates in negotiating, licensing and designing the use of public space. 
Applying this approach to urban greening might encourage more deliberative forms of governance that can deliver more environmentally just and sustainable cities for the long term, for both humans and non-humans.
Benjamin Cooke is lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/benjamin-cooke-300187" target="_blank">here</a>.
Brian Coffey is lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brian-coffey-162907" target="_blank">here</a>.
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