City Road Podcast

Meaningful public accountability in infrastructure governance This episode considers the challenges of, and possibilities for, meaningful accountability in infrastructure governance. Public accountability is often publicly demanded or politically signalled, but much more rarely unpacked or discussed in depth. This episode discusses the importance of accountability in infrastructure and planning governance, and its multiple intersecting social understandings. We discuss the importance of scrutinising our current accountability approaches, power relationships, and contextual challenges in order to build more open and collaborative governance. We also hear insights from Roberta Ryan, the Independent Community Commissioner involved with the Western Parkland City. Researchers present: Rebecca Clements, Tooran Alizadeh Guest: Roberta Ryan This podcast series is sponsored by the Infrastructure Governance Incubator, a three-year (2020-2023) collaborative research platform—funded by the Henry Halloran Research Trus

Episode 2: Innovating urban governance: Design Thinking What is design thinking and how might it be useful for city governments? In this second episode of ‘Innovating Cities’, Robyn Dowling and Sophia Maalsen discuss how design thinking is being conceptualised and operationalised in city governance innovation. Drawing from examples internationally and in Australia, they ask what design thinking means to those who use it, what it is used for, and how using design thinking may open up new opportunities to address urban problems. Robyn Dowling is Dean of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney. Her current research is concerned with the ways in which urban governance and urban life are responding to climate change, technological disruptions and the diffusion of innovation practices. Sophia Maalsen is Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney. She is currently researching the application of computational logics and technologies to “

There is ongoing concern about the localised impacts of globally owned platforms on the ways in which we use our homes and cities. From the housing market and neighbourhood impacts of Airbnb style platforms through to the less visible implications of automated urban systems, this session asks how communities can best understand and harness digitalisation to create positive opportunities, while managing risks. PANEL Professor Simon Marvin, the University of Sydney and the Director of the Urban Institute at Sheffield University Dr Luke Hespanhol, Senior Lecturer in Design, the University of Sydney Cecille Weldon, Proptech Association Australia Dr Allan McCay, Deputy Director of The Sydney Institute of Criminology and Academic Fellow, Law School, the University of Sydney CHAIRED BY Dr Sophia Maalsen, Lecturer in Urbanism, the University of Sydney

From preserving heritage to defining flood planning levels or calculating open space requirements, planning processes, and decisions are inherently bound by assumptions and practices from the past. In this inaugural lecture, Dr Robert Stokes, former minister for Planning, Public Spaces, and Cities, will reflect on how these ‘wicked’ assumptions shape contemporary cities and define their future trajectory. Following Dr Stoke’s lecture, an eminent panel of policy and industry leaders will discuss whether and how outdated and detrimental planning assumptions can be contested and overcome. KEYNOTE Dr Rob Stokes, Former Minister for Planning, Public Spaces, Cities, Infrastructure, Transport, Education, Environment and Heritage PANEL Dillon Kombumerri, Principal Architect  Government Architect NSW,  Department of Planning and Environment Davina Rooney, Chief Executive Officer, Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) Michelle Cramer, Future Communities Leader, Australia, GHD PANEL CHAIR Professor Nic

Episode 1: Innovating urban governance: the work of Innovation Units In this first episode in the Innovating Cities Series, Pauline McGuirk and Tom Baker discuss what innovating city governance means and explore one key example of urban governance innovation in practice: innovation units. Drawing from research on innovation units in the United States, Europe and Australia, the team tackles questions around how these innovation units work, what they hope to achieve, and the challenges they encounter in practice. The episode also raises wider questions about the longer termed implications of working in ‘innovation mode’ for urban governance. Guests Pauline McGuirk is Senior Professor of urban geography and Director of the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, University of Wollongong. Tom Baker is Associate Professor in the School of Environment, University of Auckland. Thanks to our special guests Eliza Erickson (former Director of Innovation and Strategy, Office of Innovation an

New Orleans and Australia's Northern Rivers are miles apart but share similarities when it comes to natural disasters. This session shines a light on the difficult questions confronting communities as they seek to rebuild more resilient settlements in the wake of devastating natural disasters. Drawing on the experiences of flood urbanist Professor Elizabeth Mossop, and community leader Dan Etheridge, both of whom were at the front line of the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina response and rebuilding process, this special event asks what lessons can be learned from that experience and what planning, design, governance, and financial frameworks are needed to help other communities affected by catastrophic disaster and ongoing climate risk. PANEL Professor Elizabeth Mossop, Dean of School of Design, Architecture and Building, University Technology Sydney Dan Etheridge, Director Living Lab, Northern Rivers Jamie Simmonds, Principal Consultant, Water Technology CHAIRED BY Nicole Gurran, Professor of Urban and R

From fragmentation to integration: Building collaborative governance Different types of infrastructure need to work together to build and support great places and communities. Most of us can recognise the kinds of siloed and fragmented planning we see around us, but what do we mean when we make demands for, or promises of, “integrated governance”? This episode looks at the diverse challenges of trying to understand and enact integrated infrastructure governance within our highly fractured systems, including how government scales and institutions collaborate. We also hear insights about recent attempts at government integration from Joanna Kubota at the Western Parkland Councils (now called The Parks), an alliance of eight local governments involved in planning the Western Parkland City. Researchers present: Glen Searle and Crystal Legacy Guest: Joanna Kubota (Western Parkland Councils) Production This podcast series is sponsored by the Infrastructure Governance Incubator, a three-year (2020-2023) collabor

We're talking with Professor Kate Fullagar about her new book on Bennelong and Phillip. Grab the book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Bennelong-and-Phillip/Kate-Fullagar/9781761108174 This book provides the first joint biography of Bennelong and Governor Arthur Phillip, two pivotal figures in Australian history – the colonised and coloniser – and a bold and innovative new portrait of both. Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their two sides in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians, Phillip the colony’s first governor, and Bennelong the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled. Fullagar’s account is also the first full biography of Bennelong of any kind and it challenges many misconceptions, among them that he became alienated from his people and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence. It tells the story of the men’s marriages, including Bennelong’s best-known wife, Barangaroo, and Phillip’s

Jamie Peck talks with Gareth Bryant and Sophie Webber about their new book Climate Finance: Taking a Position on Climate Futures. Responding to climate change is commonly understood as a financial challenge: What are the expected costs of the impacts of climate change? How much money is needed to reduce emissions to a safe level and to help people live in a changing climate? Who should pay? While these questions reflect the big issues of climate politics - about historical responsibility, unequal exposure and the terms of possible futures - they do not tell us a lot about the relationships between and contestations over climate change and finance capitalism. This book develops an expansive definition of climate finance and a critical framework for analysing its political economy. Drawing from a wide-range of case studies, the authors highlight the diversity, scale and contradictions of climate finance entanglements - from funding renewable energy, putting a price on carbon, responsible investing and financi

Dallas Rogers talks with Stephen Gapps about his new book, Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance — The Bathurst War, 1822–1824 ‘In May 1824, what can only be described as a period of all-out, total gudyarra (‘war’ in the Wiradyuri language) had begun west of the Blue Mountains. Relations between Wiradyuri people and the colonists in the country around Bathurst had completely broken down, and the number of raids and killings occurring across isolated stock stations in the district had intensified.’ In Gudyarra, Stephen Gapps – award-winning author of The Sydney Wars – unearths what led to this furious and bloody war, beginning with the occupation of Wiradyuri lands by Europeans following Governor Macquarie’s push to expand the colony west over the Blue Mountains to generate wealth from sheep and cattle. Gudyarra traces the co-ordinated resistance warfare by the Wiradyuri under the leadership of Windradyne, and others such as Blucher and Jingler, that occurred in a vast area across the central west o

Adam David Morton, Professor of Political Economy in the Discipline of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, talks with Mark Steven about his new book, Class War: A Literary History. This book is a thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter. Surveying the literature of revolution, from the poetry of Shelley and Byron to the novels of Émile Zola and Jack London, exploring the writings of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Assata Shakur, Class War reveals the interplay between military action and the politics of class, showing how solidarity flourishes in times of conflict. Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonia

Joe Penny, Lecturer in Global Urbanism at the UCL Urban Laboratory in London, talks with Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago about his alternative history of capitalist urbanization through the lens of the commons. Against the Commons underscores how urbanization shapes the social fabric of places and territories, lending awareness to the impact of planning and design initiatives on working-class communities and popular strata. Projecting history into the future, it outlines an alternative vision for a postcapitalist urban planning, one in which the structure of collective spaces is defined by the people who inhabit them. Álvaro Sevilla Buitrago is Associate Professor of Planning History and Theory, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (http://multipliciudades.org/). Blending critical spatial theory and urban history, his research traces the role of planning in the genealogy of capitalist territorial formations, understanding it as a device for the dispossession and reconfiguration of autonomous modes of social reproducti

Dallas talks with A/Prof Dinesh Wadiwel about his new book on the industrial production of animals for food, and where cities fit into this process. This book provides the first systematic application of Marx’s value theory to animal labour within the context of capitalist food systems. Dinesh applies Marx’s value theory which builds on and adapts recent work in animal studies, posthumanities, critical race theory and feminist theory to provide new insights into human-animal relations under capitalism. He explores animals as labour, and the implications for the interaction of human and animal labour forces. The book presents animal-sourced food as a means of subsistence and social reproduction for human populations, and it elaborates on animal resistance and its role within capitalist production. Building on Karl Marx’s value theory, Dinesh argues that factory farms and industrial fisheries are not merely an example of unchecked human supremacism. Nor a result of the victory of market forces. But a combinat

How is infrastructure entangled with the legacies and ongoing processes of settler-coloniality? How might we give more meaningful attention to planning for Country and with Indigenous sovereignties?Cities in so-called Australia are built on unceded First Nations land. We talk about what this means for the way we understand and do infrastructure planning, and the responsibilities of planning professions. Asking these types of questions unsettles many governance assumptions, and prompts infrastructure professions to question ‘who gets to decide?’, ‘whose knowledge is prioritised?’, and ‘who benefits?’. Guests Elle Davidson, Aboriginal Planning Lecturer, Balanggarra woman from the East Kimberley and descendant of Captain William Bligh Associate Professor Tooran Alizadeh, Research lead of the Henry Halloran Trust Infrastructure Governance Incubator at the University of Sydney Dr Rebecca Clements, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Henry Halloran Trust Infrastructure Governance Incubator at the University

Interview with Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, 2021 Pritzker Prize Laureates and the Rothwell Program Co-Chairs at the University of Sydney’s School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Architecture is about freedom, generosity, pleasure. Large spaces generate an essential feeling of escape and freedom. Large spaces facilitate appropriation, foster relationships within spaces, to allow for pleasurable situations, to encourage relations between people and promote social life. Enlarging does not mean wasting. Enlarging does not mean costing more. It means inventing space for uses and going beyond the norms and standards which reduce the living space. “TRANSFORMATION IS THE OPPORTUNITY OF DOING MORE AND BETTER WITH WHAT IS ALREADY EXISTING. THE DEMOLISHING IS A DECISION OF EASINESS AND SHORT TERM. IT IS A WASTE OF MANY THINGS—A WASTE OF ENERGY, A WASTE OF MATERIAL, AND A WASTE OF HISTORY. MOREOVER, IT HAS A VERY NEGATIVE SOCIAL IMPACT. FOR US, IT IS AN ACT OF VIOLENCE.” Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassa

Some claim the pandemic has ushered in a "post work" era when the concepts of work, workplace, and commute are being remade. Digital technologies, artificial intelligence, co-creation and multi-locational work sites are creating new spaces for work and encouraging the merging of work and non-work spaces like never before. These changes are also hastening the development of unequal labour landscapes across our cities. This panel explores the impact of the "post-work" condition on how we work in, move through, and engage in the city. This event has been co-organised with the Australasian Cities Research Network. Panel Dr. Jim Stanford is an economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work. Jim founded the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute in 2016. He has served for over 20 years as Economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union. He divides his time between Vancouver, B.C., and Sydney Australia. Jason Lindsay is the founding partner of the success

In January 2022, the Indonesian government approved plans to build Nusantara- a new green and smart capital city on the island of Borneo. Join an interdisciplinary panel of experts, including the architect for the new capital, as they discuss the planning, design, and political agendas behind the new capital and the challenges and opportunities this presents for Southeast Asian urbanism. Panel Bambang Brodjonegoro, Former Minister of National Development Planning, Indonesia (Bappenas). Bambang Brodjonegoro has devoted his knowledge and experience to Indonesia in various roles. In his career in government, he has served as Minister of Finance (2014 - 2016), Minister of National Development Planning (PPN) / Head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) (2016 - 2019), and Minister of Research and Technology / Head of Research and Innovation Agency National (2019 - 2021). Eka Permanasari, Associate Professor of Urban Design, Monash University Indonesia. Eka is an Associate Professor in Urban Desi

Systematic Literature Review This mini-episode takes a deep dive into the Systematic Literature Review. - What is is? - Where did it come from? - And can this methodology from science work in a social science research environment? This mini-episode is a part of a series of conversations about transforming infrastructure governance. Our shared futures and community well-being are shaped by urban infrastructure such as for transport, green space, water, social, and digital services. While many public discussions revolve around which infrastructure projects should be prioritised, there is growing recognition that questions of governance are critical to achieving the social, ecological, and place-based transformations we need to address the climate crisis. In this series, we shine a light on some of the key challenges and opportunities for transforming the way we think about and do infrastructure governance, such as: - Who should be involved in decision making? - How can we better collaborate with communiti

Join us for a series of conversations about transforming infrastructure governance. Our shared futures and community well-being are shaped by urban infrastructure such as for transport, green space, water, social, and digital services. While many public discussions revolve around which infrastructure projects should be prioritised, there is growing recognition that questions of governance are critical to achieving the social, ecological, and place-based transformations we need to address the climate crisis. In this series, we shine a light on some of the key challenges and opportunities for transforming the way we think about and do infrastructure governance, such as: - Who should be involved in decision making? - How can we better collaborate with communities? - How do we address planning on unceded Indigenous land? Episode 1: Transformation of what? This first episode sets out some of the big questions and challenges for thinking about how to transform infrastructure governance. It looks at the researc

In this special Urban Studies Journal book review episode we’re talking with Professor Adam Morton from the discipline of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, Professor Alison Young from Social and Political Sciences and the Deputy-Director of the Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne and Dr Tanzil Shafique, lecturer of Urban Design at University of Sheffield, about Professor AbdouMaliq Simone’s new book, The Surrounds: Urban Life Within and Beyond Capture, published by Duke. The book review is on the Urban Studies website: https://www.urbanstudiesonline.com/resources/resource/book-review-forum-podcast-the-surrounds/