City Road Podcast

From horse-drawn carriages to automobiles and mass transit, new transport technologies have historically transformed and disrupted cities. Today, autonomous vehicles and other forms of smart transport technology are predicted to remake transport networks and contribute to a new round of urban expansion. Are Australian cities preparing for a driverless future? This session explores how autonomous vehicles may impact Australian cities and how governments are preparing to address the potential challenges and opportunities. Festival of Urbanism Panel Dr Allison Stewart is the Deputy CEO of Infrastructure Victoria (IV). She is a mega-project leader and strategist and led IV’s automated and zero emission vehicle infrastructure research. Mr Damon Rao is a Senior Transport Planner in the City of Melbourne. He has been leading the City’s e-scooter pilot program. Prof Graham Currie is a renowned international public transport research leader and policy advisor. He is researching the long-term impacts of autonomous v

Despite existing technological capabilities, deeply entrenched barriers to sustainable and equitable transitions often fall to questions of urban governance. Festival of Urbanism Panel Chair: Associate Professor Tooran Alizadeh Haruka Miki-Imoto, Operations Officer for the World Bank in Japan Professor Tim Bunnell from the National University of Singapore James O’Keefe, the Director of the Roads to Home Program in the NSW Department of Planning and Environment Dr Aidan While, University of Sheffield, Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield.

We have an exciting new project with a fantastic new partner coming very soon! You can have a sneaky listen now

Climate-change threatens peri-urban agriculture and food security. This session explores innovative social practices that secure food futures: in Sydney an evolving system connecting urban organic waste to peri-urban agriculture, and in Bologna Italy cooperatives in emerging food solidarity economies. Each case demonstrates how trusting relationships ensure local food futures in urban places. Panel Dr Abby Mellick Lopes, University of Technology Sydney Gabriele Morelli, University of Milan-Bicocca Dr Michelle Zeibots, University of Technology Sydney Dr Stephen Healy, Western Sydney University Chaired by Dr Adrienne Keane, University of Sydney Associate Professor Abby Mellick Lopes is a design studies scholar engaged in interdisciplinary, design-led social research and the Director of Postgraduate Design Studies at UTS. Her research practice brings design into relation with a vast range of disciplines that includes cultural studies, geography, urban studies and sociology. Gabriele Morelli is a PhD

Cities and regions across the world have experienced profound disruption from the rise of digital platforms across all areas of urban life. From housing, to transport, shopping, and the way we work, global firms such as ‘Airbnb’ and ‘Uber’ typically evade local (place based) policy and regulatory settings. However, their impacts have large socio-spatial footprints which need to be understood and factored into future urban policy and planning. Understood within the wider prism of technological innovation and emerging forms of digital automation across the urban sector, this session engages critically with notions of the ‘smart city’. Will the future city be dictated by ‘techno-capitalist’ firms or are ‘smart’ and socially accountable forms of urban governance still possible? Panel Dr Niels Van Doorn, Amsterdam University Dr Sarah Barns, Urban Strategist & Researcher Dr Justine Humphry, University of Sydney Rory Brown, Smart Places at Transport for NSW Chaired by Dr Sophia Maalsen, University of Sydney

Many of the built environment’s peak industry associations recognise the need for rapid decarbonisation and have publicly stated their commitment. But what does it mean in reality? What are the barriers that we need to urgently address? How do we support innovation and accommodate rapid technological advances through our planning system? What opportunities should we leverage now and what preparation do we need for future changes? This Panel will focus on the practicalities and challenges facing those working towards zero carbon outcomes through the planning system, and the opportunities they see to advance this ambition. This event has been co-organised with the Planning Institute of Australia Panel Peter Murrell, Senior Sustainability Advisor, Infrastructure, Strategy & Planning, VPA Euan Williamson, Environmentally Sustainable Development Advisor, City of Yarra Natasha Palich, Executive Officer, Council Alliance for a Sustainable Built Environment (MAV) Ellen Witte, Principal & Partner SGS Economics an

This new book considers how Australians have provided water and sewerage for growing, sprawling urban centres. In this land of drought and flooding rains, we may need to rethink water use strategies, including embracing centuries of Aboriginal knowledge, seeing water as a resource to be conserved, rather than wasted or exploited. Panel Dr. Margaret Cook is an environmental historian who specialises in the history of ‘natural’ disasters in Australia, especially floods. The history of floods in the Brisbane River catchment was the subject of her PhD (UQ 2018) and is now a book, A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods (UQ Press, 2019). Lionel Frost is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, and Head of the Monash Business School (Peninsula Campus). He is author of several books and articles on Australian and US urban history and Pacific Rim history, including contributions to the Cambridge History of Australia (2013), Cambridge World History (2015), and Cambridge Economic Histo

We’ve got a treat for you today, a conversation about speculative fiction and cities with a fantastic panel. Our panel includes award-winning author and critic James Bradley. James is the author of books such as Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist and Clade, the first two books of The Change Trilogy for young adults, The Silent Invasion and The Buried Ark, a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. His latest novel, Ghost Species, was published in 2020. Matt Levinson is a built environment professional in Sydney and a voracious reader of all things urban. Matt has a lifelong passion for cities, culture and social change, and now leads corporate affairs and communication for the city’s peak advocacy and urban policy think tank, the Committee for Sydney. Professor Nicole Gurran is an urban planner, and as you'll learn in this conversation a keen reader of speculative fiction. The panel opens by talking about The City We Became, a speculative fiction novel by N. K. Jemis

Fifty years after former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s short-lived attempts to foster decentralisation, this event, held in Albury, one of Whitlam’s flagship National Growth Centres, examines the prospects for future growth in regional Australia. With a diverse panel of regional leaders and experts, the discussion will canvas opportunities and risks confronting communities beyond the major cities and the priorities for contemporary government intervention. For the first time in four decades, Australia’s largest cities – Sydney and Melbourne – witnessed population loss last year, while many regional areas have experienced an influx of new residents. Some analysts view this shift as a temporary, pandemic driven phenomenon which has only exacerbated the regional housing crisis, but others see rich and dynamic opportunities for sustainable growth beyond metropolitan Australia. Fifty years after former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s short-lived attempts to foster decentralisation, this event, held in Albury, one

Australia’s housing system is in crisis, and recent policy interventions have ranged from ineffective to counterproductive. From the deepening divide between home owners and renters, to unsustainable patterns of residential development and escalating climate risk – Australia’s housing policy framework needs an urgent reset. With new national and state housing initiatives on the table, this panel will debate whether it is possible to ‘renovate’ Australia’s housing system or whether radical change is needed to bring about a more inclusive and sustainable future. Australia’s housing system is in crisis, and recent policy interventions have ranged from ineffective to counterproductive. From the deepening divide between home-owners and renters, to unsustainable patterns of residential development and escalating climate risk – Australia’s housing policy framework needs an urgent reset. With new national and state housing initiatives on the table, this panel will debate whether it is possible to ‘renovate’ Australi

In this event inspired by Elizabeth Farrelly’s acclaimed book ‘Killing Sydney’, we challenged creative thinkers, activists, and scholars from a range of disciplines to share their top-of-the-list solutions. Convened by prominent columnist, architectural critic and author Dr Farrelly, we invite you to join this frank and fearless conversation about Sydney’s future. Has Sydney reached her tipping point? Following a series of existential threats – from the devasting summer 2020 fires and smog which enveloped the metropolis and surrounds to the urban exodus sparked by two years of global pandemic, from “faulty towers” to ongoing concerns about unbridled development – we must now ask: is it still possible to save the Sydney we love from rampant gentrification, environmental degradation, and climate catastrophe? In this event inspired by Elizabeth Farrelly’s acclaimed book ‘Killing Sydney’ (Picador, 2021), we challenged creative thinkers, activists, and scholars from a range of disciplines to share their top-of-t

Dallas talks with Megan about high-rise legal architecture make vertical urban growth possible, but do we really understand the social implications of restructuring city land ownership in this way? Geographer and architect Megan Nethercote enters the condo tower to explore the hidden social and territorial dynamics of private vertical communities. Informed by residents’ accounts of Australian high-rise living, this book shows how legal and physical architectures fuse in ways that jeopardize residents’ experience of home and stigmatize renters. As cities sprawl skywards and private renting expands, this compelling geographic analysis of property identifies high-rise development’s overlooked hand in social segregation and urban fragmentation, and raises bold questions about the condominium’s prospects. Author Dr Megan Nethercote is an ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research. Within the Centre for Urban Research she co-leads the Housing Research Program and, for the Urban

What do authors think about when they’re writing a book about cities for kids? And why are books about cities and urban life important for kids? Dallas chats with kids book illustrator James Gulliver Hancock and Alexandra Crosby and Jesse Stein from UTS about kids, books and cities. We cover a lot of ground, from what it’s like to be an author to being a reader, parent and urbanist. Guests James Gulliver Hancock stylishly illustrated the popular book How Cities Work 1 (How Things Work). This innovative book for younger readers is packed with city facts, loads of flaps to lift, and unfolding pages to see inside buildings and under the streets. Children aged 5+ can learn about skyscrapers, subway systems and stinky sewers. Discover where people live and peek behind closed doors to see what’s going on in houses and apartments, or why not find out about what goes on underneath the streets you walk on every day? Dr Alexandra Crosby is an internationally recognised scholar and visual communicator with an intere

Dallas is talking with Anna Clark about her bold and expansive history that traces the changing and contested project of Australia’s national story. You will think about this country differently after reading this book. A few years ago Anna Clark saw a series of paintings on a sandstone cliff face in the Northern Territory. There were characteristic crosshatched images of fat barramundi and turtles, as well as sprayed handprints and several human figures with spears. Next to them was a long gun, painted with white ochre, an unmistakable image of the colonisers. Was this an Indigenous rendering of contact? A work of history? Each piece of history has a message and context that depends on who wrote it and when. Australian history has swirled and contorted over the years: the history wars have embroiled historians, politicians and public commentators alike, while debates over historical fiction have been as divisive. History isn’t just about understanding what happened and why. It also reflects the persuasions

Dallas talks with Jarrod Hore about Visions of Nature, which revives the work of late nineteenth-century landscape photographers who shaped the environmental attitudes of settlers in the colonies of the Tasman World and in California. Despite having little association with one another, these photographers developed remarkably similar visions of nature. They rode a wave of interest in wilderness imagery and made pictures that were hung in settler drawing rooms, perused in albums, projected in theaters, and re-created on vacations. In both the American West and the Tasman World, landscape photography fed into settler belonging and produced new ways of thinking about territory and history. During this key period of settler revolution, a generation of photographers came to associate “nature” with remoteness, antiquity, and emptiness, a perspective that disguised the realities of Indigenous presence and reinforced colonial fantasies of environmental abundance. This book lifts the work of these photographers out of

Dallas talks with Paul Daley about this his multi-generational saga about Australian frontier violence and cultural theft, and the myths that stand between us and history's unpalatable truths. Morally bereft popular historian Patrick Renmark flees London in disgrace after the accidental death of his infant son. With one card left to play, he reluctantly takes a commission to write the biography of his legendary pioneering adventurer-anthropologist grandfather. With no enthusiasm and even less integrity, Patrick travels to Jesustown, the former mission town in remote Australia where his grandfather infamously brokered 'peace' between the Indigenous custodians of the area and the white constabulary. He hasn't been back there since he was a teenager when a terrible confrontation with his grandfather made him vow never to return. Of course nothing is as it seems or as Patrick wants it to be. Unable to lay his own son to rest, Patrick must re-examine the legacy of his renowned grandfather and face the repercuss

A 2021 Festival of Urbanism panel discussion. Leading urbanists from North America to Australia discuss the lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic for future city planning and urban life. Hear from Sam Assefa, former Seattle Planning Director and at the frontline of that city’s COVID-19 experience; Irene Figueroa Ortiz, New York City urban designer and transport planner; and Glenn Grimshaw urban planner, researcher and adviser based in the Australian Embassy, Washington DC. Professor Ann Forsyth, planner, architect and expert on healthy cities at the Harvard Graduate School of Design will lead the international discussion, followed by an address by Hon Dr Rob Stokes, Minister for Planning and Public Spaces introduced Mark Scott AO, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney. Chair: Dr Ann Forsyth, Harvard Graduate School of Design Speakers: Irene Figueroa Ortiz, Senior Project Manager, New York City Department of Transportation Glenn Grimshaw, Senior Research Officer, Australian Embassy, Washington DC

Endangered governance: Public trust, urban decisions, and ethical practice A 2021 Festival of Urbanism panel discussion. Clear and transparent ethical frameworks can and should feature much more overtly in decision making across development processes, which are uniquely exposed to risks associated with conflicts of interest, politicisation, compromise, and corruption. This panel explores the realities facing planners and policy makers, and highlights strategies for those committed to ethical practice. Chair: A/Professor Dallas Rogers, University of Sydney Panel includes: Han Aulby, Centre for Public Integrity Sue Weatherley MPIA, Georges River Council A/Professor Crystal Legacy, University of Melbourne Michael West, Michael West Media http://www.festivalofurbanism.com/2021-events/2021/9/22/endangered-governance-public-trust-urban-decisions-and-ethical-practice

Endangered discourse: Improving the quality of public debate on urban and housing policy. A 2021 Festival of Urbanism panel discussion. An informed citizenry, independent analysis, and robust public debate are all essential for good public policy particularly in relation to housing and urban policy. This panel event, which also celebrates the work of the inaugural Director of the Henry Halloran Trust, Peter Phibbs, features perspectives from University and industry research, independent journalism, and the public sector. Chair: Professor Nicole Gurran, University of Sydney Panel includes: Professor Emeritus, Peter Phibbs, University of Sydney Tina Perinotto, Managing Editor, The Fifth Estate Dr Erin Brady, ACT Department of Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Eliza Owen, CoreLogic http://www.festivalofurbanism.com/2021-events/2021/8/3/endangered-discourse-improving-the-quality-of-public-debate-on-urban-and-housing-policy

Endangered Communities and Resurgent Urbanism A 2021 Festival of Urbanism panel discussion. With ongoing processes of dispossession, marginalisation, gentrification and exclusion threatening urban and regional communities, what forms of insurgent and resurgent urbanism are emerging and how might urban policy makers and planners support these efforts? Chair: Professor Nicole Gurran, University of Sydney Panel includes: Warren Roberts, Redfern Waterloo Aboriginal Affordable Housing Campaign Shannon Burt, Byron Shire Council Lena Nahlous, Executive Director, Diversity Arts Australia Prof Jioji Ravulo, University of Sydney http://www.festivalofurbanism.com/2021-events/2021/9/23/endangered-communities-and-resurgent-urbanism