City Road Podcast

What are the possibilities for community action that hold powerful urban actors to account? Strategic antagonism and the spaces that community alliances are opening up themselves to engage with urban development might hold the answer. It is not only urban planners and the formal planning system that shape the way residents contribute to the planning of their city. In Sydney, local resident action groups and other urban alliances are working beyond the market-centred urban planning system to achieve their urban development goals. Under market-centred urban planning paradigms, urban development is increasingly valued as an economic process and as a driver of the economy, rather than a social process that might create a more equitable city. We talk to Cameron McAuliffe about the work of the Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe, and the way her ideas are being applied to urban planning in Australia. Talking about research conducted with the host of City Road, Dallas Rogers, Cameron says resident action gro