Knowledge-based urban development processes of an emerging knowledge city : Brisbane, Australia

In the global knowledge economy, to attract and retain knowledge-intensive industries and workers, cities produce various development strategies. Such strategising is an important development mechanism for cities to complete their transformation into knowledge cities. This paper discusses the critical connections between knowledge city foundations and integrated knowledge-based urban development strategies, and scrutinises Brisbane’s strategies in attracting and retaining investment and talent. The paper introduces a knowledge-based urban development assessment framework and uses this framework to provide a clearer understanding of Brisbane’s knowledge-based development processes and knowledge city transformation experience. The assessment framework particularly focuses on examining Brisbane’s four development processes, institutional, economic, socio-cultural and urban development, in detail. The findings reveal that although Brisbane is still in early stages of its transformation into a fully-fledged knowledge city, global orientation and achievements of Brisbane in strategising knowledge-based urban development are noteworthy.

A city for all citizens : integrating children and youth from marginalized populations into city planning

Socially just, intergenerational urban spaces should not only accommodate children and adolescents, but engage them as participants in the planning and design of welcoming spaces. With this goal, city agencies in Boulder, Colorado, the Boulder Valley School District, the Children, Youth and Environments Center at the University of Colorado, and a number of community organizations have been working in partnership to integrate young people’s ideas and concerns into the redesign of parks and civic areas and the identification of issues for city planning. Underlying their work is a commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and children’s rights to active citizenship from a young age. This paper describes approaches used to engage with young people and methods of participation, and reflects on lessons learned about how to most effectively involve youth from underrepresented populations and embed diverse youth voices into the culture of city planning.

The impact of mining and smelting activities on property values : a study of Mount Isa city, Queensland, Australia

Much publicity has been given to the problem of high levels of environmental contaminants, most notably high blood lead concentration levels among children in the city of Mount Isa because of mining and smelting activities. The health impacts from mining-related pollutants are now well documented. This includes published research being discussed in an editorial of the Medical Journal of Australia (see Munksgaard et al. 2010). On the other hand, negative impacts on property prices, although mentioned, have not been examined to date. This study rectifies this research gap. This study uses a hedonic property price approach to examine the impact of mining- and smelting-related pollution on nearby property prices. The hypothesis is that those properties closer to the lead and copper smelters have lower property (house) prices than those farther away. The results of the study show that the marginal willingness to pay to be farther from the pollution source is AUS $13 947 per kilometre within the 4 km radius selected. The study has several policy implications, which are discussed briefly. We used ordinary least squares, geographically weighted regression, spatial error and spatial autoregressive or spatial lag models for this analysis.

Water resources: Embed stormwater use in city planning [Correspondence]

Potable water resources are being depleted at an alarming rate worldwide. Storm water is a hugely under-utilized resource that could help as extreme weather events become more frequent...

Conceptualising convenience : transportation practices and perceptions of inner-urban high density residents in Brisbane, Australia

High-density living in inner-urban areas has been promoted to encourage the use of more sustainable modes of travel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, previous research presents mixed results on the relationship between living in proximity to transport systems and reduced car-dependency. This research examines inner-city residents’ transportation practices and perceptions, via 24 qualitative interviews with residents from high-density dwellings in inner-city Brisbane, Australia. Whilst participants consider public transport accessible and convenient, car use continues to be relied on for many journeys. Transportation choices are justified through complex definitions of convenience containing both utilitarian and psycho-social elements,with three key themes identified: time-efficiency, single versus multi-modal trips, and distance to and purpose of journey, as well as attitudinal, affective and symbolic elements related to transport mode use. Understanding conceptions of transport convenience held by different segments of the transport users market,alongside other factors strongly implicated in travel mode choice, can ensure targeted improvements in sustainable transport service levels and infrastructure as well as information service provision and behavioural change campaigns.

Augmenting public participation : enhancing planning outcomes through the use of social media and web 2.0

Social media and web 2.0 tools offer opportunities to devise novel participation strategies that can engage previously difficult to reach as well as new segments of society in urban planning. This paper examines participatory planning in the four local government areas of Brisbane City Council, Gold Coast City Council, Redland City Council, and Toowoomba Regional Council, all situated in South East Queensland, Australia. The paper discusses how social media and web 2.0 tools can deliver a more engaging planning experience to citizens, and investigates local government’s current use and receptiveness to social media tools for plan making and community engagement. The study’s research informed the development of criteria to assess the level of participation reached through the current use of social media and web 2.0 in the four local government areas. This resulted in an adaptation of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Toolbox to integrate these new tools which is being presented to encourage further discussion and evaluation by planning professionals.

Integrating urban ecosystem sustainability assessment into policy-making: Insights from the Gold Coast City

This paper introduces a policy-making support tool called ‘Micro-level Urban ecosystem Sustainability IndeX (MUSIX)’. The index serves as a sustainability assessment model that monitors six aspects of urban ecosystems, hydrology, ecology, pollution, location, design, and efficiency based on parcel-scale indicators. This index is applied in a case study investigation in the Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia. The outcomes reveal that there are major environmental problems caused by increased impervious surfaces from growing urban development in the study area. The findings suggest that increased impervious surfaces are linked to increased surface runoff, car dependency, transport-related pollution, poor public transport accessibility, and unsustainable built environment. This paper presents how the MUSIX outputs can be used to guide policy-making through the evaluation of existing policies.

Joint venture behaviour in construction industry : an Australia case study

Joint ventures can take many forms and can be formed for different reasons, from sharing resources to creating future business opportunities. At the same time, there is increasing interest and discussion of alternative procurement methods, moving away from traditional procurement systems to relational approaches. Business systems and strategies need to be redefined and move from a short-term project to project culture to a more strategic, long-term perspective. Joint ventures of construction organisations, global and local, have become increasingly popular to deliver large-scale infrastructure construction projects. However, successful strategic collaborations require project organisations to formulate a fit between contractual and operational arrangements for each situation. This study reviews the movement from traditional procurement methods towards relational contracting approaches in Queensland, Australia. The study examines the organisational factors that facilitates sustainable relationship between project organisations and hence, lead to long-term business success. This paper reports on initial findings captured from a survey undertaken with construction contracting organisations in Australia, focusing on the supply chain relationships. Contractors’ perceptions of the relationship management process and the engagement of the supply chain are also presented.

Members abroad - Australia : Lindy Osborne

When I arrived in Queensland's capital in 1996, Brisbane was commonly referred to as an 'overgrown country town'. This might have been an acceptable description in the 1990s, but it cannot be applied any longer. Brisbane, affectionaly referred to by the locals as Bris-Vegas, has now come of age. Following Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane is the third most populous city in Australia with a population of approximately two million. Interestingly, the 2006 Census showed that 22 per cent of Brisbane's population was born overseas, the three main countries of birth being the UK, New Zealand and South Africa. Brisbane City is centred on its most dominant environmental element, the Brisbane River, which effectively carves Brisbane into two areas - the Northside and the Southside. The 2001 addition of Cox Rayner's Goodwill Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge signified Brisbane's acceptance and affectionate embrace of its River resulting in a long overdue linage between Brisbane's North and South. It connects the City's key precincts - the Northside CBD through Queensland University of Technology (QUT), across Brisbane River, to the recreational precinct of the Southside Southbank Parklands. The Southside cultural precinct of Southbank is the home to Queensland's Art Gallery, Performing Arts Complex, State Library and Museum -each of which were designed by Brisbane Stalwart Architect Robin Gibson, in the 1970s and '80s. The CBD component of the Brisbane River is flanked by a number of Institutional Facilities, including the campuses of QUT, Griffith University and the Southbank Education and Training Precinct (SETP), which combine to form a cross-river educational precinct. The past decade has born witness to a city which has keenly supported emerging architects in addition to the more entrenched stalwarts of the profession, resulting in a youthful, relaxed and unpretentious sub-tropical city. Viva Bris-Vegas!

GIS-based mapping and statistical analysis of air pollution and mortality in Brisbane, Australia

In this thesis, the relationship between air pollution and human health has been investigated utilising Geographic Information System (GIS) as an analysis tool. The research focused on how vehicular air pollution affects human health. The main objective of this study was to analyse the spatial variability of pollutants, taking Brisbane City in Australia as a case study, by the identification of the areas of high concentration of air pollutants and their relationship with the numbers of death caused by air pollutants. A correlation test was performed to establish the relationship between air pollution, number of deaths from respiratory disease, and total distance travelled by road vehicles in Brisbane. GIS was utilized to investigate the spatial distribution of the air pollutants. The main finding of this research is the comparison between spatial and non-spatial analysis approaches, which indicated that correlation analysis and simple buffer analysis of GIS using the average levels of air pollutants from a single monitoring station or by group of few monitoring stations is a relatively simple method for assessing the health effects of air pollution. There was a significant positive correlation between variable under consideration, and the research shows a decreasing trend of concentration of nitrogen dioxide at the Eagle Farm and Springwood sites and an increasing trend at CBD site. Statistical analysis shows that there exists a positive relationship between the level of emission and number of deaths, though the impact is not uniform as certain sections of the population are more vulnerable to exposure. Further statistical tests found that the elderly people of over 75 years age and children between 0-15 years of age are the more vulnerable people exposed to air pollution. A non-spatial approach alone may be insufficient for an appropriate evaluation of the impact of air pollutant variables and their inter-relationships. It is important to evaluate the spatial features of air pollutants before modeling the air pollution-health relationships.

Airports of the future : incident response planning in Australian airports

Airports are typical examples of large and complex infrastructure systems. They serve a purpose of not only transporting people around the globe but are central to trade and commerce and, in a nation as large as Australia, an important means to connect people and regions. Reducing uncertainty and managing risk in such systems are not only critical tasks integral to effective management practice but equally important for border protection and national security outcomes. This latter issue has been emphasised on a national level in Australia with a number of recent enquiries taking place, most notably the Wheeler Review1 into aviation security in 2005 and the 2009 National Aviation Policy White Paper2 on the future of aviation in Australia.

The PSS : From Flat Maps to Layered Perspectives - the contribution of the Airport Metropolis Planning Support System (PSS) to sub-regional planning in the Brisbane Airport case environment

Conventional planning and decision making, with its sectoral and territorial emphasis and flat-map based processes are no longer adequate or appropriate for the increased complexity confronting airport/city interfaces. These crowed and often contested governance spaces demand a more iterative and relational planning and decision-making approach. Emergent GIS based planning and decision-making tools provide a mechanism which integrate and visually display an array of complex data, frameworks and scenarios/expectations, often in ‘real time’ computations. In so doing, these mechanisms provide a common ground for decision making and facilitate a more ‘joined-up’ approach to airport/city planning. This paper analyses the contribution of the Airport Metropolis Planning Support System (PSS) to sub-regional planning in the Brisbane Airport case environment.

A micro-level indexing model for assessing urban ecosystem sustainability

Purpose – As a consequence of rapid urbanisation and globalisation, cities have become the engines of population and economic growth. Hence, natural resources in and around the cities have been exposed to externalities of urban development processes. This paper introduces a new sustainability assessment approach that is tested in a pilot study. The paper aims to assist policy-makers and planners investigating the impacts of development on environmental systems, and produce effective policies for sustainable urban development. Design/methodology/approach – The paper introduces an indicator-based indexing model entitled “Indexing Model for the Assessment of Sustainable Urban Ecosystems” (ASSURE). The ASSURE indexing model produces a set of micro-level environmental sustainability indices that is aimed to be used in the evaluation and monitoring of the interaction between human activities and urban ecosystems. The model is an innovative approach designed to assess the resilience of ecosystems towards impacts of current development plans and the results serve as a guide for policymakers to take actions towards achieving sustainability. Findings – The indexing model has been tested in a pilot case study within the Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia. This paper presents the methodology of the model and outlines the preliminary findings of the pilot study. The paper concludes with a discussion on the findings and recommendations put forward for future development and implementation of the model. Originality/value – Presently, there is a few sustainability indices developed to measure the sustainability at local, regional, national and international levels. However, due to challenges in data collection difficulties and availability of local data, there is no effective assessment model at the microlevel that the assessment of urban ecosystem sustainability accurately. The model introduced in this paper fills this gap by focusing on parcel-scale and benchmarking the environmental performance in micro-level.

Planning for the impact of distributed solar energy on the grid

The behaviour of single installations of solar energy systems is well understood; however, what happens at an aggregated location, such as a distribution substation, when output of groups of installations cumulate is not so well understood. This paper considers groups of installations attached to distributions substations on which the load is primarily commercial and industrial. Agent-based modelling has been used to model the physical electrical distribution system and the behaviour of equipment outputs towards the consumer end of the network. The paper reports the approach used to simulate both the electricity consumption of groups of consumers and the output of solar systems subject to weather variability with the inclusion of cloud data from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). The data sets currently used are for Townsville, North Queensland. The initial characteristics that indicate whether solar installations are cost effective from an electricity distribution perspective are discussed.