Urban sustainability and growth management in south-east Asian city-regions : the case of Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong

Major South-East Asian city-regions have experienced considerable physical, economic and social transformations during the past three decades. The rapid pace of globalisation and economic restructuring has resulted in these city-regions receiving the full impact of urbanisation pressures. In an attempt to ease these pressures, city-regions such as Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur have advocate growth management approaches giving particular interest to urban sustainability. These approaches promote efforts to achieve the triple bottom line sustainability by balancing economic and social development, and environmental protection, and putting more emphasis on compact and optimum development of urban forms. This paper evaluates the case of two South-East Asian city-regions, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, and assesses their experiences in managing their urban forms whilst promoting sustainable patterns of urban development. The findings show that sustainable urban development initiatives employing a top down approach has yielded encouraging results in these case study city-regions. However the need for a more concerted effort towards the overall sustainability agenda still remains vital.

Ubiquitous infrastructure : urban infrastructure planning and management experience of Korea

Urban infrastructure development in Korea has recently shifted from an old paradigm of conventional infrastructure planning to a new paradigm of intelligent infrastructure provision. This new paradigm, so called ubiquitous infrastructure, is based on a combination of urban infrastructure, information and communication technologies and digital networks. Ubiquitous infrastructure basically refers to an urban infrastructure where any citizen could access any infrastructure and services via any electronic device regardless of time and location. This paper introduces this new paradigm of intellectual infrastructure planning and its design schemes. The paper also examines the ubiquitous infrastructure development in Korea and discusses the positive effects of ubiquitous infrastructure on sustainable urban development.

Urban management revolution : intelligent management systems for ubiquitous cities

A successful urban management support system requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated transparent and open decision making mechanism. The paper emphasises the importance of integrated urban management to better tackle the climate change, and to achieve sustainable urban development and sound urban growth management. This paper introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for ubiquitous cities. The paper discusses the essential role of online collaborative decision making in urban and infrastructure planning, development and management, and advocates transparent, fully democratic and participatory mechanisms for an effective urban management system that is particularly suitable for ubiquitous cities. This paper also sheds light on some of the unclear processes of urban management of ubiquitous cities and online collaborative decision making, and reveals the key benefits of integrated and participatory mechanisms in successfully constructing sustainable ubiquitous cities.

The implications of creative industries for regional outcomes

As the 21st century progresses, the most successful economies and societies will be creative ones. Worldwide, governments are producing strategies to encourage the development of creative industries and to strengthen the role of knowledge cities nationally and internationally. There is a significant policy discussion regarding the role of creative clusters in strengthening local economies and significant energy has been expended discussing the many positive outcomes of such developments. This article takes these issues as a starting point and considers the role of creative industries within broader concerns regarding uneven metropolitan development. By developing a typology of jobs across Australia’s metropolitan regions, the article will consider the broad social and economic impacts of uneven development of creative industry jobs between metropolitan regions and also the implications for individual metropolitan regions and policy outcomes.

Individual firms and regional business clusters : the HRM advantage in rent generation

Much of the literature on clusters has focused on the economic advantages of clusters and how these can be achieved in terms of competition, regional development and local spillovers. Some studies have focused at the level of the individual firm however human resource management (HRM) in individual clustered firms has received scant attention. This paper innovatively utilises the extended Resource Based View (RBV) of the firm as a framework to conceptualise the human resource processes of individual firms within a cluster. RBV is argued as a useful tool as it explains external rents outside a firm’s boundaries. The paper concludes that HRM can assist in generating rents for firms and clusters more broadly when the function supports valuable interfirm relationships important for realising inter-firm advantages.

Developing knowledge precincts in regional towns: opportunities and challenges

While extensive literature exists on knowledge-based urban development (KBUD) focusing on large metropolitan cities, there is a paucity of literature looking into similar developments in small regional towns. The major aim of the paper is to examine the nature and potential for building knowledge precincts in regional towns. Through a review of extant literature on knowledge precincts, five key value elements and principles for development are identified. These principles are then tested and applied to a case study of the small town of Cooroy in Noosa, Australia. The Cooroy Lower Mill Site and its surroundings are the designated location for what may be called a community-based creative knowledge precinct. The opportunities and challenges for setting up a creative knowledge precinct in Cooroy were examined. The study showed that there is a potential to develop Cooroy with the provision of cultural and learning facilities, partnerships with government, business and educational institutions, and networking with other creative and knowledge precincts in the region. However, there are also specific challenges relating to the development of a knowledge precinct within the regional town and these relate to critical mass, competition and governance.

An indexing model for stormwater quality in the Gold Coast

In the era of climate change sustainable urban development and in particular provision of sustainable urban infrastructure has become a key concept in dealing with environmental challenges. This paper discusses issues affecting stormwater quality and introduces a new indexing model that is to be used in evaluation of the stormwater quality in urban areas. The model has recently been developed and will be tested in a number of pilot projects in the Gold Coast, one of the fastest growing and environmentally challenged cities of Australia.

Waterfront Development for Residential Property in Malaysia

Rivers and water are valuable natural resources for human life, environment and national development. Recognition of water resources as national heritage will contribute towards more long term sustainable property development. Waterfront development is already a well-established phenomenon internationally. In Malaysia, as the economy began to change in 1980s, so did the land uses along many of the river and waterfront locations. The pressures of new technology coupled with an urban population growth and urbanization began to force a transition from water dependent industry to a variety of non-water dependent developments such as apartments, offices, and retail shopping areas. Residential waterfront development has taken advantage of available land and water amenities and incorporated as a feature or “selling point” of the development. It has been found that wide views of water add an average of 59% to the value of waterfront property, as well as providing attractive landscaping and better property neighborhoods respectively. Development of waterfront lands in Malaysia occurred with limited federal, state, or municipal planning guidance; resulting in cost aspects like flooding and pollution. Although some waterfront development projects continue to remain profitable with a maintained successful public access component, many have not. This paper provides a brief introduction to the research project to address this issue, which is currently on-going.

An indexing model for sustainable urban environmental management : the case of Gold Coast, Australia

Improving urban ecosystems and the quality of life of citizens have become a central issue in the global effort of creating sustainable built environments. As human beings our lives completely depend on the sustainability of the nature and we need to protect and manage natural resources in a more sustainable way in order to sustain our existence. As a result of population growth and rapid urbanisation, increasing demand of productivity depletes and degrades natural resources. However, the increasing activities and rapid development require more resources, and therefore, ecological planning becomes an essential vehicle in preserving scarce natural resources. This paper aims to indentify the interation between urban ecosystems and human activities in the context of urban sustainability and explores the degrading environmental impacts of this interaction and the necessity and benefits of using sustainability indicators as a tool in sustainable urban evnironmental management. Additionally, the paper also introduces an environmental sustainability indexing model (ASSURE) as an innovative approach to evaluate the environmental conditions of built environment.

Providing innovative planning education experience : teaching regional planning in an international context

Rapidly changing economic, social, and environmental conditions have created a need for urban and regional planning practitioners who are resilient, innovative, and able to cope with the increasingly complex and cosmopolitan nature of major metropolitan areas. This need should be reflected in planning education that allows students to experience a diverse range of approaches to problems and challenges, and that exposes students to the diverse array of perspectives on planning issues. This paper investigates the outcomes of a collaborative regional planning exercise organised jointly by planning academics from both Queensland University of Technology and the International Islamic University of Malaysia, and involving planning students from both universities. The regional planning exercise consisted of a regional appraisal and report topics of the area under investigation, Klang Valley – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It culminated with the presentation of regional development strategies for the area, with a field trip to Malaysia being the cornerstone of the project. The collaborative exercise involved a series of workshops and seminars organised locally, in which both Australian and Malaysian planning students participated, as well as meetings with local and federal planning officials, and also a forum for Young Planners of Australian and Malaysian Planning Institutes. The experience attempted to bridge the teaching of theoretical concepts of regional planning and development and the regional, more professional knowledge of planning practice, as it relates to specific political, institutional and cultural contexts. A survey of participating students, from both Queensland University of Technology and the International Islamic University of Malaysia, highlights the benefits of such project in terms of leaning experience and exposure to different cultural contexts.

Sustainable housing implementation through mutual benefits to stakeholders : a decision making approach

Improved public awareness and strong sentiments towards environmental issues will continue to create increasing demand for sustainable housing (SH) in the coming years. Despite this potential, the up-take rate of sustainable housing in new build and through home renovation is not as high as expected within the housing industry. This is in contrast to the influx of emerging building technologies, new materials and innovative designs seen in exemplar homes built worldwide. How we should use the increasing awareness of SH and emerging technologies as an impetus to change the un-sustainable designs and practices of the building industry is high on the agenda of the government and majority of the stakeholders involved. This warrants the study of multifaceted strategies that meet the needs of multiple stakeholders and integrated seamlessly into housing development processes. Specifically, the different perceptions, roles and incentives of stakeholders, who inevitably need to ensure their benefits and commercial returns, should be highlighted and acted upon. ----- This paper discusses the preliminary findings of a research project that aims to promote SH implementation by identifying and materializing the mutual benefits among key stakeholders. The aim is to be achieved through questionnaire surveys, structural equation modelling, interviews and case studies with seven major stakeholders within the Australian housing industry. This research identifies the influence and relationship of relevant factors, investigates preferences, similarities and differences between stakeholders on perceived benefits and in turn explores the mutual-benefit strategy package that facilitates decision making towards sustainable housing development.

Towards sustainable urban futures : evaluating urban sustainability performance of the Gold coast, Australia

Creating sustainable urban environments is one of the challenging issues that need a clear vision and implementation strategies involving changes in governmental values and decision making process for local governments. Particularly, internalisation of environmental externalities of daily urban activities (e.g. manufacturing, transportation and so on) has immense importance for which local policies are formulated to provide better living conditions for the people inhabiting urban areas. Even if environmental problems are defined succinctly by various stakeholders, complicated nature of sustainability issues demand a structured evaluation strategy and well-defined sustainability parameters for efficient and effective policy making. Following this reasoning, this study involves assessment of sustainability performance of urban settings mainly focusing on environmental problems caused by rapid urban expansion and transformation. By taking into account land-use and transportation interaction, it tries to reveal how future urban developments would alter daily urban travel behaviour of people and affect the urban and natural environments. The paper introduces a grid-based indexing method developed for this research and trailed as a GIS-based decision support tool to analyse and model selected spatial and aspatial indicators of sustainability in the Gold Coast. This process reveals parameters of site specific relationship among selected indicators that are used to evaluate index-based performance characteristics of the area. The evaluation is made through an embedded decision support module by assigning relative weights to indicators. Resolution of selected grid-based unit of analysis provides insights about service level of projected urban development proposals at a disaggregate level, such as accessibility to transportation and urban services, and pollution. The paper concludes by discussing the findings including the capacity of the decision support system to assist decision-makers in determining problematic areas and developing intervention policies for sustainable outcomes of future developments.