The drivers for port city sustainable development : what triggers these and what changes does the current economic climate facilitate?

Over the last decade various waterfront cities have undergone major redevelopments, for example Wellington, Southbank (Melbourne), Baltimore, Sydney and Canary Wharf (London). These were all completed prior to the global financial climate of 2008/10. The world has changed. This paper explores the drivers for past port city redevelopment projects; What impetus drove these projects forward? What tools supported the projects to go ahead? In an unstable financial market do these remain viable? And if not are there new drivers which are stepping in to replace the classic drivers of the past? A literature review of academic, practitioner, policy documents and social media is analyzed to establish the drivers of the past, comparing these to current and future drivers. The review will be based on a survey of 40 international cities based on or near a port which have undergone significant redevelopment prior to or during the 2008/10 financial crisis. It assesses the drivers for sustainable development in port cities and explores the potential for establishing a matrix for successful sustainable development.

Understanding sustainable policy paths and their influence on the built environment

Sustainable development is an international problem as it affects everyone everywhere.Up until recently, it has been pursued on a national scale leading from a confused understanding of sustainability from the international community. The various international summits and meetings on the topic have allowed establishment of general guidelines and attitudes that need to be taken by national policy writers. Because of the lack of understanding on the topic, as it encompasses many aspects of social, economic and environmental behaviours, there has been a general individual interpretation of these ideas that has then shaped national policies. These policies differ in nature and therefore must be analysed to identify these differences and their implications on the built environment. The Melbourne 2030 plan and the London plan are two of the leading and highly mentioned policies stemming from the advanced nature of the respective economies. These nations’ polices have implications that trickle down to the very core of building design and lead stakeholders in certain directions as opposed to others. The research attempts to highlight the paths taken by these different nations and what influence this has had on the overall state of sustainable development in the localised communities respectively. Analysing the state of sustainable development ideas from the international, to the national and down to the local policy strategies will give a clear picture of the state of policy direction in the localised context. Looking then at two buildings in these contexts identifies how policy can play a major role in shaping sustainable design related outcomes. The research finds that the UK and London plan is well-structured and pays close attention to the built environment while there is much less evidence of this in the Australia and Melbourne policy plans. This can be seen in the overall outcome of the chosen building case studies where the chosen London building shows more promise in its sophisticated use of technologies to achieve a highly sustainable building as compared to the chosen Melbourne building. It has been suggested that because of the differences in rating tools and their applications, there may be problems in successfully comparing two buildings in different contexts. This gives rise to the question of global sustainability where it is understood that sustainability is a global problem and cannot be tackled on a fragmented basis. This then may suggest that the international stage of sustainable understanding should be holistic in that it should be tackled at a global stage instead of the current fragmented national stage.

The contribution of creativity to human development in a new nation: a case study of Afalyca community art centre, Timor-Leste

This article describes the contribution of creativity to human development in the new nation of Timor-Leste, exemplified in a case study of community art centre Afalyca. By taking a creative approach to the challenges of life in his developing country, the young leader of this enterprise, Marqy da Costa, is realising his own potential more fully and offering enriching experiences to others. The impact of his centre on a range of stakeholders, including staff, participants and the wider community is discussed. For participants, the outcomes of their involvement include enjoyable opportunities for creative expression; valued recognition from national and international audiences; the broadening of life experience to encompass new possibilities for self-actualisation; skill development and income from employment and sales.

The factors that have contributed to Afalcya's creative achievements are examined. These include inspiration and assistance received from organisations and individuals in and outside of Timor, family support, and the age and gender of leaders. Also significant are founder Marqy's personal characteristics of artistic talent, social and language skills, love of learning, persistence and conciliatory approach to conflict. Barriers to the realisation of Afalcya's potential include lack of systemic recognition of the value of creativity for sustainable development, unsupportive bureaucracy and gender related restrictions of participation for women. The potential for similar initiatives to contribute to a positive future for Timorese people is explored.

Quo vadis, Delhi? Urban heritage and gender: towards a sustainable urban future

Historic architectural heritage is important to sustainable urban planning policy, particularly in cities that have heritage sites and/or themselves have ancient archaeological value. Delhi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. However, the vision of its planning policy is limited to valuing heritage for itself and for its economic value instead of also exploring the ways in the city’s heritage might contribute to the social organisation and utilisation of the urban public space. Particularly, like most national policy documents on heritage, it ignores the heritage/gender nexus, which has implications for the identity and status of women in Delhi, community development and ecological preservation. But twenty women practioners and scholars of development in Delhi referred to heritage as a challenge as well as opportunity for gender and urban sustainability when asked for their perspectives on the most important sustainability issues in the city. I argue that Delhi’s urban planning strategies must acknowledge the gender/heritage nexus to enable holistic and gender-inclusive urban development for the present and future generations of its citizens, which is an important thrust of the sustainability agenda.

Railway stations : public realm gateways to sustainable futures of our cities

Train stations are places of connection in our cities and are the gateways of urban space. They represent one of the most exciting places to experience. Some stations make great destinations offering shops, restaurants, museums and exhibition spaces to commuters. While new architecture at railway stations acknowledges heritage, the urban spaces around them provide excellent public areas and rationalise functional needs. Grand spaces with monumental structures, including constant movement of people and trains makes for an exhilarating experience. Modern or historic, great train stations add another level of excitement in the regeneration of our cities. Adding into the mix of the sustainability paradigm, place making of railway stations transforms into sustainable urban centres and signature architecture, but how does it support an environmentally sustainable future? This paper reflects the journey of exploring the challenging situations of balancing the requirements between historic, operational, functional, economic and innovative sustainable design solutions during the Flinders Street Station Design Competition in Melbourne. The author highlights how the unique spatial, social and cultural circumstance of this world-renowned city railway station possesses specific resilient and sustainable design answers to a public realm and city space that challenges established thinking.

Inter-organisational knowledge sharing in regional sustainable development communities

There has been an increasing interest in the use of inter-organisational groups to address regional implications in sustainable development. These groups bring together local knowledge and expertise and span boundaries between government and industry organisations. Our focus is in understanding how knowledge is shared in such inter-organisational groups. Utilising interviews, observations and social network analysis, we examine the knowledge sharing implications derived from the mixed membership, multilevel interaction, and the need to span boundaries with external organisations in these collaborations.

Can a modelling exercise be developed to aid and foster sustainable planning processes and guide the future growth of a small coastal Australian city?

Over the past few decades coastal cities around the world have grown at an incredible rate. With this growth have come major challenges relating to land use planning, social relationships, economic development, bio diversity and the ecological footprint. Three forces are working to influence the growth rate in coastal cities. They include: -population growth (i.e. the type and quantity of human demand for land), the existing and future properties of the land (i.e. current land status or changes due to nature and human activities), and finally technical changes to a land system (i.e. rezoning or the influence of other external factors). The goal of this research was to determine whether a planning framework could model the three (population growth, the existing and future properties of land and technical changes to a land system) variables in order to assist smaller councils undertaking long term land use planning decisions. The test site for the research was the City of Portland in western Victoria, Australia.

South west Victoria 2012-2050 : are the settlements sustainable?

Over the past few decades coastal cities around the world have grown at an incredible rate. With this growth have come major challenges relating to land use planning, social relationships, economic development, bio diversity and the ecological footprint. The following paper selects three regional coastal towns (Warrnambool, Portland and Port Fairy) situated in the Australian state of Victoria, and addresses the issues of: increasing population and population density, open space requirements, residential density issues, public transport coverage, employment and employment density, a shifting economic climate, environment and climate change, water quality issues and building energy consumption with subsequent C02 emissions. Through a series of simulations the nine issues for each of the three cities will be examined from 2012 through to 2030. The goal is to highlight the current and simulated future impacts of the selected issues and propose solutions that could mitigate those impacts.

A framework to determine if Australia's suburbs have ever been sustainable

Australia is a suburban society. It has been since Europeans came. Unlike many other urban societies at the time, there was no existing hard infrastructure to provide the essential needs of human urban life - clean water, food, shelter and waste management. These had to be met by individual residents in the emerging cities and towns until infrastructure could be provided to local communities by Government. This reality led to Governor Phillip establishing the block size in Sydney as being large enough to provide food and treat waste within its boundaries. The block dimensions were a major influence on Australia’s urban form for the next two centuries and with social developments not only led to low density urban form, but also fostered a strong connection with the backyard and a societal love of gardening at home. Despite a push to densification in the past two decades, low density suburban form is physical and cultural and is likely to be dominant for the foreseeable future. Gardening at home is also likely to continue to be a favourite pass time. While some Australian research has started to explore the role of backyards and gardening in increasing urban sustainability, little work has been done on to what extent the suburban block has and can meet the core needs of people. Even less has been done on determining the impact of suburbs on underlying ecosystem services that provide these core needs. This paper provides a brief history of backyards in suburban Australia, a conceptual framework for assessing the sustainability of Australian suburbs over time and a description of the major ecosystem types in what is now urban Geelong at the time of European settlement. It provides the foundation for future sustainability assessments of the residential block in various periods of suburban development in Geelong.

Which rural migrants receive social insurance in Chinese cities? Evidence from Jiangsu survey data

This article draws on a survey of internal migrant workers in China's Jiangsu province to shed light on the characteristics of migrant workers who receive social insurance and explain why some migrants take up social insurance while others do not. Of the factors which potentially explain which migrants receive social insurance, gender, past earnings, ties to the city to which the migrant had moved, the ownership type of the enterprise in which the migrant works and residential registration status are all found to be statistically significant predictors. The article concludes with the suggestion that the high level of scepticism with respect to social protection that has been reported as being manifest among migrants is justified. There is little likelihood the majority of migrant workers who have moved to China's towns and cities will be able to access the social insurance benefits traditionally available to those with urban registration. Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications London.

Remixing to design learning: social media and peer-to-peer interaction

Social and participatory media offer opportunities to interact and share user-generated content. After some investigation and research, the authors are in their initial stages of using such media to provide a pathway for thinking about learning design in higher education. Using the concept of remixing, the authors aim to creatively blend and manipulate ideas to build a sustainable approach to course/program enhancement. Remixing is touted as one of the most important practices within the field of open educational resources, but it is not mainstream practice in educational thinking or design. This article highlights the authors’ approach and uses their pre-service teacher education program and their previous high school study as an example of remixing. The high school study involved the integration of social and participatory media into the face-to-face classroom; Author 1 was the practitioner researcher in the high school study. This article articulates the use of online social environments at the high school level to highlight concepts of sharing and remixing as a creative and social approach to designing learning in higher education. It also attempts to consider this within a course-wide approach.

Examining the perception of tenants in sustainable office buildings

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address two major challenges faced by sustainable building owners: first, address the gap between an occupant’s expectations of sustainable building outcomes and what the building actually provides and second, overcome the lack of user knowledge about sustainability design and operation for a particular with regards to performance. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a focus group approach to investigate the gap between: user expectations and sustainable building performance. The study surveyed occupants of sustainable office buildings in Melbourne, Australia. Findings – There is no significant relationship between users’ expectations and users’ experience of sustainable building performance and users’ knowledge about sustainability and the building they were worked in. Research limitations/implications – The research was limited to sustainable office buildings. New office buildings seeking to incorporate sustainability which need to focus on the needs of tenants in order to maximise value. Practical implications – There is an urgent need to ensure sustainable office buildings meet the needs of present and future occupiers without compromising short and long-term occupier satisfaction levels with regards to sustainability and operation of the building. Social implications – Increasing the level of sustainability in office buildings has been a major trend over the past decade however the tenants need to be consulted in the post-occupancy phase. Originality/value – Little attention has been given in the property management literature to sustainable office buildings and value drivers. This is an original and innovative study, partly due to the recent developments in sustainable buildings.