Moving towards a knowledge city : Brisbane's experience in knowledge-based urban development

In the global knowledge economy, knowledge-intensive industries and knowledge workers are extensively seen as the primary factors to improve the welfare and competitiveness of cities. To attract and retain such industries and workers, cities produce knowledge-based urban development strategies, where such strategising is also an important development mechanism for cities and their economies. This paper investigates Brisbane’s knowledge-based urban development strategies that support generation, attraction, and retention of investment and talent. The paper provides a clear understanding on the policy frameworks, and relevant applications of Brisbane’s knowledge-based urban development experience in becoming a prosperous knowledge city.

Augmenting competitiveness of cities through tourism planning : the role of collaborative decision support systems

Many cities around the globe are now considering tourism facilities and their remarkable revenues in order to become competitive in the global economy. In many of these cities a great emphasis is given to the cultural tourism as it plays an important role in the establishment of creative and knowledge-base of cities. The literature points out the importance of local community support in cultural tourism. In such context, the use of new approach and technologies in tourism planning in order to increase the community participation and competitiveness of cities’ cultural assets gains a great significance. This paper advocates a new planning approach for tourism planning, particularly for cultural tourism, to increase the competitiveness of cities. As part of this new approach, the paper introduces the joined up planning approach integrated with a collaborative decision support system: ‘the community-oriented decision support system’. This collaborative planning support system is an effective and efficient tool for cultural tourism planning, which provides a platform for local communities’ participation in the development decision process.

Spatial restructuring of cities in the age of knowledge economy : insights from Australian cities

In the age of knowledge economy, knowledge production, and where, how and by whom it is produced, has become one of the most important factors in determining the quality of life and competitiveness of a city. In different parts of the world, cities that are the centres of knowledge production are branded under different names, e.g. knowledge city, creative city, ubiquitous eco city, smart city. This paper focuses on the core building block of these cities: ‘knowledge precincts’ that are the catalytic magnet infrastructures impacting knowledge production. The paper discusses the increasing importance of knowledge-based urban development within the paradigm of knowledge economy, and the role of knowledge community precincts as an instrument to seed the foundation of knowledge production. This paper explores knowledge based urban development, particularly knowledge community precinct development, potentials of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and benchmarks them against Boston. The paper also draws conclusions and recommendations for other cities considering knowledge based development.

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.

A decision support system for sustainable urban development : the integrated land use and transportation indexing model

The broad definition of sustainable development at the early stage of its introduction has caused confusion and hesitation among local authorities and planning professionals. The main difficulties are experience in employing loosely-defined principles of sustainable development in setting policies and goals. The question of how this theory/rhetoric-practice gap could be filled will be the theme of this study. One of the widely employed sustainability accounting approaches by governmental organisations, triple bottom line, and applicability of this approach to sustainable urban development policies will be examined. When incorporating triple bottom line considerations with the environmental impact assessment techniques, the framework of GIS-based decision support system that helps decision-makers in selecting policy option according to the economic, environmental and social impacts will be introduced. In order to embrace sustainable urban development policy considerations, the relationship between urban form, travel pattern and socio-economic attributes should be clarified. This clarification associated with other input decision support systems will picture the holistic state of the urban settings in terms of sustainability. In this study, grid-based indexing methodology will be employed to visualise the degree of compatibility of selected scenarios with the designated sustainable urban future. In addition, this tool will provide valuable knowledge about the spatial dimension of the sustainable development. It will also give fine details about the possible impacts of urban development proposals by employing disaggregated spatial data analysis (e.g. land-use, transportation, urban services, population density, pollution, etc.). The visualisation capacity of this tool will help decision makers and other stakeholders compare and select alternative of future urban developments.

Understanding the creative economy : a tale of two cities clusters

This article investigates underlying constraints within China’s creative economy. Drawing on two studies of creative clusters in Suzhou and Foshan, it identifies the importance of knowledge transfer and internationalization to the generation of higher value-added products and services. Both examples illustrate relationships between resources, activities, routines and entrepreneurship. The article argues that the examples notwithstanding, the vast majority of what is accounted for in data collection as China’s creative industries are more appropriately cultural industries. The focus on cultural industries drives local development and increases land values but the benefits are rarely dispersed internationally or into the broader economy.

Deeply divergent mitochondrial lineages reveal patterns of local endemism in chironomids of the Australian Wet Tropics

The Wet Tropics bioregion of north-eastern Australia has been subject to extensive fluctuations in climate throughout the late Pliocene and Pleistocene. Cycles of rainforest contraction and expansion of dry sclerophyll forest associated with such climatic fluctuations are postulated to have played a major role in driving geographical endemism in terrestrial rainforest taxa. Consequences for the distributions of aquatic organisms, however, are poorly understood.The Australian non-biting midge species Echinocladius martini Cranston (Diptera: Chironomidae), although restricted to cool, well-forested freshwater streams, has been considered to be able to disperse among populations located in isolated rainforest pockets during periods of sclerophyllous forest expansion, potentially limiting the effect of climatic fluctuations on patterns of endemism. In this study, mitochondrial COI and 16S data were analysed for E. martini collected from eight sites spanning theWet Tropics bioregion to assess the scale and extent of phylogeographic structure. Analyses of genetic structure showed several highly divergent cryptic lineages with restricted geographical distributions. Within one of the identified lineages, strong genetic structure implied that dispersal among proximate (<1 km apart) streams was extremely restricted. The results suggest that vicariant processes, most likely due to the systemic drying of the Australian continent during the Plio-Pleistocene, might have fragmented historical E. martini populations and, hence, promoted divergence in allopatry.

A distributed knowledge management infrastructure based on a Topic Map grid

Modern enterprise knowledge management systems typically require distributed approaches and the integration of numerous heterogeneous sources of information. A powerful foundation for these tasks can be Topic Maps, which not only provide a semantic net-like knowledge representation means and the possibility to use ontologies for modelling knowledge structures, but also offer concepts to link these knowledge structures with unstructured data stored in files, external documents etc. In this paper, we present the architecture and prototypical implementation of a Topic Map application infrastructure, the ‘Topic Grid’, which enables transparent, node-spanning access to different Topic Maps distributed in a network.

Analysing policy values in a knowledge economy

This fascinating handbook defines how knowledge contributes to social and economic life, and vice versa. It considers the five areas critical to acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the knowledge economy: the nature of the knowledge economy; social, cooperative, cultural, creative, ethical and intellectual capital; knowledge and innovation systems; policy analysis for knowledge-based economies; and knowledge management. In presenting the outcomes of an important body of research, the handbook enables knowledge policy and management practitioners to be more systematically guided in their thinking and actions. The contributors cover a wide disciplinary spectrum in an accessible way, presenting concise, to-the-point discussions of critical concepts and practices that will enable practitioners to make effective research, managerial and policy decisions. They also highlight important new areas of concern to knowledge economies such as wisdom, ethics, language and creative economies that are largely overlooked.

Use of Bayesian geostatistical prediction to estimate local variations in Schistosoma haematobium infection in western Africa

Objective We aimed to predict sub-national spatial variation in numbers of people infected with Schistosoma haematobium, and associated uncertainties, in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, prior to implementation of national control programmes. Methods We used national field survey datasets covering a contiguous area 2,750 × 850 km, from 26,790 school-aged children (5–14 years) in 418 schools. Bayesian geostatistical models were used to predict prevalence of high and low intensity infections and associated 95% credible intervals (CrI). Numbers infected were determined by multiplying predicted prevalence by numbers of school-aged children in 1 km2 pixels covering the study area. Findings Numbers of school-aged children with low-intensity infections were: 433,268 in Burkina Faso, 872,328 in Mali and 580,286 in Niger. Numbers with high-intensity infections were: 416,009 in Burkina Faso, 511,845 in Mali and 254,150 in Niger. 95% CrIs (indicative of uncertainty) were wide; e.g. the mean number of boys aged 10–14 years infected in Mali was 140,200 (95% CrI 6200, 512,100). Conclusion National aggregate estimates for numbers infected mask important local variation, e.g. most S. haematobium infections in Niger occur in the Niger River valley. Prevalence of high-intensity infections was strongly clustered in foci in western and central Mali, north-eastern and northwestern Burkina Faso and the Niger River valley in Niger. Populations in these foci are likely to carry the bulk of the urinary schistosomiasis burden and should receive priority for schistosomiasis control. Uncertainties in predicted prevalence and numbers infected should be acknowledged and taken into consideration by control programme planners.

Planning for knowledge-based urban development : global perspectives

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate the engineering of creative urban regions through knowledge-based urban development. In recent years city administrators realised the importance of engineering and orchestrating knowledge city formation through visioning and planning for economic, socio-cultural and physical development. For that purpose a new development paradigm of ‘‘knowledge-based urban development’’ is formed, and quickly finds implementation ground in many parts of the globe.----- Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews the literature and examines global best practice experiences in order to determine how cities are engineering their creative urban regions so as to establish a base for knowledge city formation.----- Findings: The paper sheds light on the different development approaches for creative urban regions, and concludes with recommendations for urban administrations planning for knowledge-based development of creative urban regions.----- Originality/value: The paper provides invaluable insights and discussion on the vital role of planning for knowledge-based urban development of creative urban regions.

Providing youth with skills, training and employment opportunities through ICT Initiatives

Youth population is increasing explosively particularly in developing countries as a result of rapid urbanization. This increase is bringing large number of social and economic problems. For instance the impacts of job and training availability, and the physical, social and cultural quality of urban environment on young people are enormous, and affect their health, lifestyles, and well-being (Gleeson and Sipe 2006). Besides this, globalization and technological developments are affecting youth in urban areas in all parts of the world, both positively and negatively (Robertson 1995). The rapidly advancing information and communications technologies (ICTs) helps in addressing social and economic problems caused by the rapid growth of urban youth populations in developing countries. ICTs offer opportunities to young people for learning, skill development and employment. But there are downsides: young people in many developing countries lack of having broad access to these new technologies, they are vulnerable to global market changes, and ICTs link them into global cultures which promote consumer goods, potentially eroding local cultures and community values (Manacorda and Petrongolo 1999). However we believe that the positives outweigh such negatives. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world’s young population number more than they ever have. There are over a billion young people between the ages of 15 and 24, which 85 per cent of them live in developing countries and mainly in urban environments. Many of these young people are in the process of making, or have already made, the transition from school to work. During the last two decades all around the world, these young people, as new workers, have faced a number of challenges associated with globalization and technological advances on labour markets (United Nations 2004). The continuous decrease in the manufacturing employment is made many of the young people facing three options: getting jobs in the informal economy with insecurity and poor wages and working conditions, or getting jobs in the low-tier service industries, or developing their vocational skills to benefit from new opportunities in the professional and advanced technical/knowledge sectors. Moreover in developing countries a large portion of young people are not even lucky enough to choose among any of these options, and consequently facing long-term unemployment, which makes them highly vulnerable. The United Nations’ World Youth Employment report (2004) indicates that in almost all countries, females tend to be far more vulnerable than males in terms of long-term unemployment, and young people who have advanced qualifications are far less likely to experience long-term unemployment than others. In the limited opportunities of the formal labour market, those with limited vocational skills resort to forced entrepreneurship and selfemployment in the informal economy, often working for low pay under hazardous conditions, with only few prospects for the future (United Nations 2005a). The International Labour Organization’s research (2004) revealed that the labour force participation rates for young people decreased by almost four per cent (which is equivalent of 88 million young people) between 1993 and 2003. This is largely as a result of the increased number of young people attending school, high overall unemployment rates, and the fact that some young people gave up any hope of finding work and dropped out of the labour market. At the regional level, youth unemployment was highest in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (25.6%) and sub-Saharan Africa (21%) and lowest in East Asia (7%) and the industrialized economies(13.4%) (International Labour Organization 2004). The youth in economically disadvantaged regions (e.g. the MENA region) face many challenges in education and training that delivers them the right set of skills and knowledge demanded by the labour market. As a consequence, the transition from school to work is mostly unsuccessful and young population end up either unemployed or underemployed in the informal sectors (United Nations 2005b). Unemployment and lack of economic prospects of the urban youth are pushing many of them into criminal acts, excessive alcohol use, substance addiction, and also in many cases resulting in processes of social or political violence (Fernandez-Maldonado 2004; United Nations 2005a). Long-term unemployment leads young people in a process of marginalisation and social exclusion (United Nations 2004). The sustained high rates of long-term youth unemployment have a number of negative effects on societies. First, it results in countries failing to take advantage of the human resources to increase their productive potential, at a time of transition to a globalized world that inexorably demands such leaps in productive capacity. Second, it reinforces the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Third, owing to the discrepancy between more education and exposure to the mass media and fewer employment opportunities, it may encourage the spread of disruptive behaviours, recourse to illegal alternatives for generating income and the loss of basic societal values, all of which erode public safety and social capital. Fourth, it may trigger violent and intractable political conflicts. And lastly, it may exacerbate intergenerational conflicts when young people perceive a lack of opportunity and meritocracy in a system that favours adults who have less formal education and training but more wealth, power and job stability (Hopenhayn 2002). To assist in addressing youth’s skill training and employment problems this paper scrutinises useful international practices, policies, initiatives and programs targeting youth skill training, particularly in ICTs. The MENA national governments and local authorities could consider implementing similar initiative and strategies to address some of the youth employment issues. The broader aim of this paper is to investigate the successful practice and strategies for the information and communication related income generation opportunities for young people to: promote youth entrepreneurship; promote public-private partnerships; target vulnerable groups of young people; narrow digital divide; and put young people in charge. The rest of this paper is organised in five parts. First, the paper provides an overview of the literature on the knowledge economy, skill, education and training issues. Secondly, it reviews the role of ICTs for vocational skill development and employability. Thirdly, it discusses the issues surrounding the development of the digital divide. Fourthly, the paper underlines types and the importance of developing ICT initiatives targeting young people, and reviews some of the successful policy implementations on ICT-based initiatives from both developed and developing countries that offer opportunities to young people for learning, skill development and employment. Then the paper concludes by providing useful generalised recommendations for the MENA region countries and cities in: advocating possible opportunities for ICT generated employment for young people; and discussing how ICT policies could be modified and adopted to meet young people’s needs.

How useful is expert opinion for predicting the distribution of a species within and beyond the region of expertise? A case study using brush-tailed rock-wallabiesPetrogale penicillata

1. Species' distribution modelling relies on adequate data sets to build reliable statistical models with high predictive ability. However, the money spent collecting empirical data might be better spent on management. A less expensive source of species' distribution information is expert opinion. This study evaluates expert knowledge and its source. In particular, we determine whether models built on expert knowledge apply over multiple regions or only within the region where the knowledge was derived. 2. The case study focuses on the distribution of the brush-tailed rock-wallaby Petrogale penicillata in eastern Australia. We brought together from two biogeographically different regions substantial and well-designed field data and knowledge from nine experts. We used a novel elicitation tool within a geographical information system to systematically collect expert opinions. The tool utilized an indirect approach to elicitation, asking experts simpler questions about observable rather than abstract quantities, with measures in place to identify uncertainty and offer feedback. Bayesian analysis was used to combine field data and expert knowledge in each region to determine: (i) how expert opinion affected models based on field data and (ii) how similar expert-informed models were within regions and across regions. 3. The elicitation tool effectively captured the experts' opinions and their uncertainties. Experts were comfortable with the map-based elicitation approach used, especially with graphical feedback. Experts tended to predict lower values of species occurrence compared with field data. 4. Across experts, consensus on effect sizes occurred for several habitat variables. Expert opinion generally influenced predictions from field data. However, south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales experts had different opinions on the influence of elevation and geology, with these differences attributable to geological differences between these regions. 5. Synthesis and applications. When formulated as priors in Bayesian analysis, expert opinion is useful for modifying or strengthening patterns exhibited by empirical data sets that are limited in size or scope. Nevertheless, the ability of an expert to extrapolate beyond their region of knowledge may be poor. Hence there is significant merit in obtaining information from local experts when compiling species' distribution models across several regions.

Supporting the mature aged workforce

This article presents findings from an Australian research project regarding management of the mature aged workforce and ageing demographic issues. Semi structured interviews were used to discuss perceptions of older workers, ageing demography, informal work practices, formal work practices and business development. The sample included 25 employees from three local governments from the Queensland State in Australia. Four main themes emerged from the analysis regarding the current setting. These were: (1) Despite negative stereotyping, respondents had a positive view of older workers, (2) Age management was more of an issue for the outdoor workforce due to declines in physiological capacities associated with aging, (3) The overarching policy framework within the local councils was age neutral; and (4) Informal age management strategies existed at the discretion of the respective managers and section heads. An age conscious and forethought workforce plan was viewed as the next step towards a formal age management strategy. The findings indicate that mentoring, training and flexible work options to retain staff and to retain corporate knowledge may be some of the options for the future