The Second Life of urban planning? Using neogeography tools for community engagement

The majority of the world’s citizens now live in cities. Although urban planning can thus be thought of as a field with significant ramifications on the human condition, many practitioners feel that it has reached the crossroads in thought leadership between traditional practice and a new, more participatory and open approach. Conventional ways to engage people in participatory planning exercises are limited in reach and scope. At the same time, socio-cultural trends and technology innovation offer opportunities to re-think the status quo in urban planning. Neogeography introduces tools and services that allow non-geographers to use advanced geographical information systems. Similarly, is there potential for the emergence of a neo-planning paradigm in which urban planning is carried out through active civic engagement aided by Web 2.0 and new media technologies thus redefining the role of practicing planners? This paper traces a number of evolving links between urban planning, neogeography and information and communication technology. Two significant trends – participation and visualisation – with direct implications for urban planning are discussed. Combining advanced participation and visualisation features, the popular virtual reality environment Second Life is then introduced as a test bed to explore a planning workshop and an integrated software event framework to assist narrative generation. We discuss an approach to harness and analyse narratives using virtual reality logging to make transparent how users understand and interpret proposed urban designs.

Fabricating reconciliation : Howard's forgettable speech

In this chapter, John Howard’s policy speech to The Sydney Institute, a conservative think tank, on October 11, 2007 as the Australian Prime Minister of the day, is analysed within the frame of discourse analysis to make visible how the speech works in old ways to dress up neoliberal policy as new and reformist. Taking centre stage, Howard pointed to concrete steps undertaken to achieve what he called a “new reconciliation.” This cynical manoeuvre, which put reconciliation back onto the election agenda (after it was earlier derided for its divisive and muddle headed symbolism), constituted a “neoliberal quickstep” (Reiger, 2006) or quickfix of sorts. The speech was also used as a place to reintroduce the Northern Territory Intervention, which at the time was purported to be a response to child abuse and Indigenous community dysfunction.

Research Monograph: The role of community and lifestyle in the making of a knowledge city

Our brief is to investigate the role of community and lifestyle in the making of a globally successful knowledge city region. Our approach is essentially pragmatic. We start by broadly examining knowledge-based urban development from a number of different perspectives. The first view is historical. In this context knowledge work and knowledge workers are seen as vital parts of a new emergent mode of production reliant on the continual production of abstract knowledge. We briefly develop this perspective to encompass the work of Richard Florida who has, notedly, claimed: “Wherever talent goes, innovation, creativity, and economic growth are sure to follow.” Our next perspective examines concepts of knowledge and modes of its production to discover knowledge is not an unchanging object but a human activity that changes in form and content through history. The suggestion emerges that not only is the production of contemporary ‘knowledge’ organised in a specific (and new) manner but also the output of this networked production is a particular type of knowledge (i.e. techné). The third perspective locates knowledge production and its workers in the contemporary urban context. As such, it co-ordinates the knowledge city in the increasingly global structure of cities and develops a typology of different groups of knowledge workers in their preferred urban environment(s). We see emerging here a distinctive geography of knowledge production. It is an urban phenomenon. There is, in short, something about the nature of cities that knowledge workers find particularly attractive. In the next, essentially anthropological, perspective we start to explore the needs and desires of the individual knowledge worker. Beyond the needs basic to any modern human household an attempt is made to deduce, from a base understanding of knowledge work as mental labour, the compensatory cultural needs of the knowledge worker when not at work - and the expression of these needs in the urban fabric. Our final perspective consists of two case studies. In a review of the experiences of Austin, Texas and Singapore’s one-north precinct we collect empirical data on, respectively, a knowledge city that has sustained itself for over 50 years and an urban precinct newly launched into the global market for knowledge work and knowledge workers. Interwoven The Role of Community and Lifestyle in the Making of a Knowledge City Urban Research Program 8 through all perspectives, in the form of apposite citation, is that of ‘expert opinion’ gathered in a rudimentary poll of academic and industry sources. This opinion appears in text boxes while details of the survey can be found in Appendix A. In the conclusion of the report we interpret the wide range of evidence gathered above in a policy frame. It is our hope this report will leave the reader with a clearer picture of the decisive organisational, infrastructural, aesthetic and social dimensions of a knowledge precinct.

A learning community approach to doctoral education in the social sciences

The paper reports on the findings of a community learning approach to doctoral education involving scholarly writing groups (SWGs) which was developed and implemented in the context of a higher degree research programme within the social sciences in an Australian university. The research evaluated the impact of the teaching intervention on students' perceptions of the community learning experience, their knowledge of scholarly writing and their attitudes towards writing. The findings are suggestive of the advantages of community approaches to learning in higher degree research education as a supplement to independent supervision. The SWGs were associated with improvements in both participants' knowledge of scholarly writing and their attitudes towards writing. However, a variety of characteristics of doctoral education are potential impediments to the creation of ongoing and regular interactions in learning communities such as SWGs. The paper concludes that a flexible approach to the recognition and enhancement of community approaches to learning is required to acknowledge the complex and diverse context of contemporary doctoral education.

Listening, sharing understanding and facilitating consumer, family and community empowerment through a priority driven partnership in Far North Queensland

Objectives: This paper provides an example of a mental health research partnership underpinned by empowerment principles that seeks to foster strength among community organizations to support better outcomes for consumers, families and communities. It aims to raise awareness among researchers and service providers that empowerment approaches to assist communities to address mental health problems are not too difficult to be practical but require long-term commitment and appropriate support. Methods: A collaborative research strategy that has become known as the Priority Driven Research (PDR) Partnership emerged through literature review,consultations, Family Wellbeing Program delivery with community groups and activities in two discrete Indigenous communities. Progress to date on three of the four components of the strategy is described. Results: The following key needs were identified in a pilot study and are now being addressed in a research-based implementation phase: (i) gaining two-way understanding of perspectives on mental health and promoting universal awareness; (ii) supporting the empowerment of carers, families, consumers and at-risk groups through existing community organizations to gain greater understanding and control of their situation; (iii) developing pathways of care at the primary health centre level to enable support of social and emotional wellbeing as well as more integrated mental health care; (iv) accessing data to enable an ongoing process of analysis/sharing/planning and monitoring to inform future activity. Conclusion: One of the key learnings to emerge in this project so far is that empowerment through partnership becomes possible when there is a concerted effort to strengthen grassroots community organizations. These include social health teams and men’s and women’s groups that can engage local people in an action orientation. Key words: Aboriginal, empowerment, Indigenous, mental health.

Novel educational training program for community pharmacists

There is little evidence that workshops alone have a lasting impact on the day-to-day practice of participants. The current paper examined a strategy to increase generalization and maintenance of skills in the natural environment using pseudo-patients and immediate performance feedback to reinforce skills acquisition. A random half of pharmacies (N=30) took part in workshop training aimed at optimizing consumers' use of nonprescription analgesic products. Pharmacies in the training group also received performance feedback on their adherence to the recommended protocol. Feedback occurred immediately after a pseudo-patient visit in which confederates posed as purchasers of analgesics, and combined positive and corrective elements. Trained pharmacists were significantly more accurate at identifying people who misused the medication (P<0.001). The trained pharmacists were more likely than controls to use open-ended questions (P<0.001), assess readiness to change problematic use (P <0.001), and to deliver a brief intervention that was tailored to the person's commitment to alter his/her usage (P <0.001). Participants responded to the feedback positively. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that when workshop is combined with on-site performance feedback, it enhances practitioners' adherence to protocols in the natural setting.

A new day breaks for the Aussie film industry

The Australian film industry is evolving. The days when government film agencies handed out millions of taxpayers' dollars for filmmakers to produce "Australian stories" with little regard to commercial returns are limited. If the Australian film industry is to reach mainstream audiences – and increase its relevance – then filmmakers need to take greater notice of genre movies and the possibilities they create within the financial restraints of the local industry. The $20 million Aussie vampire movie, Daybreakers, is a prototype for how this can be achieved.

Hungry 24/7? HCI design for sustainable food culture workshop

This workshop proposes to explore new approaches to cultivate and support sustainable food culture in urban environments via human computer interaction design and ubiquitous technologies. Food is a challenging issue in urban contexts: while food consumption decisions are made many times a day, most food interaction for urbanites occurs based on convenience and habitual practices. This situation is contrasting to the fact that food is at the centre of global environment, health, and social issues that are becoming increasingly immanent and imminent. As such, it is timely and crucial to ask: what are feasible, effective, and innovative ways to improve human-food-interaction through human-computer-interaction in order to contribute to environmental, health, and social sustainability in urban environments? This workshop brings together insights across disciplines to discuss this question, and plan and promote individual, local, and global change for sustainable food culture.

Mining patterns and factors contributing to crash severity on road curves

Road curves are an important feature of road infrastructure and many serious crashes occur on road curves. In Queensland, the number of fatalities is twice as many on curves as that on straight roads. Therefore, there is a need to reduce drivers’ exposure to crash risk on road curves. Road crashes in Australia and in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) have plateaued in the last five years (2004 to 2008) and the road safety community is desperately seeking innovative interventions to reduce the number of crashes. However, designing an innovative and effective intervention may prove to be difficult as it relies on providing theoretical foundation, coherence, understanding, and structure to both the design and validation of the efficiency of the new intervention. Researchers from multiple disciplines have developed various models to determine the contributing factors for crashes on road curves with a view towards reducing the crash rate. However, most of the existing methods are based on statistical analysis of contributing factors described in government crash reports. In order to further explore the contributing factors related to crashes on road curves, this thesis designs a novel method to analyse and validate these contributing factors. The use of crash claim reports from an insurance company is proposed for analysis using data mining techniques. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to use data mining techniques to analyse crashes on road curves. Text mining technique is employed as the reports consist of thousands of textual descriptions and hence, text mining is able to identify the contributing factors. Besides identifying the contributing factors, limited studies to date have investigated the relationships between these factors, especially for crashes on road curves. Thus, this study proposed the use of the rough set analysis technique to determine these relationships. The results from this analysis are used to assess the effect of these contributing factors on crash severity. The findings obtained through the use of data mining techniques presented in this thesis, have been found to be consistent with existing identified contributing factors. Furthermore, this thesis has identified new contributing factors towards crashes and the relationships between them. A significant pattern related with crash severity is the time of the day where severe road crashes occur more frequently in the evening or night time. Tree collision is another common pattern where crashes that occur in the morning and involves hitting a tree are likely to have a higher crash severity. Another factor that influences crash severity is the age of the driver. Most age groups face a high crash severity except for drivers between 60 and 100 years old, who have the lowest crash severity. The significant relationship identified between contributing factors consists of the time of the crash, the manufactured year of the vehicle, the age of the driver and hitting a tree. Having identified new contributing factors and relationships, a validation process is carried out using a traffic simulator in order to determine their accuracy. The validation process indicates that the results are accurate. This demonstrates that data mining techniques are a powerful tool in road safety research, and can be usefully applied within the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) domain. The research presented in this thesis provides an insight into the complexity of crashes on road curves. The findings of this research have important implications for both practitioners and academics. For road safety practitioners, the results from this research illustrate practical benefits for the design of interventions for road curves that will potentially help in decreasing related injuries and fatalities. For academics, this research opens up a new research methodology to assess crash severity, related to road crashes on curves.

Tango Femme : placing the lesbian centre stage

The play Tango Femme places the lesbian centre stage by creating characters, narrative and drama in the world of same-sex dancing. The accompanying exegesis examines the problems and issues associated with creating lesbian characters in theatre, using a synthesized, practice led methodology. During the process of imagining, constructing and writing my case study play, I have investigated lesbian theatre productions and companies in order to make sense of my personal experiences in the theatre world. I have also reflected on the lesbian as represented in mainstream theatre and popular culture. Through journal writing and contemplation, I have sought to identify difficulties inherent in writing this type of play, using my own journey as a focus. My study illuminates the historical and sociological circumstances in the eighties and nineties in Australia and concludes that as a lesbian playwright I was caught between a rock and a hard place: the rock being lesbian theatre on a community level, as defined and attended primarily by separatist lesbians, and the hard place being mainstream theatre, located within the dominant, heteronormative discourse. The play Tango Femme has developed in conversation with my reflective practice and research and is written in the space outside the master narrative as "an instance of lesbian discourse" (Davy 1996, p.153).

Early childhood education for sustainability : why it matters, what it is, and how whole centre action research and systems thinking can help

The global financial crisis, global pandemics, global warming and peak oil are indicative of a world facing major environmental, social and economic problems. At the same time, world population continues to rise and global inequalities deepen. Children are the most vulnerable to the impacts of unsustainable living with specific harms arising because of their physical and cognitive vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, children do not have to be victims in the face of these challenges. Education, including early childhood education, has an important role to in building resilience and capabilities in children that equip them as active and informed citizens now and in the future and who are capable of contributing to healthy and sustainable ways of living. Drawing on educational change literature, action research, education for sustainability, health promotion and systems theory, this paper outlines three strategies that can help reorient early childhood education towards sustainability. One strategy is the adoption of whole centre approaches to sustainability and education for sustainability. This means working across the whole of a centre’s operations – curriculum and pedagogy, physical and social environments, its partnerships and community connections. The second strategy – applied in conjunction with the first – is the use of action research to investigate the early childhood setting and to create the desired changes. The third strategy is the adoption of systems thinking as a way of leveraging support and momentum for change so that education for sustainability goes beyond the initiatives of individual teachers and centres, and becomes a systems-wide imperative.

Community engagement for sustainable urban futures : editorial preface

This special issue of Futures is concerned with community engagement strategies that help to inform medium and long-term futures studies in order to foster sustainable urban environments. Recent special issues of Futures, such as Human Extinction (41:10) and Utopian Thought (41:4), reflect the increasing significance of sustainability issues, which is why we present another crucial component of sustainability, community engagement. Responding to futurists’ long term concerns about climate change outlined in Futures 41(9) [1], Stevenson concluded that we can no longer support infinite growth, and that our goal should be to reshape the economy to let us live within our means. In the face of the continued and accelerated crisis in environmental, economic and social sustainability, a number of trends informed our call for papers on the possible role of community engagement in contributing to enhanced urban sustainability: • Changes in the public sphere in terms of participation, online deliberation systems, polity of urban futures; • The possible use of user-generated content for urban planning (paralleling the rise of user generated content elsewhere); • The related role of social networking, collective and civic intelligence, and crowd- sourcing in urban futures; • The rise of technologies such as wireless Internet and mobile applications, and the impact of neogeography, simulations and 3D virtual environments that reproduce and analyse complex social phenomena and city systems in urban futures, design and planning.

Literacy and religion : the textual politics and practice of Seventh-day Adventism

This book explores the interrelation of literacy and religion as practiced by Western Christians in, first, historical contexts and, second, in one contemporary church setting. Using both a case study and a Foucauldian theoretical framework, the book provides a sustained analysis of the reciprocal discursive construction of literacy, religiosity and identity in one Seventh-day Adventist Church community of Northern Australia. Critical linguistic and discourse analytic theory is used to disclose processes of theological (church), familial (home) and educational (school) normalisation of community members into regulated ways of hearing and speaking, reading and writing, being and believing. Detailed analyses of spoken and written texts taken from institutional and local community settings show how textual religion is an exemplary technology of the self, a politics constituted by canonical texts, interpretive norms, textual practices, ritualised events and sociopolitical protocols that, ultimately, are turned in upon the self. The purpose of these analyses is to show how, across denominational difference in belief (tradition) and practice, particular versions of self and society are constructed through economies of truth from text, enabling and constraining what can and cannot be spoken and enacted by believers.

Case study 3. A subtropical urban community. Medium to high density residential typologies

Subtropical Urban Communities Project Urban design and residential buildings The Centre for Subtropical Design has researched design concepts for livable subtropical neighbourhoods characterised by higher-density, mixed-use, family oriented housing by conducting a design charrette and analysing the proposed designs to evaluate how well these typologies might support economic, environmental and social sustainability. http://www.subtropicaldesign.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125&Itemid=163 The QUT Team produced designs (Case Study 3) within the research framework of the design charrette.