Conference

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research. SOAC 2 was hosted by the Urban Research Program at the South Bank campus, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University.

The principal theme of SOAC 2 was the sustainability and vulnerability of Australian cities. Providing a place of dialogue between leading researchers on the state of Australian cities and where they might be headed, SOAC 2 brought together participants from a wide range of fields, including: academics, researchers, policy makers, private and public sector practitioners, leaders in government, social commentators and the media.

Papers from all past and subsequent SOAC conferences can be found at the State of Australian Cities Conferences Collection on APO.

Conference paper

Planning by rating scheme: Genealogy, scales of application and ways forward for the formalised rating approach to urban development approval


The use of rating schemes has emerged in recent decades as a popular planning tool to provide means to assess the performance of development proposals in order to meet desired sustainability objectives.
Conference paper

There goes the neighbourhood: the malign effects of stigma


This paper is largely concerned with the implications of the spatial dynamic that is serving to concentrate and intensify the stigmatisation of poverty.
Conference paper

Strategic planning in regional cities - new conceptions


The environment, urban morphology, global relationships, overlaid with calls for participation in local democratic processes by community interest groups are driving changes in planning for regional cities. Taking the case of Bendigo, in Central Victoria, this paper places these new actualities into physical, spatial and temporal contexts.
Conference paper

Rail infrastructure capacity constraints in Melbourne: an engineering problem or a political problem?


This paper examines the claimed capacity constraints on the Melbourne rail system in detail, utilising throughput standards derived from current best practice, but also from past performance and planning in Melbourne, and concludes that the claimed constraints are not substantiated.