R E I M A G I N E URBANSCAPES REFLECTIONS FROM A YEAR IN COVID-19
UNIMELB URBAN PLANNING + DESIGN STUDENT PUBLICATION 2020
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY We would like to acknowledge the lands on which this publication is curated is traditional unceded territory of the Wurundjeri people. We pay respects to the Elders both past and present of the Kulin Nation, and extend our respects to all First Nations Cultures and Countries where sections of this publication may be created and where this publication may be read from.
FROM THE EDITORS
DESIGN EDITORS Alison Fong Sika Manteaw
The impacts Covid-19 have been experienced by urban citizens and places around the globe, and as we begin to move forward in shaping better urban environments, urban planners and designers are inherent actors to developing responses to this pandemic. Reimagining Urbanscapes is a collective response by Melbourne School of Design Urban Planning and Urban Design students, academics and tutors as well as alumni to share their experience learning, teaching and working in the industry amidst the pandemic.
EDITORS Gunali Ajgaonkar Ella Anderson Zac Bain-Williams Sommya Bindal Sam Ergina Sarah Kim Charlotte Yu
This publication is split in three parts: 1. Lessons and Happenings in Covid-19 2. Manifestos of Planning and Design 3. Pathways into the Future It has been a thrilling opportunity to engage with a network of emerging and thriving planners and designers, in particular a urban publication that features diverse contributions from all realms, levels and scales of knowledge and expertise. Beyond this, Reimagine Urbanscapes is a time capsule, a package filled with motivation, a journal of achievements, experiences and emotions encapsulated during the year under the COVID-19 pandemic. We would like to give special thanks to Crystal Legacy and Matt Noveacevski for your encouragement to kickstart this project,the committee members of Melbourne University Planning Students Society (MUPPS) for putting us in touch with the people to make this happen, as well as all the teaching staff who have supported and guided us along the way, and our peers who shared their optimism and enthusiasm on the ideation of this publication.
Disclaimer No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the editors and/or authors. All articles, imagery, visual rights are retained by the authors and original owners. The opinions expressed in Reimagine Urbanscapes are those of the authors and not endorsed by the Editorial team or University of Melbourne.
CONTENTS Join us as we share the stories, memories, lived experiences, radical innovations, and future visions – as we reimagine our urban spaces and visualise a place for everyone in the new normal.
LESSONS AND HAPPENINGS IN COVID-19
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MANIFESTOS OF PLANNING & DESIGN
PATHWAYS INTO THE FUTURE
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FOREWORD
The familiar 2020 scene of the split-screen.
2020 has been a year unlike any I can remember in a 30-year career as a university academic. It has forced us all not only to think but live through Melvin Webber’s seemingly unthinkable prospect of ‘community without propinquity’ – a future Webber anticipated in which fledgling information technologies would lead people to share a sense of community that was no longer place-based but fractured into numerous special interests ‘on-line’. Many seized this moment to work-from-home, reinforcing the ‘distributed office’ that has been arriving for some time now. I know I have gained new social media skills associated with using multiple proprietary video-conferencing platforms when hosting virtual discussions such as the state of the urban planning and design industry in Victoria. Strangely, virtual gatherings seemed to have improved meeting etiquette – including the need for inclusivity - and our mutual appreciation of each other’s work-life balances. Doubtless, these new skills gained by both lecturers and students are still in the making but I look forward to them continuing into the return to and a renewed appreciation of face-to-face teaching and seminar discussion. The late John Urry noted how increasing personal physical and virtual mobility led to an intense juggling of fragments of time across the extended patterns of urbanisation. Although we have been spared some of these fragmentations due to the lockdowns, new personal intensities have piled up at home in ways they didn’t previously – with partners and their children thrown into close quarters on a nearly continuous basis with all the stresses and strains and joys that can bring. A greater appreciation of the house and home must surely begin to figure in the thinking of architects, developers, urban designers and planners in ways that exceed the business as usual production of a limited repertoire of ‘units’ and corresponding house configurations, and promote innovative thinking regarding housing we so desperately need in Melbourne. Webber’s ‘non-place urban realm’, as we see more of, will not displace the places that we seek to shape as planners, rather drive a new appreciation of place and even the interstices of the city. Indeed, my own experience of lockdown in North Melbourne indicates a new neighbourliness – neighbours pay more attention to each other and have been making more use of both the internal reserves specifically intended for socialising and other green spaces.
I am fortunate to live close to the two pocket parks of Pleasance Gardens and the Gardiner Reserve – and both have been more populated during the lockdown than they were in 2019 when we first arrived here. On a personal note, 2020 will also be remembered for the birth of my daughter Yulia. I am doubly grateful for and familiar with Pleasance Gardens as a place for baby soothing walks! And so, to our collective place as urban planning students, staff and alumni - the Glyn Davis building - and our MSDx facultywide exhibition. The online format of MSDx this year has allowed students and staff in the urban planning discipline to enact something of a virtual ‘land grab’ – gaining more virtual space and attention than perhaps we would normally enjoy within the Glyn Davis building. Thus, alongside the virtual MSDx, it has prompted ‘Reimagine Urbanscapes’ by students with the support of Melbourne University Planning Students Society (MUPSS). The collection of reflections from Urban Planning staff and past and present students surely underline the visual (and literary) credentials of urban planning as a discipline. Maps, graphs, pictures, cartoons, critical reviews of classic planning texts and reference to existential fiction are all on display here.
Good use is made of Pleasance Gardens.
Will we see similar ‘that was the year that was’ reflective pieces from Reimagine Urbanscapes in the future? I hope so. I look forward to other great initiatives from our students and hope that a new urban planning discipline tradition may have been born – the urban planning annual review!
Nicholas Phelps Chair of Urban Planning Associate Dean International
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FOREWORD The fracturing of so much we took for granted this year has brought us up short against the limits of our privilege and opportunity as global citizens. We know, in new ways, the impacts of the stress of uncertainty, fear and the loss of human contact. We know, in new ways, how this affects our ability to think clearly and how it shortens our attention spans as we tackle the complex endeavours of our university life. From our side of the camera in this year’s ‘zoom classrooms’ it feels as if, as one of our team has described it, we are ‘teaching with only part of our body’. And, we know that COVID is only the beginning. This year started in smoke and a different kind of fear as we started to come to grips with the challenges thrown to us during the Extinction Rebellion protests in Spring 2019. Remember the poster that shouted to us from the FabLab: “I’m studying for a future that doesn’t exist”. Through all of this, the energy of our MUP (Master of Urban Planning) students, our tutors and colleagues, has sustained me through my screen. This energy buoys a sense of hope in these dark times. Hope, as Victor Havel says, is: an orientation of the spirit … it is not the same as joy that things are going well or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed.… it is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. It is hope, above all which gives the strength to live and continually try new things. This spirit is so strongly demonstrated in the contributions to this publication.
John Stone Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning & Master of Urban Planning Coordinator
In March 2020 when the global magnitude of the pandemic became apparent, philosophers and sociologists like Latour, Žižek, Sennett and Welzer converged that this may provide humanity an outstanding opportunity to radically re-think desirable futures. The disruptions caused by this new RNA virus have led to restrictions of movement that revealed how many aspects of life taken for granted are unstable and brittle. We discovered that carbon-intensive daily commuting and frequent-flights can be often avoided without major loss, but also how essentially important face-to-face interactions are in every society. We saw functional mix in cities suddenly and radically transformed, with work, live and play mixed within the same dwelling, breaking rigid land use zoning rules and raising questions about their logic. We’ve learned once again that it is internal density that is most directly linked to negative health effects. Some cities took advantage of the disruptions and acted quickly to re-configure their public spaces to become more walkable, cyclable and sociable. Strategies included re-coding how public space is shared by allowing residents and traders to appropriate unused car parking, re-defining the modal split of the street section, or creating shared zones that can accommodate diverse and constantly changing desires to move or stay. Unfortunately, thus far many cities missed such opportunities. This however should not stop anyone from preparing for the next chance of this kind – climate change alone will surely bring many more disruptions, and we should have plans ready before the next crisis strikes. As teaching and learning moved online this year by emergency, everyone was forced to adapt to new challenges. This enabled discovering new mediums and the mixed effects of online communication. Challenges push us to learn as long we don’t succumb, the production and reproduction of knowledge are strongly interlinked with them. This collection of short reflections is impressive in its cultural and multi-disciplinary diversity - key strengths in our Faculty. It provides insights to a broad range of experiences and thoughts provoked by the unexpected events of this year. Is particularly encouraging to see this publication being co-produced by urban planning and design students – possibly a beginning of a joint student society ‘MUPudSS’ or ‘MudUPSS’, and, with apologies to the creators of Casablanca, maybe the beginning of some beautiful friendships.
Elek Pafka Lecturer in Urban Planning and Urban Design
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LESSONS AND HAPPENINGS IN COVID-19
The Covid-19 Pandemic has led to unprecedented impacts on many aspects of modern society. These impacts have included short term adjustments like social distancing, and mask wearing, but also long term effects, including the struggling global economy. We have lost so much in the year 2020, but we have also gained valuable insight and lessons that will forever be embedded in the memories of the communities around the world. Melbourne, the city that was once thriving and bustling with people became a silent ghost town, under one of the most strict lock-downs in the world. The changes in the urban landscape that we have observed will leave an imprint in our memories which will last long after they have been layered over with new experiences and built form. Our collective memory of the changing urban landscape embodies a palimpsest of experiences associated with spaces and places. The reflections from these times will serve as a reminder to treasure the simplicities and mundane aspects of living in amazing, vibrant cities like Melbourne, and forge genuine bonds with the people around us.
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Finding solidarity in reflective solitude Dr Crystal Legacy Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning
This is adapted from the slogan “staying apart keeps us together”, which was a phrase used by the Victorian State Government over the course of the lockdowns in Melbourne. The campaign can be found here: https:// www.vic.gov.au/ media/14574 1
A short reflective essay by Crystal Legacy
The year 2020 presented significant challenges. Amidst the loss of face to face connections that are typically nurtured in shared spaces – public transport, academic buildings, university campuses, lecture theatres – was an opening. To rethinking encounter, with students, colleagues, friends, family and our communities that give us sustenance in our lives. But as we faced a pandemic in 2020, here we found ourselves working, studying and teaching together, apart1 in the new openings we had to actively cultivate. Overnight we transitioned into new virtual teaching and learning scapes. We became acquainted with zoom, breakout rooms and webinars. We learnt a little more about each other on this journey too. Who saw cats taking pleasure in walking across keyboards. Children enjoying the occasional zoom face ‘bomb’. We saw each other’s gardens, plants, living rooms, kitchen tables, bookshelves, flatmates, posters and we took joy at the wide variety of zoom backgrounds available to us. Behind the veneer of these zoom-scapes lay countless stories. Loss of employment, concern for health and wellbeing for one’s self, loved ones and communities. There was isolation, there was loneliness, and there was struggle. Covid-19 and the restrictions that followed impacted us all. While the struggles were certainly differently experienced, openings could be found and many of us stepped into those spaces to share our stories of this lived experience: of teaching and of learning through an extraordinary pandemic. I use the word “extraordinary” intentionally, because it really was extraordinary. In the days when the teaching and learning landscapes before us were turned upside down, my teaching pedagogy changed as well. I was teaching Urban Transport Politics when the announcement of the first lockdown was made in March, and I was in the first week of teaching Participatory Planning when the Premier announced in July a further, harder lockdown for Melbourne. In the spaces of lockdown solitude, I started to think about
a new teaching pedagogy, and I asked myself, could I teach through a ‘lens’ of solidarity? Could I somehow foreground human connection at a time when connection was hampered by the limits of zoom, Canvas and other online platforms? To which I responded: I can certainly try! The word solidarity is a concept grounded in political philosophy and used widely in the critical social sciences. It draws to the fore questions about for whom, with whom, and to what end is solidarity forged. In planning education, these questions are integral to the development of our critical lenses, as they help to channel more inclusive ways of thinking about our practice, and it also invites new ways of being in relationship to this work. I stepped into the space of this teaching pedagogy in 2020 and for me this journey is just beginning. The execution was imperfect, I will be the first to acknowledge that, but I believe its potential is great. In the virtual classroom, solidarity can find potential through the spaces and processes we create that support the building of a community of practice. Twelve weeks is never enough time to completely form such communities. Yet, the early foundations can be laid. In this extraordinary year (yes, I said it again), we were faced with great challenges, as well as new openings. These openings are available for us. What we do with them is the next question for which we must engage. For me, as a teacher, researcher and passionate community member, I will look forward to cultivating, to expanding and to continuing the collective work in building communities of practice. Please stay in touch, and perhaps let’s enjoy a coffee in an actual café someday soon, and I will look forward to seeing where and how this community can grow. Well beyond 2020, I hope this is just an opening and the start to our conversations together.
This essay was written on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, lands that have never been ceded. I was inspired by the students I encountered in Urban Transport Politics and Participatory Planning and I thank them for being a source of constant inspiration and for the always illuminating discussions we shared in the spaces we cultivated together throughout 2020. A longer version of this essay will appear in the journal Planning Theory and Practice, titled “Planning solidarity? From silence to refusal” by Libby Porter, Ananya Roy and Crystal Legacy.
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The Good Society: Leonie Sandercock and Cities for Sale Domenic Trimboli Master of Urban Planning Tutor
Paloma Bugedo Caroca Giovanna Dalla Costa Cruzato Benjamin Mahoney Jacob Zamora Master of Urban Planning Students
The following excerpt is from an online tutorial discussion that occurred during the first phase of lockdown restrictions in Semester 1 of 2020 with Master’s students from the Planning Theory and History subject. As its conversational starting point this tutorial reconsidered the conclusions of urban planner, Leonie Sandercock’s published thesis - Cities for Sale: Property, Politics and Urban Planning in Australia. By Sandercock’s own admission her thesis was originally published with a sense of urgency following the now infamous 1972 election victory of Gough Whitlam and the onset of immense social reform. Determined to demonstrate the failings of Australian planning in the first half of the 20th Century, this new, postmodern, era is described in her preface as the beginning of “a determined national effort for the first time since the 1940s to reform and improve our cities in various ways.” For Sandercock, it was all too clear that persisting with a national agenda content with simply building more stuff like playgrounds, cheaper housing and open spaces was not going to resolve social ills, such as poor health, crime and overcrowding, on its own. Though not without its good intentions, that (largely capitalist) ideology was neglecting the real causes of problems – “poverty and the nature of the economic system.” What was desperately needed therefore, was a better exchange of ideas about social ideals – some sort of guiding concept of what might entail The Good Society. Decades later and 2020 has again seen capitalism and our city fabrics called into question albeit this time on a much more public international stage. For some the decisive moment was the financial crash of 2008 but either way it was clear from the outset, for even many of its most ardent supporters, that 2020 was not going to be solved by capitalism. This is why, now, arguably more than ever, Sandercock’s questioning reaffirms its relevance. As a Master of Urban Planning subject being plunged into online teaching for the first time the proceeding transcript also embodies several of its own pedagogical lessons. The somewhat Socratic dialogue that unfolds (and so many others like it through the remaining semester) could not have happened without the immense dedication of all students and teaching staff alike, including (Coordinator) Dr Kathryn Davidson, (Senior Tutor) Dr Elanna Nolan and (Co-Tutor) Claire Collie. Under public
lockdown restrictions, the tutorial formats quickly evolved to comprise a face-to-face opening class address of 10-15 minutes via Zoom before continuing through to an online based discussion. This hybrid mode of delivery, coupled with weekly lectures and pre-recorded messages from Kathryn was largely created from scratch and in consultation with students via online polling and ongoing conversation. Critically, the core of these initiatives was always to determine how we could build a forum away from the physical classroom that best allowed our wonderfully diverse cohort, equal opportunity to express themselves through their individual strengths (whether that be speaking, writing or both) and be involved in robust academic discussion. So, if we are going to pause again and take the opportunity to finally go some way towards addressing Leonie Sandercock’s questioning, then maybe, just maybe, there is a greater lesson in this experience as to how we might begin – let’s start with Inclusivity.
Week 5 Tutorial Discussion Board
Subject: ABPL90134 Planning Theory & History, Sem. 1, 2020 Tutor: Domenic Trimboli Tutorial Reading: Sandercock, L. (1975), ‘Conclusions’ in Cities for Sale: Property, Politics and Urban Planning in Australia, Melbourne University Press, pp. 213-238 Tutorial Question The end of this chapter reads: “If the left is to put its energy behind practical reforms of this kind, it will need to redirect its thinking away from grand schemes based on the premise that capitalism is about to collapse, and toward detailed fact-finding and rigorous argument on particular issues. This approach does not imply ideological sale of souls. Now that the prospect of a continued, unlimited increase in material wealth has faded, we need more than ever a worked out conception of the good society-that is, an ideological stand- if we are to discuss policies intelligently.” a) What does the notion of ‘a good society’ mean? b) Where does it come from? c) How might her notion of a ‘good society’ be different from today’s? Consider contemporary urban challenges and norms around planning.
Giovanna Dalla Costa Cruzato In the paper context, I understood the “good society” as the society which looks for a redistribution of resources. That notion was reinforced in the post Second World War context when planners realized that physical planning was just a part of the resource allocation problem. In Australia, a sample of this new perspective was the creation of the Department of Post War Reconstruction, which implemented commonwealth reforms on welfare services - an attempt to merge politics and economy knowledge with physical planning. Over time, however, the majority of Australian workers - represented by the Labor Party - chose to pursue the benefits of capitalism, such as jobs, goods and services, rather than replace that system. Consequently, the focus shifted from redistribution to accumulation of goods. Rescuing the concept of “good society”, the author presents some examples of strategies which could support the allocation of goods and services based on citizens’ needs rather than income. For instance, the state could influence the housing market by acquiring land in advance, making it more accessible for groups in disadvantage, and investing in services which benefits the community.
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Paloma Patricia Bugedo Caroca I’ll reply to this comment, but I guess it’s a different approach to the same question... Aside from the fact that the text itself is very contingent on the present pandemic situation, having a definition of “a good society” as the text suggests, is something (as with “common sense”) we still need to work out. Understanding our societies (and I say this in plural for we are in a globalized system) as ones shaped and based on a capitalist economy, it only reinforces our lack of understanding of public welfare. Capitalism supports private ownership which uses the workforce in order to achieve an individual profit, therefore shaping an individualist way of living, a personal pursuit of “happiness” (or American dream). Obviously this has impacts on the built environment... garden cities... suburbs... housing policies... Once again -due to COVID- there’s an idea that ‘capitalism is about to collapse’... and the notion of “good society” is fundamental if this actually happens! If we sustain capitalist ideals, individualist constructs such as private property (myths we created as societies, such as money) then we’ll maintain the post-industrial dualism that still remains between the working class and the property owner... Personally I believe that a good society must achieve common welfare and in order to get there, we must eliminate the concept of “what is mine” and start by empathizing with whoever surrounds us. Hard enough, considering the existence of a state based on capitalist ideals (and still interested in GNP wherever that income goes). Still, “good societies” should still provide a strategic prioritization to what’s good and basic for everyone; HEALTH and EDUCATION as central issues.
Domenic Trimboli Oh, this is such a wonderful response Paloma!!! Thank you! So, yes, if I go back to my earlier comment about the Romans adapting the notion of the ‘good society’, for them it was about creating a city with equal access to water, sanitation and public amenity (the forum, thermal baths, gymnasiums etc.). Today, the ‘good society’ as you suggest has not moved much past being shaped by the ‘American/Australian Dream’ as well as all the post-industrial, consumerist baggage that this carries. So there is a huge disconnect between the physical structure and values of our physical environment that is at odds with the evolution of our values today and/or where we need to be. We will talk more about him in the coming weeks but this is why writers such as David Harvey insisted we stop referring to our cities as designed ‘the built environment’ because that in itself is just another example of how we commodify our cities for use as economic tools rather than as places for us as people. I love your answer!!!
Paloma Patricia Bugedo Caroca
Thanks! I thought it came out rather Marxist, but then again I was looking for that “Roman” approach Equality. I guess we sometimes forget that we are basically “social animals” and good society is that will care for our basic needs... hydrate ourselves (access to water, basic infrastructure), eat (mark place for the exchange of goods), sleep (housing), keep healthy, social interactions (open space, gre space, hospitals) and sustain this public welfare throughout generations (education). Considering us “social animals” in a society that provides these basics is a trade-off though... a utopia if there’s “imperial force” on top collecting its share...
Jacob Zamora
The conception of a good society has been associated with the social democratic political can achieve an equity of social justice in resource distribution managed by the state. I w concept with the welfare state and the Nordic model. From what I know, the notion of “a go some philosophical, theoretical and ethical form as early as the ancient Greeks and Abraha Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia - the achievement of happiness and to become a better the earliest conception of the good society by forwarding the philosophical inquiry of “wh collective aim of human actions within the boundaries of politics and the state” (Marangos practice, elements of the good society did not manifest until urban planners attempted to improvements of the physical conditions of slums (this is questionable! I am thinking abou sanitation), and the post-war period wherein states adopted Keynesian socio-economic refor resource inequities produced by unregulated capitalism.
In accordance to Sandercock (1975), “reformers and large corporations do not compete on eq disproportionate influence on the state, thereby causing the progressive ideas in urban pl market powers. The “dead hand of government” manifests in private interests increasing mas redistribution for all of society. Hence, Sandercock’s (1975) conception of the good socie distribution and participatory democracy; attributes highly associated with social democra is a dynamic and value-laden term, the notion of the good society will change to the issue time.
I am not certain whether Sandercock’s opinion of the “good society” does differ from now; mentions issues of environmental degradation, inequality, and decentralisation to maintain pressing issues that we consider as objectives to solve for a positive outcome in creating it is quite disheartening to think that the issues she presented 45 years ago are still un
Marangos, J., & Astroulakis, N. (2010). The Aristotelian Contribution to Development Ethic 44(2), 551-58.
h. t who ket or een as s no
Benjamin Mahoney I’m a bit late to the party but here goes. Indeed, I agree with your reading, Jacob, of Sandercock as advocating for an incremental, socially democratically orientated reply to the faults of capitalist economies. You hit the nail on the head when you identified the ongoing project of defining a “good society”. Any attempt to answering the question of what makes for a “good society” is fraught with a number of considerations, a couple of which I outline below: •
The notion of authority i.e. who gets to decide what counts as “good” and the justification for that viewpoint. We have seen how Sandercock (1975, p.227) discusses concerns regarding the enmeshing of private property and capital with disproportionate political power. Those who wield more power in the media and are better able to lobby the government tend to have their way on what constitutes “good planning”. Think of renegade developers flouting weakly enforced environmental regulations.
•
Pragmatic concerns. Even if we knew what a good society consisted of, how can we bring it about in the best way possible so as not to violate the very ideal of “goodness” we have established? Let’s say purely for the sake of argument that a good society is a “liberal democracy”. It seems implausible that the best way to bring this ideal system about is through some heavy handed and forceful conversion of all people to the new paradigm.
I would like to elaborate on the second category of concerns. In relation to the question of urban planning’s role within a capitalist framework, I think Sandercock (1975, p.224) makes the poignant observation “We are dealing therefore not simply with a capitalist conspiracy but with a powerful set of cultural values and social habits”. It is not only the case that urban planning has not lived up to an ideal of maximising the public welfare because of the overarching economic paradigm. Yes, capitalism remains the dominant economic paradigm but I think it persists in big part because it is a collective vision we have about how we ought to organise the world and its people. I agree with Sandercock (1975, p.231) when they write “If the left is to put its energy behind practical reforms of this kind, it will need to redirect its thinking away from grand schemes based on the premise that capitalism is about to collapse, and toward detailed fact-finding and rigorous argument on particular issues.” If critics of capitalism are to achieve long term realisations of their visions (I am no fervent apologist for runaway capitalism by the way), then I think they ought to provide a compelling and actionable alternative to the status quo. Even if we upend capitalism overnight in a revolutionary fervour, we are still left the task of governing and to govern and organising ourselves the next day. I contend that a “good society” is one which in each person’s needs are well met (in the most basic sense of food, raiment, lodging, company and so forth) and they have the ability to express themselves creatively, socially, culturally, and politically. Furthermore there is the added dimension of intergenerational equity, such that we don’t ruin it for the younglings, and planetary consideration, such that we do not wreck it for other species. I do not think Sandercock’s notion of a good society would differ too much from mine, and as such remains pertinent to this day, perhaps even more acutely. That said, I would generally advocate for a piecemeal and incremental approach to manifesting that vision of a good society, because in normal circumstance people are slow to change their political and economic leanings. But there’s a big caveat here. In times of natural and humanitarian crisis, as some of the others in the tutorial have observed with respect to climate change and COVID19, people have been quick to change their behaviour and their views of what is considered normal. Our willingness to accept new norms around how we structure society, and more specifically urban planning could change dramatically in a short period of time. What was previously thought of as politically unpalatable may become quickly accepted, such as the case of private buildings being taken over by the government to house additional hospital capacity or to shelter homeless people during a pandemic as a means to mitigating viral spread. Big crisis events like this one may really come to challenge our preconceived notions of “good” urban planning and “good” societies.
movement; one wherein society would normally associate the ood society” has been debated in amic texts. It is debated that r society of human beings - was hat should be the moral and s & Astroulakis, 2010). However, in aid the working poor through the ut the Roman laws and practices of rms that aimed at addressing the
qual terms” allowing for a lanning to become impeded by ss goods rather than achieving ety is largely based on economic acy. However, as the good society es and ideological framework of the
particularly when the author n urban growth. I think these are g a healthy society. Furthermore, nresolved and ever pressing.
cs. Journal of Economic Issues.
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Walks in the neighbourhood Griff Clemens Alumni Class of 1978
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Rafael Urquiza Sanchez
The value of what you have: happiness of a kid playing in his “backyard” during the lockdown in Málaga, Spain
Alumni Class of 2009
“As a father and architect I have been thinking of the implications of the lockdown to our kids in relation with the morphology of our living space. I am lucky that my apartment has a terrace with enough space where my three kids could enjoy some outdoor time during the lockdown, but, how about those kids that do not have that space?. This kid in the picture, with his smile, gave me a lesson about happiness, they are the best teachers around us.”
Reanna Willis (Drawing by Paloma Bugedo Caroca, Master of Urban Planning Student)
Reanna wrote this haiku halfway through the first lockdown, inspired by the emerging conversations about some of the silver linings of being stuck at home: slowing down, getting out in our gardens, meeting our neighbours, really getting to know our local 5km bubble. Conversations that revealed some of the things that are lost in the frenetic ‘normal’ that perhaps we don’t want to go back to. She sent the haiku to Paloma, who was inspired to create the accompanying illustration as Melbourne came out of the second lockdown, watching people emerge and inhabit the city’s parks and greenspaces again.
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Lara Brown
2020: goodbye perfectionism, hello resilience...in other words, the show must go on!
Master of Urban Planning Student 2020 was to be the year that an exciting and secret dream of mine would come true. I would host my very own radio show! I pitched the show “Urbanity Radio: all things city living” to the University of Melbourne’s Student Union (UMSU) in late 2019 and was delighted when the show was accepted to run. The idea was to interview experts on urban planning-related topics during a weekly, onehour live radio show broadcast from the professional sound studio within UMSU’s Student Union building. I was confident my co-host and I could talk about serious issues while also providing some entertainment through light-hearted banter. Those were my plans up until March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic fully hit Australia. Then disappointment seemed to follow disappointment. When students could no longer go on campus, I was determined to wait it out until campus reopened before starting my show. In the meantime, I tried recruiting a classmate, I’ll call him T Money, who I knew would make the absolute perfect co-host. He could not participate due to his work commitments...another disappointment. I applied for an arts grant through the City of Melbourne so I could pay for branding, custom music and promotional material. Like any creative project I pursue, I wanted every aspect of the show to be at a very high standard. I didn’t get the grant. I started accepting that my dream scenario of broadcasting a live radio show was falling further out of reach. Yet the more disconnected I became from my former life of interacting with classmates and teachers in person, the stronger I felt the urge to produce the show to connect with others. I contemplated broadcasting the show live from my home but it proved incredibly complicated for a non-tech person like myself to figure out the audio adjustments needed for correct output, never mind my shabby internet connection. I kept reminding myself of the actor’s adage: the show must go on!
Things started looking up when fellow urban planning students Yoong Wai Chong (you may know him as “Bernard”) and Nat Manawadu said yes to cohosting the show with me. They are two people who make me laugh and think in equal measure. Yay! Finally,something going my way. Nat also helped shape the show’s logo. Then my musician friend Julian Davis created custom music for the show that exceeded all my expectations. I reached out to friends and asked them to record vocals in their native languages and I received more than 15 clips of people saying “You’re listening to Urbanity Radio, all things city living, on radio fodder dot com,” in Swahili, French, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Serbian, Persian, Malay and so on. Currently, Urbanity Radio is not live, it’s not with the original co-host I envisioned, and it’s entirely pre-recorded at the moment. It has still been a blast and better than I expected. I’ve received positive feedback about the show from people in Australia, the US and Europe. Our guests have been entertaining and informative. Just three shows in, we have heard from neuropsychiatrist Dr Sophie Adams with tips on weathering the pandemic, recruiter Russell Locke with a jobs forecast and tips for built environment professionals, author and academic Dr Jathan Sadowski on the collection of data and the harms it may cause, and also from Dr Jane Bringolf, the founder of Centre for Universal Design of Australia, on barriers to universal design, and architect Queen Tran on the unique and valuable work that Summer Housing does in creating residences for disabled people. I persevered. Urbanity Radio persevered. If you are reading this, you likely persevered too. (Well done, you.) For me, 2020 will be the year that I let go of perfectionism, exhibited far more flexibility and resilience than I knew I had, reached out and was supported by my peers, and realised a dream in spite of feeling like the world was crashing in around me. I hope you also found some upsides to this stressful year too and I mean it when I say I can’t wait to see you in person. Until then, if you’re so inclined, please check out Urbanity Radio on radiofodder.com every Friday at 9am.
Peace, love & a socially just urban environment,
Lara Brown Urbanity Radio creator and co-host
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Transformation of Swanston Street During Covid-19 Kanishk Gupta Master of Urban Planning Student
Figure 1. Figure 1-2. Series of images showing changes in season (April, July, October). Figure 3. Newly introduced bicycle lanes to encourage active transport during lockdown. Figure 4. Mural on Wellington Street, Collingwood. Figure 5. How long lockdown felt for me as an international student who arrived in Australia with a lot of dreams and a list of places to visit.
“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.�
Figure 2.
- Maya Angelou
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Figure 5.
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In Conversation with April Valle Alumni Class of 2017
Has the meaning of placemaking practices changed for you under the COVID climate?
Can you share your remote working experience? Has it been an easy/ difficult transition?
The importance of designing with the community has never been so critical. Over the lock-down, Council has become more observant about the community’s reactions to changes in mobility and practices, even adopting a few tactical urbanism projects initiated by locals. They have also placed more efforts with their community engagement through improvements on their information and communications strategy.
Within my internal project team, we have easily transitioned to this arrangement with the use of cloud applications and video conference calls. Working from home becomes challenging when we are working with clients that come from a work culture that is not prepared for this - there are always issues with technology or even the availability of a quiet workspace free from distractions. However, I’m optimistic that many companies will adapt remote working practices post-COVID as an option because of its advantages - such as being able to take advantage of opportunities that we otherwise could not because of geographical limitations.
What are some things you have learnt/ reflected on about your environment and planning as a whole throughout this time?
Going through a strict lock-down, I have now understood the importance of having easy access to an open space. Apart from being able to have access to nature, a park provides a space for social interaction, exercise, and provides for a change of scenery whenever you need a break from your indoor working environments. I live in a high-rise apartment building in Manila and am grateful that my balcony is of a usable size and that I have operable windows for fresh air. I am also quite lucky that my flat is only a level above the large park adjacent, so that I can set up my workspace to take advantage of this view. These features are not very common in many buildings within the city and are definitely important qualities that planners and designers should consider when planning for future residential districts.
Working remotely as a planner
My Workspace
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Going regional: Thoughts from Anonymous Anonymous Submission Master of Urban Design Tutor
Going into lockdown, I lived in Richmond. Coming out of lockdown, I moved to Geelong. Here’s a brief rundown of my thought process… I just scored my first full time job out of uni, working for a small planning and urban design consultancy. I had a purpose and direction in my career, stability and for once, disposable income. I now had to choose where to live. Being at the beginning of my career, I wanted to be in the thick of the action, to be able to say ‘yes’ to every impromptu coffee catchup or vino. I wanted to be close enough to the vibrant CBD in order to safely stumble home in the late hours of the night. I wanted seamless access to public transport and my workplace in South Melbourne. I wanted to be within arms reach of some of the best cycling trails in Melbourne. I decided to fork out a sizable chunk of my take home pay and rent a shoebox apartment in the inner-city suburb of Richmond. It worked out perfectly. Fast forward two years; enter the Covid lockdown. Overnight, nearly every reason to live in Richmond vanished. Living in a shoebox meant that my daily commute was bathroom, Nespresso machine and the desk squashed into my living area. A grand total of 20 meters. The CBD and Richmond social atmosphere was dead. Within my 5km radius, there was a surprisingly low number of cycle trails which I hadn’t already cycled 50 times before. I switched to running, I figured changing the pace of movement through the urban landscape would allow me to experience it in a new way. And it did. Along with the several thousand people who had the same idea and the same running paths in their sights. My escape from the shoebox was a problem in itself. My weeks seemed to lose their structure. The lack of daily variation made it harder to measure the passing of time. My love for the inner-city living was beginning to sour and I needed to change something.
I began applying for jobs. Not just for Victoria, but also interstate. I needed a complete change of scene which meant even a simple walk to the supermarket became a novel experience. I was extremely lucky, I found a job in Geelong. Within a month I had finished up my current role and packed my crap and moved. I found a new place to live which was well-located, larger and 25% cheaper than my Richmond shoebox. I also found myself in a location where every trip outside was an exploration and original experience. And it was bliss.
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Yvonne Yang
MANIFESTOS OF PLANNING & DESIGN
There are many opportunities to be explored in the ongoing event of the Covid-19 Pandemic. These opportunities encapsulate the beginnings of progress towards a brighter and better future for our cities. The vulnerabilities and weaknesses that became apparent throughout the year could be addressed with innovation and collaboration. Already we have seen individuals, communities and governments rise to this challenge and produce amazing outcomes. These efforts have led to the building of social capital, and resilience which will last well into the future. The temporary infrastructure and community tactical urbanism will also have a lasting effect that builds solidarity. Planning has had no choice but to shift and adjust with the need for new kinds of spaces in a social distancing reality. How we plan and design our urban spaces has been forever changed, and the sky is truly the limit when we look to the future of these professions.
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The Year of Decency and Doing One’s Job Matt Novacevski Master of Urban Planning Tutor + PhD candidate with Melbourne School of Design
One encouraging thing about this year of entwined crises of infernos and pandemics, was my favourite novel running out of stock. Albert Camus’ The Plague, written in 1947, is a book I arrived at in my early 20s (around the start of this century, for anyone wondering). The potency of Camus’ plague in a fictionalised version of the Algerian city of Oran, immediately struck me as an allegory for a range of crises including human nature itself. Punch-drunk on images of Hades-like bushfires, everything seemed unreal as Covid-19 arrived in Melbourne but for the fact I had something of a playbook. Immediately, a passage from the novel’s main protagonist, Dr Bernard Rieux, came to mind: “(Responding to plague) is not about heroism. It’s about decency. It may seem a ridiculous idea, but the only way to fight the plague is with decency…in general, I can’t say (what that is), but in my case I know that it consists in doing my job” (Camus, 1947/2013a, p.125). Rieux, a medic, takes up arms against the plague and its social manifestations (yes, Camus’ plague was as much as social as an epidemiological disaster). Amid treating his patients, he makes empirical observations linking waves of dead rats in the town and human symptoms he sees emerging, to raise the alarm. He then battles bureaucracy and that all-too-common human foible, denial, in seeking life-saving public health action. I see Rieux, whose eschewing of heroism reflects his constant grounding with the beings and places around him as one of literature’s great humanists. It is beyond this article to properly discuss Rieux: the focus here is on the nexus between decency and doing one’s job.
Rieux’s words at first count may seem deceptively simple. Yet it doesn’t take much reflection to realise ideas expressed are more complex, fluid and demanding than they seem. What is it to be “decent” in any given situation? And what it is it to really turn up? I’m not sure there is a final, universal answer to these questions apart from one of process: Adopting a reflexive practice that allows us to interrogate what “decency” and “doing one’s job” mean in any given situation, and the world in its being and becoming around us. Pondering this while adapting to online teaching, I was heartened to see our scholars (including those involved in this project) practising and expanding their conceptions of this nexus, though they may never have read Camus. Philosopher Alain de Botton (2020) wrote that although Camus was no epidemiologist, it is his acute knowledge of human nature that makes The Plague so relevant in these times. Camus, a complex character himself, shows us much in his works about how to respond to the conditions of human existence. I will never claim to be a patch on Rieux or Camus. I do plan to retain this process of reflection on the nexus between decency and doing one’s job; with the knowledge I won’t always get it right. But it seems a productive line of enquiry on the question of what it is to really live in these times.
More reflections on this nexus and its relationship to planning will appear in my article, “Pestilence in Planning: Why Camus is a Beacon In Our Times”, coming soon in the journal Planning Theory and Practice. References: Camus, A. (2013). The Plague (R. Buss, Trans.). Penguin Books. (Original work published 1947). de Botton, A. (2020, March 19). Camus on the Coronavirus. The New York Times. https://www. nytimes.com/2020/03/19/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-camus-plague.html.
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Figure (X).
30 x 30 km
Santiago, Chile INFORMAL
Víctor Alegría Corona Master of Urban Design Student
INFORMAL MIX
FORMAL MIX
FORMAL
EMERGENCE OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS AS A RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 CRISIS 07/2020
08/2020
09/2020
Urban informality rises in the cities of the Global South as a way to respond to the economic and social crises from the pandemic. The lack of state support under a neoliberal model in Chile makes self-organization an efficient way to manage the scarce resources that most vulnerable communities have to tackle the crisis. In this case, families that could not continue renting, opted to organize a land invasion on a closed landfill and self-build their own neighbourhood, close to employment, services and transport networks.
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El Canto de las Aves Paloma Bugedo Caroca Master of Urban Planning Student
Reanna Williams
El Canto de las Aves (The Song of the Birds) Mural
This semester many of us have reflected a lot on place. How it shapes us, what it teaches us, how we connect through it or keep a safe distance apart. I live in Toorak, in a 100-year-old maze of thirteen stippled concrete apartments in pastel pink. And nestled in the middle is a verdant courtyard, where a cherub statue pours water into a goldfish pond beneath a magnificent Magnolia tree. Since I moved in two years ago, I have been fascinated with this space. To me it seems a perfect mingling of private and public. It is intimate, small enough to feel snugly contained with only a book and a picnic rug, and easily filled with a gathering of my four housemates and I when it became the only place we could be outside without masks. But it is also a shared space; all of our apartments peer into it through branches, and when you pass a neighbour it is impossible to not say hello. Despite this, I didn’t meet many of my neighbours until I was granted permission to transform the bed of tired old roses, the sunniest spot in the garden, into a veggie patch. Gardening takes time, and as Peter Timms would say, demands “a certain amount of enjoyable work and care”. What a delightful phrase. Having a reason to linger, adding a little stickiness to our courtyard, has changed everything. Now we more fully inhabit this space, I have met most of my neighbours, heard their stories, chatted to their children, been given freshly baked treats and spare house keys. And people are so curious, to know what is growing, learn what parsley flowers look like, observe the birds that visit our garden, throw their scraps in the compost. There are many such magical places in Melbourne where the city blurs, where wild and growing things seem to have power still, and you remember that you are part of a bigger living arrangement. What if there were more of these places that held people close to nature for a little while, so many that everyone could encounter them every week, or every day? What might we learn, or perhaps remember? How might we be? On a wall across town, a friend I hadn’t met yet seemed to be thinking exactly the same thing. … This semester many of us have reflected a lot on place. How societies relate within their multi-scale environment and the need for nature to be represented in decision making processes. Maybe if we planners understood what birds are saying (as informers of Ñuke Mapu, Country, Mother Earth, Pachamama...), we could be translators of this voice. As a reminder, I painted this mural in the view I had through the window of my COVID-everything-room. It says “...and when they heard the song of the birds... they understood...”. Once we become vulnerable upon nature and aware of this music, it’s our mission to embrace, translate, and promote that message.
The mural from the view of inside a house.
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Maddi Marks Master of Urban Planning Student This is an edited version of my piece submitted to the CAP Young Planners Network essay competition 2020.
Post COVID Building Resilience: The Role of Planners – An Australian Perspective
As a particularly sprawling country, Australia’s lowdensity has been perceived as the panacea to reducing the spread of Covid-19 (Jon, 2020). However, lowdensity living does not necessarily diminish exposure to the virus. In fact, the spatial patterns of Covid-19 cases in Melbourne highlight socio-spatial inequalities of those residing in the periphery of metropolitan areas. As a result of suburban sprawl, Australia’s strong commuter culture encourages movement between the city centre and the suburbs, therefore increasing opportunities for community transmission. The pandemic highlights the reliance cities have on people working in supermarkets, as delivery drivers, and in electricity, water and waste-management sectors (Jon, 2020), many of whom are employed casually (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2019). There is a strong correlation between the locations of where casual workers reside and Covid-19 hotspots, notably within Melbourne’s northern and western outer suburbs (see Figures 1 and 2). Not only does this undermine arguments for low-density as a deterrent for contracting the disease, but also highlights the socio-spatial influence on community vulnerability. In the context of Melbourne, there are also correlations between peripheral metropolitan areas and lack of access to amenities, including parkland (see Figure 3). While intrinsically linked with physical and mental health (Beatley & Newman, 2013), approximately 340,000 people do not have the ability to access parkland within their permitted five-kilometre radius (Lakhani et al., 2020; “Stage 4 Restrictions Covid-19”, 2020). Thus, urban planners can proactively capitalise on cities as units of change in increasing resilient capacities and reducing socio-spatial inequities associated with the structural vulnerabilities exposed by Covid-19. Much of the current conversation regarding urban functionality post Covid-19 assumes a level of privilege, with discussions around removing car spaces, increasing pedestrian friendly streets and providing bike lanes (Biglieri, De Vidovich & Keil, 2020). However, these conversations overlook those living in the periphery, where socio-spatial disadvantages prevail. The impacts of Covid-19 highlight the role of public space in providing opportunities for distant social interaction, recreation and creating makeshift spaces, thus positively contributing to people’s physical and mental wellbeing (Beatley & Newman, 2013). By embracing uncertainty, urban planners can concentrate on improving cities’ resiliency by recognising the need for interdependency and ensuring
Figure 1.
Figure 1. Coronavirus Covid-19 in Victoria: Active Cases by Local Government 22 August 2020. From Victoria State Government Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from https://app.powerbi. com. Copyright 2020 by Victoria State Government. Figure 2. Low Wage Part Time Workers (Earning Less Than $25/ Hour and Working Between 15 and 35 Hours Per Week). From “Casualisation and COVID-19: New analysis reveals tears in Melbourne’s social fabric”. Retrieved from https://www.sgsep. com.au/publications/ insights/ casualisation-andcovid-19. Copyright 2020 by SGS Economics.
Figure 2.
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Figure 3. Parklands within a 5km Radius of Metropolitan Melbourne Experiencing Stage 4 Restrictions. From “Coronavirus lockdown: 340,000 Melburnians have little or no parkland within 5km of their home”. Retrieved from https://www. domain.com.au/news/ coronavirus-lockdown340000-melburnianshave-little-or-noparkland-within-5kmof-their-home-977142/. Copyright Domain 2020.
Figure 3.
inclusive approaches to changes in the built environment. Moreover, it is important to consider while low-density living is justifiably unsustainable by promoting car dependence and social exclusivity (Connolly, Keil & Ali, 2020), Australians’ contentment with suburban living may impede changes to the built environment introduced by urban planners. For changes to the urban landscape to be inclusive and reflective of community values, urban planners must understand the extent of community willingness to adopt new ways of interacting with the built environment (Tapsuwan et al., 2018). By doing so, greater community agency can be achieved, therefore instilling positive behavioural change and improving resilient capacities in times of crisis. Examples such as implementation of circular economy principles in Amsterdam (Jon, 2020), New Urbanism developments like Seattle’s Urban Village Element (City of Seattle, 2015) and tactical urbanism strategies like India’s conversion of school grounds to rythu bazaars (Bhattacharjee, 2020) and New Zealand’s widening of footpaths to accommodate outdoor business encroachment (National Association of City Transportation Officials [NACTO] & Global Designing Cities Initiative, 2020) present inclusive and sustainable approaches at all scales of the city to increasing resilient capacities during times periods of systemic change. The impacts of Covid-19 have had a substantial influence on the functionality of cities across the world. The example of Melbourne highlights how the prevalence of unprecedented crises exposes socio-spatial inequities in cities and the need to strengthen community resilience. By embracing uncertainty as an intrinsic component of cities, urban planners can focus on improving sustainability and functionality of existing urban settlements to facilitate more inclusive and resilient capacities during times of widespread crisis.
References: Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). Characteristics of Employment, Australia, August 2019 [Data file]. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6333.0August%202019?OpenDocument Bhattacharjee, S. (2020). Number of rythu bazaars in Vizag to be increased to 32. Retrieved from https:// www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Visakhapatnam/number-of-rythu-bazaars-in-vizag-to-be-increased-to-32/ article31176617.ece Beatley, T., & Newman, P. (2013). Biophilic cities are sustainable, resilient cities. Sustainability, 5(8), 3328-3345. Berke, P., & Smith, G. (2009). Hazard mitigation, planning, and disaster resiliency: Challenges and strategic choices for the 21st century. Building safer communities. Risk governance, spatial planning and responses to natural hazards, 1, 18. Biglieri, S., De Vidovich, L., & Keil, R. (2020). City as the core of contagion? Repositioning COVID-19 at the social and spatial periphery of urban society. Cities & Health, 1-3. Casualisation and COVID-19: New analysis reveals tears in Melbourne’s social fabric. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/insights/casualisation-and-covid-19 City of Seattle. (2015). Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan. Retrieved from https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/ Departments/OPCD/OngoingInitiatives/SeattlesComprehensivePlan/UrbanVillageElement.pdf Connolly, C., Keil, R., & Ali, S. H. (2020). Extended urbanisation and the spatialities of infectious disease: Demographic change, infrastructure and governance. Urban Studies, 0042098020910873. Stage 4 Restrictions Covid-19. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/stage-4-restrictions covid-19 Godschalk, D. R. (2003). Urban hazard mitigation: creating resilient cities. Natural hazards review, 4(3), 136-143. Hanzl, M. (2020). Urban forms and green infrastructure–the implications for public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cities & Health, 1-5. Jon, I. (2020). A manifesto for planning after the coronavirus: Towards planning of care. Planning Theory, 19(3), 329-345. Lakhani, A., Wollersheim, D., Kendall, E., & Korah, P. (2020). 340,000 Melburnians have little or no parkland within 5km of home. Retrieved from https://www.domain.com.au/news/coronavirus-lockdown 340000-melburnians-have-little-or-no-parkland-within-5km-of-their-home-977142/ NACTO & Global Designing Cities Initiative. (2020). Streets for Pandemic Response & Recovery. Retrieved from https://nacto.org/publication/streets-for-pandemic-response-recovery/ Newman, P. (2020). Covid, Cities and Climate: Historical Precedents and Potential Transitions for the New Economy. Urban Science, 4(3), 32. doi: 10.3390/urbansci4030032 Stanislav, A., & Chin, J. T. (2019). Evaluating livability and perceived values of sustainable neighborhood design: New Urbanism and original urban suburbs. Sustainable cities and society, 47, 101517. Tapsuwan, S., Mathot, C., Walker, I., & Barnett, G. (2018). Preferences for sustainable, liveable and resilient neighbourhoods and homes: A case of Canberra, Australia. Sustainable cities and society, 37, 133-145. Victoria State Government Department of Health and Human Services. (2020). Coronavirus Covid-19 in Victoria: Active Cases by Local Government 22 August 2020. Retrieved from https://app.powerbi.com Yassin, H. H. (2019). Livable city: An approach to pedestrianization through tactical urbanism. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 58(1), 251-259.
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If not me, who? If not now, when? Sinéad Holmes Alumni Class of 2015
“If not me, who? If not now, when?” -
Emma Watson
This might seem like an odd quote to be inspired by in the current climate, but I hope you can indulge me for a moment. When Emma Watson gave her ‘HeForShe’ speech at the United Nations, her closing words initiated an internal dialogue within myself on individual and collective responsibility that transcended beyond the topic of the 2014 campaign. Our built environment profession is at a critical moment. No one would have believed how 2020 would affect us all – as individuals, families, friends and, our profession as a whole. The pandemic in many ways has exacerbated and accelerated the discourse of urban issues and laid them bare for all to experience. The response to the pandemic has changed the way individuals interact with their surrounds in ways we couldn’t have predicted. While policy makers may report on the percentage of open space or lack of services within a particular area, residents have felt the first-hand impact of having an insufficient level of amenity within 5 kilometres of their homes, for months on end. The response to Covid-19 has resulted in some impactful decisions for our cities, namely the acceleration and transformation of streets for people and active travel, and the extension of the indoors, outdoors. Positively, some long standing areas requiring change pre-COVID (such as the implementation of bike lanes), have happened almost overnight as a public health response. The speed at which built environment decisions have been made and rolled out in recent months makes me wonder – does this profession require as great a catalyst as our current pandemic to make fundamental changes to the way we plan and design cities. It brings me back to Watson’s sentiment – if we don’t use this experience to catapult us to a ‘call for action’ for the future we read about, give copious discourse to, and envision – then who will? And, why not now?
Masks and City Skylines Sika Manteaw Master of Urban Planning Student
Masks became a huge part of our reality in the year 2020, but the way the community embraced having to wear them represents the compassion and care people have in this city. This digital illustration is a representation of the beauty of the City of Melbourne skyline and the people who inhabit it. It takes great care and commitment from individuals coming together to make a city as great as this, and planning plays a huge role in empowering those individuals.
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Liz Webster Alumni Class of 2018
Back in May, when the novel coronavirus was still quite novel and we were still figuring out how to work from home, socially distance, and stay sane, I started to see and hear a lot about the ‘opportunities’ this virus and its associated restrictions might bring to our cities. I quickly got caught up in these conversations, excited by the buzz around the density debate and taking back spaces from cars. Alissa Walker’s ‘Coronavirus is not fuel for urbanist fantasies’ in Curbed was the piece that jolted me back to reality and reminded me of the significant privilege I have as a White urbanist in Melbourne. While the article is written in an American context, where COVID deaths have now surpassed 250,000, the pandemic and the economic toll it has taken have hit Melbourne’s vulnerable communities hardest, just as in the U.S. She writes: ‘If the coronavirus has made anything clear, it’s that cities cannot be fixed if we do not insist on dismantling the racial, economic, and environmental inequities that have made the pandemic deadlier for low-income and nonwhite residents. Yet many prominent urbanists have simply tweaked the language from their January 2020 tweets and fed them back into the propaganda machine to crank out COVID-tagged content, perpetuating the delusion that all cities need are denser neighborhoods, more parks, and open streets to magically become “fairer”.’ Take bike lanes for example – Melbourne urbanists have rejoiced at news of 40 kilometres of fast-tracked new lanes for the CBD. I’m sure we’re all quite familiar with the benefits of moving away from car-dependence, but advocating for active transport infrastructure is certainly nothing new for planners and it hardly benefits those who have lost their jobs and homes in the last 8 months. In fact, Melbourne’s cyclists should feel a bit like Jeff Bezos – only getting richer from this pandemic.
This good-to-great approach feels like a microcosm of Melbourne’s brand of urbanism. We may be the (now 2nd) most liveable city in the world – buy only if your life is already pretty liveable. The planning hegemony in Melbourne today is still overwhelmingly White and middle/upper middle class. Until this changes, our response to urban challenges big and small will be as well. As Walker says, ‘The people who claim to care about cities have one role now: to center the voices of their black, Latino, Asian-American, and immigrant neighbors who have sacrificed their bodies, their well-being, and the health of their families to keep cities intact, even as they faced discrimination and harassment. Those who think cities are the future need to mobilize now to make sure the communities we’ve deemed essential will not continue to be marginalized, even after their lives are no longer threatened by the pandemic.’ I’m excited by the recent $5.4 billion Big Housing Build announcement from the State Government. It’s a big step towards a more just Melbourne. But it’s only that – a single step. When the dust settles from this and we return to ‘normal’, thousands will still be without a home, or in communities that lack access to basic infrastructure and services. I hope to see our urbanist conversations and agendas shift to focus less on how to make our own lives even better and more on supporting and empowering the communities that need it most.
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Google Streetview as a Research Tool Audrey Lopez
Research data gathering in a COVID-restricted environment
Alumni Class of 2019
Gunali Ajgaonkar Master of Urban Design Student
The year 2020 has marked an interesting and unusual opportunity for us urbanists. Studying a city includes observation and mapping of occurrences and intensities of the urban realm. Throughout the year, however, lockdowns, and the ghost version of cities that have emerged from them, would have resulted in inaccurate urban mapping of intensities, rhythms and morphologies. Gathering research data for work or studies that requires on-site fieldwork is currently not viable with local restrictions and the closure of state and international borders. However, with these restrictions, we learnt to maximise online resources such as Zoom for interviews or Mural for stakeholder engagements. One of these online resources that we have been using very effectively in our research project is Google Streetview.
Figure 1. Research Output — Streetview Collage. 1000 such image sets were produced to create one data set resulting in layered observational occurrences across the transect (Google Streetview, 2020. Collaged & annotated by authors)
Even before the pandemic started, Streetview has been the key research tool for the project we are working on under Informal Research (InfUr) Hub. The research entitled “Mapping the Spatiality and Governance of Informal Trading”, deals with the mapping the spatial patterns, socio-economic relations and institutional processes/ policy implications emerging from the different forms and practices of informal trading in these Global south cities. The research looks into transect sites of 2km by 20km in Manila, Jakarta and Dhaka through Streetview trawling, mapping and analysis. The research’s relevance builds on the fact that over 50% of the urban labour force in developing Asian countries is informal, yet, there is no relevant empirical evidence to support this. ‘Streetview trawling’ is conducted to understand the spatial dimensions of these informal trading activities - the places of intensity, the spatial distribution, as well as, identifying the competitions to these spaces. Streetview has proved to be the most effective tool to conduct research across the three sites without manually roaming the streets. Categories are developed along the way to help to identify and group together similar occurrences and typologies.
The resulting collages (Figure 1) are compiled to produce data sets for occurrence mapping, which is marked across an excel, that in-turn can be plugged into qgis to produce layered maps (Figure 2 & 3) that unpack occurrences and intensities of the informal activities observed. Streetview as a research tool is useful for conducting site investigations both locally and internationally while state or country borders are still closed. The research technique can get monotonous because of the tedious process conducted on the site, the street view imagery available (across time), and the extent of typologies to be mapped, but overall the process produces in-depth morphological maps that reflect extensively occurrences and intensities across multiple scales.
Figure 1.
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Figure 2. Research Output — Layered map of the Manila Transect Figure 3. Research Output — Layered map of the Jakarta Transect
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Authors’ note: This methodology was also presented to Master of Urban Planning students as part of Studio I guest lectures part of semester 2, 2020 by the authors. The maps and research are the property of InfUr Hub, produced inclusive of team comprising Kim Dovey, Elek Pafka, Reden Recio, Gian Franco Valverde Espinoza, Audrey Lopez & Gunali Ajgaonkar. For more information: https://www.infur.org/projects/the-spatial-logic-of-informal-street-vending
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PATHWAYS INTO THE FUTURE
Looking to the future of our built environment, there are many who suggest that things may revert back to business as usual, post-pandemic. However things will never be the same as they were before the pandemic, and it is important to investigate the ways in which Covid-19 could redesign our cities. The morphing and reshaping of how we design and use space offers an exciting exploration of possible futures. These explorations could provide new solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face as a global community, including climate change, social isolation and economic growth. Whilst we have no way of predicting the future, there is so much to be gained from exploring all the possibilities the future could hold. The young planners and designers of these future cities are already looking at these endless possibilities with optimism and hope to produce a better urbanscape for us all.
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GIS Applications in Urban Planning: Where to Grow in Bendigo Vincent Ng Master of Urban Planning Student With more than two thirds of the world’s population estimated to be living in cities by 2050 (UN DESA 2018), the question of how to manage urban growth is more critical than ever. In Australia over 90% of the population lives in urban areas (ABS 2018). The town of Bendigo is a regional inland urban centre in the state of Victoria with a current population today of just under 100,000 people but is expected to grow to over 180,000 by 2050 (City of Greater Bendigo 2018). My report examined how the spatial analytical tools of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be applied to identify suitable areas for urban growth given the anticipated future population demands and city’s articulated planning goals. My report outlined a brief history of urban planning in Bendigo and introduced GIS and its applications in Bendigo. I examined the planning goals set forth by the City Greater Bendigo and explained the rationale for four criteria chosen to determine where future growth should be located. These criteria were a stronger and vibrant city centre, adaptive and innovative regional economy, a resourceful and sustainable region, and healthy and inclusive communities. My report concludes with a final map outlining recommendations for suitable growth areas, and can be seen in the accompanying image.
References: Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Census of Population and Housing: Reflecting Australia.” Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ City of Greater Bendigo. (2015). Connecting Greater Bendigo: Integrated Transport and Land Use Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2016-08/ ITLUS_-_Adopted_260815.pdf United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2018). “68% of the World Population Projected to Live in Urban Areas by 2050, Says UN.” Retrieved from https://www.un.org/ development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html
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In Conversation with Dr Stephanie Butcher Academic Postdoctoral Researcher with the Connected Cities lab
Your research explores power relations within informal settlements but also your positionality as a researcher and outsider entering these communities. Do you envisage further challenges and/or opportunities moving forward in a post 2020 world in regards to your role as a researcher?
This year has really been interesting in rethinking the tools and methodologies for partnership, collaboration, and building trusted relationships. These are all core elements of co-produced and engaged research, and with colleagues we have been renegotiating our exchanges in different ways as a result of Covid-19. In some ways technologies have enabled continued and deep connections, and have made even more room for exciting ideas around digital mapping or historical/archival work, and especially the possibilities of collaboration without carbon emissions, which I imagine will continue into the future. On the other hand, creating shared research has been much more challenging when working with new research partners, where we have been missing some of the ‘inbetween’ spaces where mutual understanding is best built – beyond more ‘formal’ research engagements and spaces. In any case, this year has certainly re-solidified for me the crucial importance of focusing on issues of urban inequalities from a grassroots perspective – as the crisis has revealed, extended, and deepened uneven access to political entitlements, social goods, or dignified work and housing.
You mention ‘inbetween’ spaces, that do not necessarily adhere to formal processes, as being important for building trust with research partners. How do you envision bridging the digital divide between partners? Or to put it another way, what methods of engagement do you think have the most potential to develop mutual understandings between partners?
Great question! With those in-between spaces – I feel that many really crucial moments for connecting can be found, for instance, during coffee breaks, on bus rides, or other transitioning moments- where you come to know more about each other, have a bit more space to talk through sensitive or sticky issues, or get a more personal understanding of a context. When I was working in Kathmandu, for instance, many of my meetings began with having a tea together, and it took me some time to somehow slow down, and recognize this as a valid and important part of research. These things have been harder to replicate in 2020! But I also think there are other perhaps slightly more ‘formalized’ ways that really support this process, from negotiating and collectively writing a terms of reference, identifying collaborative outputs that speak to both academia and practice, or outlining shared goals in the short and long-term.
It’s evident 2020 has reshaped the methods for approaching research, do you think there is further capacity to develop and/or redefine the content of research into urban inequality and grassroots community organisation?
I think it’s clear that the events of this year have both intensified and made more visible the alreadydeep inequalities globally. While those issues were already being discussed and lived, I do think the health crisis has also revealed in a really broad way the interconnections of issues like decent housing, employment, and urban services—and how supporting the well-being of our most vulnerable is crucial for societies to flourish. Imagine what could happen now if we applied that same notion of interdependency, solidarity, and care, to addressing the climate crisis, for instance! There have been a series of interventions from the grassroots – resisting evictions, providing mutual aid, establishing community kitchens, which I think are really interesting for us to build on. At the same time, what has also been exciting is the renewed calls to the state, particularly with thinking about extending social protection, or access to other fundamental social goods. All of this – I hope – creates a renewed space for raising issues of justice and equity, as well as really practical examples of initiatives that can be expanded for the future.
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Reflecting on “From an urban country to urban Country: Confronting the Cult of Denial in Australian Cities” by Libby Porter Anonymous Master of Urban Planning Student The Acknowledgement of Country is a hollow action, a tokenistic gesture without truly reformative power. An Acknowledgement of Country aims to pay respect to First Nation’s people and the land itself on which activities are performed, ranging from major events and classroom presentations. Whether the speaker views this as a genuine gesture of goodwill or as an obligatory measure is usually unclear. Porter (2018) argues that an Acknowledgement of Country is nothing more than empty lip-service in the face of continuing colonial injustice. Porter’s work is evocative, and invites the reader to question their relationship with the words spoken. Was the audience paying attention, or did it provide them with a chance to stare blankly into space until it was done? More could be done to ensure those words have genuine meaning and to understand and acknowledge what Country means to First Nations peoples, but this is a long and difficult fight. Larissa Behrendt is an Indigenous Australian lawyer and Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. She describes her upbringing and values, and her father’s personal connection to land: “You can no more sell the land than sell the sky. Our affinity with the land is like the bonding between a parent and a child. You have responsibilities and obligations to look after and care for a child. You can speak for a child. But you can’t own a child.” (Behrendt, 1995).
Post-colonial governance continues to permit the sale and ownership of land. Government schemes for first time home buyers promote the “Australian dream” of owning a house and backyard. New arrivals to Australia are also encouraged to buy into this dream; as if the white value of land ownership is assumed to be a universal desire that all should adopt (Beherendt, 1995). But as Behrendt argues, her familial values are based upon the concept of custodianship rather than ownership (Beherendt, 1995). This conflict in values cannot be rectified by colonial mechanisms of repatriation. “Fixing the problem” of historic displacement and disenfranchisement cannot be based on Western conceptions of land ownership and imposed upon Indigenous peoples (Lane, 2002). This notion of “ownership” does not reflect how different cultures understand their relationship with the land. The Acknowledgement of Country is incompatible with current hegemonic notions of ownership, such as the idea that “everyone has a right to purchase a home”. While Porter (2018) suggests land should be recognised as Indigenous land by default, Behrendt’s (1995) perspective furthers the notion that not all Indigenous people consider their relationship with land to be based upon ownership. The value of the Acknowledgement of Country is compromised if this gesture is not embedded within the structural frameworks that define and regulate our connection to land.
References: Behrendt, L. (1995). Aboriginal Urban Identity: Preserving the Spirit, Protecting the Traditional in Non-Traditional Settings. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 4, 55-62. Lane, M. (2002). Buying Back and Caring for Country: Institutional Arrangements and Possibilities for Indigenous Lands Management in Australia. Society and Natural Resources, 15, 827-846. Porter, L. (2018). From an Urban Country to Urban Country: Confronting the Cult of Denial in Australian Cities. Australian Geographers, 49(2), 239-246.
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In Conversation with Phillip Mallis Alumni Class of 2017
You have a keen interest in using interactive mapping to illustrate change over time, including your current project of crowdsourcing data on parklet locations throughout Melbourne. Have your recent mapping projects brought to light anything unexpected that prompts challenges or opportunities moving forward in a post 2020 world?
Both this parklets map and our lockdown experiences suggest a renaissance of the suburbs. Throughout the pandemic, people have discovered or rediscovered living locally. For many in Melbourne, shops, parks, services and other essentials are all within the lockdown’s five kilometre radius (almost like a mandated ’20 Minute Neighbourhood’). Conversely, there are many other people in Melbourne for whom this is not the case – particularly in the urban fringe. Whether this shift from the central city to the suburbs stays with us post-2020 remains to be seen, but one key standout from this parklet map is the number of these interventions located outside inner areas. To me, this is confirmation of the suburban renaissance – at least in the short-term.
Are there other initiatives or design interventions you think could be amplified and taken advantage of in the current trend towards living locally?
I think there are great opportunities in the area of active transport. We saw huge increases in the number of people walking, wheeling and cycling right across the state during lockdown. From the available data, these trips seem to have been primarily for recreation – but there also appears to have been some increase in actively travelling for transport too. Again, the focus of this suburban renaissance is in living locally. Many people either couldn’t or found they no longer needed to travel long distances to access what they need because this was all available within their local area. These short to medium-length trips are where active transport shines and has the greatest opportunities to leverage off people’s positive experiences and behaviours during lockdown. If done well, the right initiatives and interventions can continue these increased levels of walking, wheeling and cycling well into the future which has huge benefits for everyone.
Finally, you mention leveraging off people’s positive experience of active transport during lockdown, and perhaps this also reflects people’s apprehension to use public transport. Can you expand upon some approaches you think planners can facilitate to encourage continued greater active transport use?
I would say there is one main thing that planners can do: be bold and try things. We face a climate emergency that demands rapid action. This is not to say that projects are not evidence-based and developed based on collaboration and partnerships with communities, but rather that we should feel free and able to bring forward new ideas and ways of thinking to these challenges. The amazing responses to Covid-19 have proven that we are actually able to think and act in this way. We just need to keep up the momentum and consider how our experiences in this difficult time can shape our actions in the future to build a better world.
Melbourne Parklets Interactive Map (https://melbourneparklets.ushahidi.io/views/map)
For more about Phillip: https://philipmallis.com/
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How might planners respond to a post-COVID19 pandemic world? By Reimaging Urbanscapes using a social justice planning approach. Clare Huggins Master of Urban Planning Student Disclaimer: This piece is an edited version for this publication. For the full version, please request from the author.
As cities work towards a COVID-safe world, the ongoing BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests have brought racial injustice to the forefront of global discussions. The field of urban planning must not fail to address systemic racial inequalities in this pursuit for safer and healthier urban futures. An analysis of planning’s relationship to racial injustice in both the United States and Australia shows that the necessary response to a post-Covid-19 world is not a technical quick-build approach but rather one of social justice. Several scholars position planning at the centre of colonial dispossession, marginalisation and discrimination against Indigenous people (Porter, 2006; Wensing and Porter, 2016; Jackson et al., 2017). As a recent example, the Native Title system, aimed at providing formal recognition of Aboriginal peoples as traditional owners of lands and waters, is complex and lengthy, and records low success rates for land titles in capital cities and regional centres (Wensing and Porter, 2019). One reason for this is that non-Indigenous people do not associate Indigenous peoples with the urban environment in the same way they associate Indigenous peoples with the natural environment (Fredericks, 2013; Porter et al., 2018). This racial stereotyping continues to impede land justice and equality for Indigenous people in urban areas of Australia. In the American context, following the abolition of slavery civic planners used planning tools to push African American communities into ‘the ghettos’ and mandated ‘residential racial segregation’ (Kruse, 2019). Later, highways were built to divide white communities from black (Kruse, 2019); federally funded projects such as the redlining housing maps decided the areas worthy and unworthy of infrastructure investment (Miller, 2018) and ‘white suburbia’ expanded aided by state policies (Kruse, 2019). These planning decisions, disinvestment and longstanding segregation left neighbourhoods without infrastructure and economic opportunities (Love and Vey, 2019) and have defined the American cities that we know today.
In both the United States and Australia, a technical planning approach to respond to a COVID-safe world seems illogical in the face of continued racial disenfranchisement. In the United States, some commentators argue that planners should reassess our ‘broken cities’ before accelerating post-pandemic ‘urban fantasies’ (Walker, 2020a). Community-based and indigenous perspectives of planning call for a profoundly different approach to planning. In the United States, Thomas (2020) demonstrates how ‘quick-build’ technical planning approaches such as pop-up bike lanes and tactical walkaways fail to have genuine community input and deepen urban inequalities for African American communities. Agyeman (2020) urges city planners to understand the fundamental barriers to cycling for low-income and minority groups, and to reimagine post-pandemic streets and infrastructure with racial inequalities in mind. Alternatively, Love and Vey (2019) suggest planners should ask community residents exactly what they need from their streets – recognising it might be more than bike lanes. This is a time when planners should focus on what Marcuse (2011) calls ‘social justice planning; planning ‘based on grassroots groups, which at their strongest become social movements’ (Marcuse 2011, 124). Social justice planning considers planning practices such as ethical / cultural considerations and community-based planning, including indigenous perspectives (Porter, 2006); This approach incorporates communitybased planning, including indigenous perspectives (Porter, 2006), and it calls ‘not merely for participation, but for decision making from below on issues of planning’ (Marcuse, 2011, p.125). In Australia, Porter’s scholarly work provides examples of how non-Indigenous planners have forged more collaborative relationships with Indigenous land claimant groups (Porter, 2006) and demonstrates how Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are ‘meaningfully co-existing’ in cities (Wensing and Porter, 2016). These experts address the importance of understanding planning’s history and its intricate relationship to racial inequality before taking any form of planning action. Walker (2020) asserts ‘if the coronavirus has made anything clear, it’s that cities cannot be fixed if we do no insist on dismantling the racial, economic and environmental inequalities that have made the pandemic deadlier for low-income and non-white residents’ (Walker 2020a). The United States’ ‘black urbanist’ community is already uniting and demanding status-quo urbanist counterparts to ‘learn more about the history of anti-Black racism and urbanism (Walker, 2020b). Given Australia’s history, planners and future planners must aim for racial justice when planning for a post-Covid-19 world.
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References: Agyeman, J. (2020, May 27). Poor and black ‘invisible cyclists’ need to be part of post-pandemic transport planning too. The Conversation US. Retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/ poor-and-black-invisible-cyclists-need-to-be-part-of-post-pandemic-transport-planning too-139145 Fainstein, S. (2013). Spatial justice and planning. In S.Fainstein & J. DeFilippis, J. (Eds), Readings in Planning Theory (pp 259-272). West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Fredericks, B. (2013). ‘We don’t leave our identities at the city limits’: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in urban localities. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1, pp 1-16. Harvey, D. (1992). Social justice, postmodernism, and the city. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, 16(4), pp 588-601. Jackson, S., Johnson, L.C. & Porter, L. (2017). Planning in Indigenous Australia: from imperial foundations to postcolonial futures. New York, USA: Routledge Kruse, K. (2019, August 14). What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/ interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html Latimore, J. (2018, April 9). Indigenous people are being displaced again – by gentrification. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/09/indigenous people-are-being-displaced-again-by-gentrification-aboriginal-redfern-west-end-fitzroy Love, H. and Vey, J. (2019, August 28). To build safe streets, we need to address racism in urban design. Brookings. Retrieved from: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the avenue/2019/08/28/to-build-safe-streets-we-need-to-address-racism-in-urban-design/ Marcuse, P. (2011). The Three Historic Currents of Planning. In S.Fainstein & J. DeFilippis, J. (Eds), Readings in Planning Theory (pp 117-131). UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Miranda, C.A., (2020, June 18). Nine ideas for making our city’s public space more race equitable. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/ story/2020-06-18/cities-are-built-on-public-space-but-it-isnt-equitable-nine-ideas-for making-it-better Miller, J. (2018, February 21). Roads to nowhere: how infrastructure built on American inequality. The Guardian. Retried from: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/21/ roads-nowhere-infrastructure-american-inequality Porter, L. (2006). Planning in (Post) Colonial Settings: Challenges for Theory and Practice. Planning Theory & Practice, 7(4), pp 383-396. Porter, L., Johnson, L. & Jackson, S. (2018, May 9). Indigenous communities are reworking urban planning, but planners need to accept their history. The Conversation. Retried from: https://theconversation.com/indigenous-communities-are-reworking-urban-planning-but planners-need-to-accept-their-history-92351 Thomas, D. (2020, June 9). ‘Safe Streets’ Are Not Safe for Black Lives. CityLab. Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-08/-safe-streets-are-not-safe-for-black lives Walker, A. (2020a, May 20). Coronavirus is not fuel for urbanist fantasies. This moment should be about reassessing our broken cities. Curbed. Retrieved from: https://www. curbed.com/2020/5/20/21263319/coronavirus-future-city-urban-covid 19?fbclid=IwAR1EFK5SnyftjV_utEqhY65fVYJ3jaxG0sZZR-C0wDL4ovBX1CG5EMnAtLY Walker, A. (2020b, June 17). How to End Anti-Blackness in Cities: Black designers and planners are mobilizing their industries to eradicate racism in urbanism. Curbed. Retried from: https://www.curbed.com/2020/6/17/21291761/black-urbanism-racism-cities-jay-pitter Wensing, E. & Porter, L. (2016). Unsettling planning’s paradigms: towards a just accommodation of Indigenous rights and interest in Australian urban planning? Australian Planner, 53(2), pp 91-102.
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Design Toolkit for Pandemic Response Nivedita Ravindran Master of Urban Design Student
Six typologies of transitional spaces on campus have been used as testing sites for deploying design interventions for pandemic response modes. The interventions will be temporal, to allow for normal mode usage as well. OPEN SPACE PANDEMIC RESPONSE
RUBBER TURFS TO CONTROL DUST KICK UP
R 1
OPEN SPACE EXISTING
CIRCLES THAT SHOW ALLOWABLE GROUP SIZES
Open spaces - existing (left) and after pandemic response (right).
DINING SPACES
PANDEMIC RESPONSE
MOVEABLE BARRIERS (PLANTING OPTIONAL)TO ALLOW FOR CLOSER SEATING
DINING SPACES EXISTING
EXTENDED SIDEWALKS MADE OF PALLETS/ PLASTIC
OUTDOOR DINING WITH MOVEABLE FURNITURE AND VARIOUS GROUP SIZES
Dining spaces - existing (left) and after pandemic response (right).
CIRCLES REPRESENTING 1.5M DISTANCE
EVENT SPACES
PANDEMIC RESPONSE ENCOURAGING SOLO ACTIVITIES LIKE YOGA AND MEDITATION
PHYSICAL DISTANCING GRID MARKINGS
CIRCLES THAT SHOW ALLOWABLE GROUP SIZES
EVENT SPACES EXISTING
TEMPORARY BARRIERS THAT ALLOW PHYSICAL DISTANCING WITHOUT SOCIAL DISTANCING
ENCOURAGING VARIOUS GROUP SIZES
COLLECT AND GO BOOTHS TO AVOID CROWDED WAITING AREAS
Pedestrian networks - existing (left) and after pandemic response (right).
QUEUEING CIRCLES 1.5M APART
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PEDESTRIAN NETWORKS PANDEMIC RESPONSE
DIRECTIONAL ARROWS AT BUILDING ENTRANCES
PHYSICAL DISTANCING TAPE GRIDS
PEDESTRIANS MOVE ON SEPARATE LANES FOR EACH DIRECTION
PEDESTRIAN NETWORKS EXISTING
TYPICAL STREET FURNITURE USED TO SEPARATE LANES
Shared network - existing (left) and after pandemic response (right).
SHARED NETWORKS PANDEMIC RESPONSE
TYPICAL STREET FURNITURE USED TO SEPARATE LANES
VEHICULAR LANES TEMPORARILY REDUCED
SHARED NETWORKS EXISTING
WIDENED PEDESTRIAN PATHWAYS
WIDENED BICYCLE LANES
Study spaces - existing (left) and after pandemic response (right).
STUDY SPACES
PANDEMIC RESPONSE
PHYSICALLY DISTANCED SEATING DESIGN
ENCOURAGING VARIOUS GROUP SIZES
STUDY SPACES EXISTING
TEMPORARY BARRIERS THAT ALLOW PHYSICAL DISTANCING WITHOUT SOCIAL DISTANCING
Event spaces - existing (left) and after pandemic response (right). DIRECTIONAL SIGNAGE FOR BICYCLES
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Pathways into the Future Dr Judy Bush Academic (Lecturer in Urban Planning and Deputy Leader of the Urban Greening for Liveability project with the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub
2020, what a year! From the very first days of the new year, when Australian cities were blanketed in thick smoke generated from the catastrophic, climate change fuelled bushfires that devoured ecosystems and killed billions of native animals, to watching a virus become an epidemic, and then pandemic, as it spread around the world. COVID, like climate change, seems to magnify vulnerabilities and inequities. Climate change and COVID highlight how tangibly and fundamentally connected and interdependent we are – socially and ecologically as well as economically. While COVID seems to make it hard to plan (When will we be allowed to travel? Will there be another outbreak that will necessitate another lockdown?), it also has highlighted some key priorities for urban planning research and practice: the importance of the public realm in cities, as spaces for (physically distanced!) social relationships and for human-nature relationships. Our parks, waterways, gardens, bike paths and nature patches are vital spaces in cities and we need to make sure everyone has access to local spaces. As we examine new imperatives for urban planning and city design, the allocations and equitable distribution, as well as competitions for space are highlighted: space in the public realm for movement and transport (road space, active transport and bike lanes, footpaths, car parking space), space for nature as well as the built elements of the urban environment. Climate change considerations need to be embedded in all these decisions, both small and large; urban planning research and practice have really important contributions to make to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and strengthen adaptation to current and future climate change impacts.
Figure 1. Bracken Creek Figure 2. Oldis Gardens Figure 3. Merri Creek
Figure 1.
Urban green spaces provide adventure and play spaces as well as biodiversity habitat.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
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Planners Declare in 2021: new year, new planning industry Alexandra Faure Alumni Class of 2018
Naomi Beck Nakita Thomson Roland Postma Members of Planners Declare
2020 has been a surreal, challenging and testing year for all of us. Not only did the year begin with unprecedented mega-sized bushfires, unleashed by the on-going ecological crisis, but the coronavirus then swept across the world and forever changed society as we know it. From how we communicate, live, work and travel – this year has brought a lot of disruption and destruction. It has also given us the time to reflect and an opportunity to plan for a new normal. As the year comes to its end, Planners Declare is preparing to hit the ground running in the new year and continue its advocacy efforts for the profession to publicly declare and advocate for a proactive and necessary response to the climate and biodiversity emergency. At this stage we are working towards three 2021 milestones: Launch our website - After a year of working in the background through a myriad of online platforms, we are very excited about our soon-to-be-launched website. It will allow for planning-affiliated individuals, private firms and institutions to formally declare a climate and biodiversity emergency, pledge to contribute to solutions to this threat and play their part in accelerating the transition to a safe climate. Various climate actions in regards to internal operations, external outputs, and research and advocacy will then be available for one to select. The idea is that ‘climate action’ can take many forms, and though we do not all have the same capacity to take action, we all have a role to play in accelerating this transition. Every step in the right direction counts. Get in touch if you’d like to become a founding signatory!
Expand our advocacy and partnership & outreach programs - If this year has taught us anything, it’s that there is an existing abundance of knowledge in the industry and community about how to address the climate and biodiversity emergency through urban planning. With this in mind, we want to ‘crowdsource’ our advocacy to-do list, and rather than (only) telling people what needs to change, we want to come up with solutions together. Lookout for a couple of events Planners Declare will be hosting in the new year as part of festivals such as the National Sustainable Living Festival, Melbourne Knowledge Week and Melbourne Design Week. Expand the Planners Declare movement across Australia - As the foundations of our movement continue to settle, we are very keen to support the growth of Planners Declare in other states and territories. We believe that placebased advocacy that is reflective of local planning contexts will be key in achieving our goals effectively. Please get in touch with us if you’re interested in joining or starting a Planners Declare branch in your state or territory! Finally, as we transition out of this year, we would also like to take the opportunity to thank all our colleagues and friends in the industry and beyond who have supported us in our journey thus far. In line with the title of this article, we hope that you join us in the new year as we continue our work.
Planners Declare respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners on whose unceded lands we live and work on. If you want to join us in this declaration and receive updates, please sign-up at https://www.plannersdeclare.org/. Alternatively contact us at info@plannersdeclare.org. Please note this article is also published in the Planning Institute of Australia (Victoria and Tasmania Division) Planning News.
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UNIMELB URBAN PLANNING + DESIGN STUDENT PUBLICATION 2020