LESSONS FROM DOWN UNDER
Tackling Climate Change in SE Australia: Creating Resilience through Livability, Governance and Embracing Indigenous Heritage
JAMES K. STICKLEY Principal, WRT
INTRODUCTION
As part of my four-month, four-region research sabbatical on urban resilience in the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, I visited the southeastern Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney. My base of operations in Melbourne was the University of Melbourne where I participated in a seminar and studio review in the Landscape Architecture Department. In Sydney, I was hosted for a seminar on urban resilience by Committee for Sydney, a local urban policy & advocacy think tank. Alongside these formal activities, I toured both cities extensively by foot, by bike and by transit and tried to learn as much as I could about how these unique urban places are positioned for resilience to climate change. Both cities have taken on this challenge in very direct ways with a concerted approach to creating urban livability and more responsive governance structures, within the broader context of Australia’s sensibility towards its unique indigenous heritage.
I. INDIGENOUS HERITAGE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF “COUNTRY”
First Nation Influence in Australia is strong and permeates nearly all aspects of culture, politics and life in general. Aboriginal peoples have inhabited this large continent for thousands of years and their traditions are strongly linked to the sub-regions they come from – their landscapes, seasons and ecologies.
The concept of “Country” is uniquely Australian and encompasses the strong connections of people to their land and traditions. Indigenous heritage and Country were strong recurring themes in my interactions in Australia. As this region tries to grapple with the very difficult challenges of climate change manifesting as extreme heat, drought, wildfires and extreme flooding, tapping into indigenous knowledge is as important as it ever was – recognizing that those ancient cultures have been navigating the earth’s cycles for centuries and contemporary society can learn a great deal from them about how to live in better balance with natural processes. That influence is now evident everywhere, from the simple recognition of ancestral lands, to the presence of tribal representation in Aboriginal Australia Map Source: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
governance structures at all levels – state, territorial and local city government.
At University of Melbourne, indigenous heritage is a strong part of the curriculum and was prominent in the studio reviews I participated in.
One notable example was the description of the 7 Seasons of the Kulin People – native to the Melbourne region – presented in one of the project reviews I attended. The Kulin Nation – or Wurundjeri – seasons guided how the Kulin Nation lived their lives from season to season according hydrological, astronomical, and solar cycles and the flora and fauna that were ascendant in each season for food sources and supplies. These traditions created a strong, seasonal rhythm of life that was embodied in spiritual narratives and oral traditions with the people stewarding the natural systems that sustained them and the oral and spiritual traditions re-enforcing this vital balance.1
1 Seasons in the Sky - Inspiring Victoria
The Seven Seasons Wheel illustrating the natural processes of the seven seasons around which life of the Kulin People revolves. Source: Graphic interpretation and design by Greenaway Architects, text by Museum Victoria
The gardens at University of Melbourne – Burnley Campus feature indigenous species and provided a perfect setting for a discussion about “Country” with Landscape Architecture Department Chair, Alex Felson
II.
MELBOURNE & SYDNEY’S SECRETS TO LIVABILITY
Both cities are strikingly livable on a number of levels that I attribute to several factors: strong mobility infrastructure making the movement around the city using a variety of modes of travel seamless and easy; integrated, human-scaled neighborhoods; a highly integrated network of green infrastructure; and – in the case of Melbourne – the hidden treasure of downtown’s alleys.
Strong Mobility Infrastructure
Both cities’ transit systems are very impressive. In Melbourne, an extensive tram network crisscrosses the downtown area and sends spurs radially out into the surrounding neighborhoods. The trains are comfortable, clean, quiet and frequent and a transit pass makes it easy to board and pay with a touch card. The tramways are beautifully designed into the city streets with elevated platforms at stops making for easy, at-grade entry and exit.
Melbourne’s highly developed transit network makes moving about the City seamless and easy. Source: Melbourne Tram Network; Public Transport Victoria
Melbourne’s central downtown zone – roughly 10 x 4 blocks – offers free rides on any tram within that zone. Two regional hub stations are on the perimeter of the downtown area, providing access to regional and longer distance commuter trains. These stations are proud civic places with Flinders Street Station being the classic, historic Victorian landmark and Southern Cross, its urbane, contemporary counterpart.
If this all sounds like a lot of transit routes converging on a downtown bottleneck it’s because it is. As the City continues to grow and through-put of people becomes increasingly challenging, “Victoria’s Big Build” project is actually addressing the challenge. Twin nine-kilometer tunnels and five new stations are currently under construction to alleviate this increasing congestion and ensure efficient access from Melbourne’s surrounding neighborhoods into downtown. It’s quite an ambitious strategy but a necessary one demonstrating the city’s unflinching commitment to – and investment in – high-performing public transit.
The crown jewel of Sydney’s transit system is its extensive ferry network. Because of the geography of Sydney Harbor with its crenulated shoreline and the neighborhoods surrounding it, the ferry system is a critical piece of moving people efficiently. The ferries provide an enjoyable way to travel, taking advantage of beautiful views around the harbor, offering an experience of daily life that is unique to the city’s geography.
extensive land-based
Circular Quay is where all the ferries come together at Sydney’s central downtown waterfront, offering an amazingly efficient transfer point to other city transit lines including subway and streetcar connections which are literally steps away when you disembark the ferries. One of the most impressive aspects of both Cities’ transit systems is their beautifully designed civic infrastructure. Rather than viewing transit facilities as the place where the unfortunate must go who cannot drive, – relegating them to inhumane fragments of the urban landscape – Melbourne and Sydney’s transit facilities are places of civic pride – part of a well-designed network of urban social space. Transit stops are spacious, comfortable and allow for a seamless relationship with other urban social functions.
Sydney’s Ferry Network Source: Sydney Ferries
Transport
Southern Cross Station
Flinders Street Station
Sydney’s
transit network. Source: Sydney Rail Network; New South Wales Transport
Network; New South Wales
On Bourke Street in Melbourne – the downtown’s pedestrian and transit mall, transit stops are virtually indistinguishable from the corridor’s pedestrian promenades and plazas.Both cities’ bikeways are still a work in progress but certainly trending in a good direction. The real gems of Melbourne’s system are the off-street bike paths tracing the city’s rivers, greenways and beach edge. One can literally ride for miles (kilometers!) without interacting with car traffic. In both cities, the on-street network is a
bit disjointed with good, separated lanes in many segments but crowded out by traffic lanes in many other instances where the cyclist still feels like a second-class citizen. Unfortunately, on many of these streets, cars still dominate and can lead to unsafe conditions. But both cities are working towards a better balance and network improvements are under construction everywhere.
Integrated, Human-scaled Neighborhoods
In addition to being well-connected to downtown and to each other by transit, Melbourne and Sydney’s neighborhoods are walkable, human-scaled and well-integrated to the larger metropolis. Largely low to mid-rise and residential in scale, each neighborhood has its own distinct character with easy access to a commercial main street and easy access to parks and greenways. In Sydney’s Darling Point, single family homes are mixed with mid-rise condo buildings with a few high-rise exceptions. The mix feels natural and allows a diversity of housing types and socio-economic levels
Circular Quay Multi-modal Station where water-based transit connects to land-based transit
Bourke Street Pedestrian / Transit Mall
in this highly desirable neighborhood. While zoning regulations for this district allow variance in building heights and densities, it draws a line against the future addition of high-rise buildings and also regulates the protection of the ridgeline, limiting building heights to the natural tree canopy line.2
Neighborhoods are a great blend of historic homes and more contemporary multi-family infill. In Sydney this mix of densities works particularly well in certain neighborhoods– a sort of unconstrained approach to urban infill where a mix of densities and income levels can co-exist within a small neighborhood.
Highly Integrated Green Infrastructure:
Melbourne’s crown jewels are its greenways. An extensive network of parks and greenways traces the city’s river and creek corridors giving access to recreation and nature and bringing greenery into the heart of the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods (see greenways network on map pg X). These greenways are easily accessible from all parts of the City – from the beachfront neighborhoods along Hobsons Bay to the interior neighborhoods of Carlton North & Brunswick. One can cycle or walk for miles in un-interrupted greenways and in many areas, the experience in the greenway is one of natural wilderness where one is unaware of the surrounding City.
2
Albion Street, Sydney’s Bronte neighborhood main street
Darling Point Harbour, Sydney – a mix of densities that fits
Woollahra Development Control Plan, 2015 REV: 2021
Melbourne’s extensive parks, trails and greenway network connect neighborhoods together. Mapping Credit: Hailey Myers & Palak Gupta
Yarra River Greenway – Nature in the City
Melbourne’s Downtown Alleys
A hidden treasure of Melbourne’s downtown is its alley network. Turning off the major thoroughfares, one encounters an extensive network of alleys where much of the downtown’s social life occurs. Restaurants, cafes, bars and shops line these alleys and are packed with people and buzzing with activity. This is arguably the main attraction in Downtown Melbourne. Too see this level of utilization for an urban alley network is uncommon and very impressive.
Active Downtown Alleys & Free Tram Zone Mapping Credit: Hailey Myers & Palak Gupta
Degraves Alley, Melbourne
Centre Place Alley, Melbourne
Contemporary Case Study: Fishermans Bend
Embodying all of the principles of indigenous heritage, resilience, and livability, Melbourne is taking on Australia’s largest urban renewal project – Fishermans Bend. Located on a pivotal site just south of the CBD and at the mouth of the Yarra River as it connects to Port Phillip Bay, the project takes on a number of challenges as a legacy brownfield site and as a low-lying area subject to flooding and seal level rise.
Sustainability Goals Source: Fisherman’s Bend Framework, State of Victoria
“Fishermans Bend will play an important role in addressing many of the challenges and opportunities that face metropolitan Melbourne. As identified in Plan Melbourne 2017-2050, it will be a key contributor to protecting and enhancing Melbourne’s liveability [sic], while growing and diversifying its economy.
The proximity of Fishermans Bend to the CBD, the Port of Melbourne and the rapidly growing western suburbs means that it will play a pivotal role in the growth and prosperity of the city.
Context Map Source: Central City – Plan Melbourne 2017-2050
A Growing Population
With around 800 hectares of land available for urban renewal close to central Melbourne, Plan Melbourne envisages the expanded central city will host almost 900,000 jobs by 2050, double the 435,000 central city jobs in 2011.
As the largest of Melbourne’s inner city urban renewal areas, the way that Fishermans Bend is planned and developed will have a significant influence on the future liveability [sic] of the city. It is an opportunity to ensure Melbourne remains a great place to live and work by setting new benchmarks for inner city urban renewal and attracting the talent and investment needed to create and sustain economic prosperity. By locating jobs, services and dwellings in proximity to each other, Fishermans Bend will have the social, environmental and economic benefits of a 20-minute neighbourhood. In addition, Fishermans Bend aims to deliver activity centres, community infrastructure and open space within a 10-minute walk.
Diagrams left to right: Heritage, Dwelling Density, Cycling infrastructure, Public Transport, Public Space, Road Network
Source: Fisherman’s Bend Framework, State of Victoria
Over 250 hectares of land has been dedicated to the delivery of medium to high density, mixed use development that will support a range of economic activities and provide housing diversity.
Fishermans Bend will support the growth of Melbourne by accommodating of 80,000 residents and 80,000 jobs by 2050.”3
One of the graduate student projects at University of Melbourne took a deep dive into how the Fishermans Bend might integrate indigenous culture into the urban framework. The project did a detailed seasonal analysis of the flora, fauna and seasonal traditions and showed how these elements might be integrated into the development framework (see student project images).
3 Fishermans-Bend-Framework.pdf (fishermansbend.vic.gov.au)
University of Melbourne graduate student, Yiwen Wang Fishermans Bend project.
University of Melbourne graduate student, Yiwen Wang Fishermans Bend project.
III. METRO SYDNEY’S APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE: A LESSON IN GOVERNANCE
As part of my time in Sydney, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Committee for Sydney to put together a discussion forum with some of Sydney’s leading thinkers on resilience strategies in response to climate change. Around 20 people gathered at the urban campus of UTS (University of Technology Sydney) representing local, City and State institutions, utilities and consultancies involved in determining Sydney’s resilient future.
I presented the Bay Area perspective and did some general framing for the discussion and three presenters followed representing State – Dawn Routledge, Resilience New South Wales4 ; City – Beck Dawson, Chief Resilience Officer for Resilient Sydney5 ; and local – Kelly Williamson of Campbelltown City Council6 . General discussion followed involving all those assembled. The ensuing interchange was both fascinating and enlightening.
4 State Government department established in 2021 following the bushfires
5 Established in 2015 as part of 100 Resilient Cities pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation
6 One of 33 local government authorities (Councils) that make up metropolitan Sydney
The Problem:
As Dawn Routledge pointed out, setting a sobering stage for the discussion, Metro Sydney has been hit with a quadruple whammy in a very short period of time starting with a persistent drought (2017-2019), followed by unprecedented bushfires, then COVID hit bringing a whole new set of public health challenges and finally, unprecedented storms brought extensive flooding throughout the Metro region (2021). The region needed to respond quickly to each of these shocks but the compounding of all of them in rapid succession made the response especially challenging. The region seemed to be experiencing an acceleration of unpredictability in the shocks it was being subjected to.
Funding assistance was being made available at national and state levels but tended to be reactive to each disaster rather than being available to do meaningful preemptive strategic planning and action.
The Response:
While the series of compounding shocks occurred between 2019-2022 the foundation for the response actually started in 2015 when Metropolitan Sydney joined the 100 Resilient Cities initiative. With no metropolitan government in place, the Resilient Sydney program brought together the 33 local government authorities (Councils) across Sydney. Their approach was a three-stage process – 1. Establishing a strategic framework; 2. Prioritization of initiatives; and 3. Initial actions.
This involved extensive efforts at all three levels of government and turned into one of the largest community engagement and political processes in Sydney’s history.
“Don’t waste a good disaster!”
Beck Dawson described the mandate of the Resilient Sydney initiative with the urgency of the four shocks propelling their efforts forward. This involved an extensive community outreach process in all of Sydney’s 33 Councils (similar to townships) that constitute the larger metro region. It put in motion not only a comprehensive feedback loop on what the specific issues were in each council, but also a governance structure that created a direct line of communication and chain of command from the smallest community-based organization all the way up the state political leadership. This – according to Beck – has probably been the most valuable outcome of the region’s efforts to date. In fact relatively few concrete actions had been implemented at the time of my visit in the way of building resilient infrastructure, etc. However the region’s ability to react and respond effectively to shocks and stresses has increased significantly through a strong “relationship-based” governance structure.
Recognition of shocks vs stresses and known vs unknown threats:
One of the most important outcomes of this extensive process has been gaining a deeper understanding of the impacts communities are being subjected to and the differentiation between shocks and stresses. Shocks are those events that materialize suddenly and for which a community must be able to react quickly – bushfires, COVID, floods, etc. The shocks are sometimes predictable to a degree, but often not. Through predictive modelling it’s difficult to know when a freak storm will happen outside the parameters of our usual models of 10-, 50- and 100-year storms. So while we can generally start modelling the chang-
Resilience challenges of concern to Willoughby residents (Willoughby City Council Community Perception and Resilience Survey, Micromex Research, Willoughby City Council, December 2020)
ing conditions of climate change and take actions to prepare for a higher likelihood of extreme events, we can’t know exactly what extreme event will come when or, more importantly, its severity.
Stresses are those persistent, chronic conditions that put strains on a community. Things related to the cost of housing, job security, work/life balance, mental health and increasing heat. These stresses are predictable because we see them all around us and we can take actions to better address them. If we do so, the impacts of unexpected shocks will be less because the community is working from a more stable foundation. To address the stresses side of the equation, Sydney’s resilience engagement process highlighted the need for much stronger social services, housing policy, etc. Much of that stronger support web could then also be activated to react to shocks when they come. Another way of looking at it is that we are dealing with two buckets of needs – predictable and unpredictable. For the predictable needs, we can plan, strengthen and build right away. For unpredictable needs we need to have the capacity to react, so we need to build that capacity.
Place-based approach:
An overriding theme of the work to date of this massive regional effort is that solutions must be placebased. All councils are geographically distinct and have different sets of vulnerabilities and challenges. Therefore their solutions need to be tailored accordingly. Broad-brush solutions across the Metropolitan region are much less effective. So in order to make sure specific, place-based needs are being met, the highly developed governance structure described above plays a key role. Two of the Sydney Councils represented in the forum spoke eloquently about the specificity of their Councils’ needs.
Willoughby City Council developed a Strategic and Action Plan that identifies actions in 4 categories: Resilient People – addressing issues of mental health, car dependency and poverty; Resilient Buildings – addressing issues of property damage in extreme weather events and bushfires and affordability; Resilient Places – addressing issues of drought, declining bio-diversity and waste management; and Resilient Governance – addressing issues of digital disruption and capacity-building.7
Campbelltown City Council frames their issues and needs in terms of resilience to stresses – such as vulnerable populations, homelessness, domestic violence and food insecurity; shocks – such as bushfires, infrastructure failure, heatwaves, disease pandemics and flooding; and resilience hazards – such as disruption to services, overwhelming of services, inadequate infrastructure, non-recognition of indigenous knowledge and erosion of community identity. Their plan – still in process – had not finalized all of
the needed actions at the time of my visit however, preliminarily, needed attention had been identified to strengthening of city services including social services.8
Two important over-arching themes arose from the discussion. The first is the importance of giving adequate funding to the “democratization” of the process – allowing for all the needed engagement to ensure full understanding of issues and the development of meaningful, place-based actions for each community. In other words, don’t underfund the engagement process!
The second is the importance of understanding the indigenous perspective. As I discussed earlier in this article, indigenous heritage offers deep understanding of place-based natural systems and cultural practices (known as “Connecting with Country”). These can form the basis for a strong strategic frameworks moving forward if we make the effort to engage and understand. Australia has made some inroads into better integrating First Nations heritage into the cultural mainstream but self-admittedly has a long way to go. The US is arguably that much further behind – and Canada, somewhere in between.
To develop meaningful and enduring resilience strategies we must be intimately in tune with the communities that are being affected by climate impacts, developing hyper-local place-based strategies that are highly integrated with natural processes and cultural traditions.
Jim Stickley is a Principal at WRT, an interdisciplinary planning and design firm focused on advancing equity and resilience in urban communities.
7 Resilient Willoughby Strategy & Action Plan, October 2021
8 Campbelltown City Council – Toward a Thriving City, AECOM, Sept, 2022