Australia,uranium and nuclear power

The nuclear debate in Australia is shaped by the nation's substantial base of energy resources, including its large reserves of uranium and recent rises in the market price of uranium. But the debate also echoes Australia's past in the development of programs for nuclear weapons. The proposals include uranium enrichment, the storage of nuclear waste in Australia, and the introduction of nuclear reactors. A national inquiry has been instituted by the government. These developments, stemming from a range of factors, have revived the opposition to uranium mining and nuclear power which has for two decades held a dominant role in Australian politics. The issue of what should be Australia's energy path in a time of climate change is beginning to be examined. The importance of the decisions, whether to be a player in the nuclear club with its attendant multiple hazards, or to play a quite different leadership role in the development and adoption of sustainable energy strategies and technologies, cannot be exaggerated.     

Spatial Inequality and Locational Disadvantage: New Perspectives on an Old Debate

The group of papers within this Forum represent the contents of a seminar on spatial inequality in Australia's cities organised by the Geography Discipline, Flinders University of South Australia. The seminar addressed two important issues for urban policy and research in Australia, the spatial pattern of disadvantage within Australia's cities and recent Federal initiatives in this area. In the early 1990s the Federal Government used its major policy reviews and research programs to commission a number of studies into the structure of our cities. Their findings were, to a certain extent at least, at odds with the commonly accepted view of Australian cities (see for example, Stretton 1989; Badcock 1984) because they challenged the image of the outer suburbs as areas of pronounced disadvantage (see Burgess and Skeltys 1992; NHS 1992a; and Maher el al. 1992). They have been the source of some unease within the academic community.     

Housing Policy,Housing Assistance and the Wellbeing Dividend: Developing an Evidence Base for Post-GFC Economies

This paper discusses the recent evolution, at a time of turmoil within global financial markets, of Australia's housing system and considers the effectiveness of housing assistance responses formulated to assist lo- income Australians. Following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), housing was recast in the public and political consciousness and received substantial policy attention. In this era of rapidly declining housing affordability as well as threats to the supply of housing finance, the Australian Government renewed its approach to housing assistance. The paper examines housing assistance in Australia and assesses individual outcomes in terms of a ‘wellbeing dividend’. It draws upon on a survey of 1700 low-income households to examine individual outcomes for health and wellbeing across three of Australia's major forms of housing assistance. The research clearly shows that while housing assistance makes a positive contribution to wellbeing, not all forms of assistance are equal.     

Regional Cities In The Australian Urban System, 1961-1991

This paper examines change in the economic functions of Australia's regional cities and the relationship between industry structure and growth rates. It considers the role of regional cities within the national economy and suggests that they are becoming a more significant part of the national urban system. Labour force and population data indicate that while regional cities are growing more quickly than Australia as a whole, there are substantial variations between cities. The paper goes on to discuss functional classifications of Australia's regional cities based on the 1961, 1976 and 1991 Censuses and highlight the emergence of new functions over this period. It is argued that while the highest rates of growth have occurred amongst cities with economies founded on tourism, retirement and recreation, development has not been limited to these centres. The paper also considers the reasons why this research presents a picture of change within the urban system that is at odds with the views of other writers.     

Financing Urban Infrastructure: Old Ideas in New Guises

We shall have to think again about the way in which we finance urban infrastructure. These are difficult times for urban development; even more so for meeting public needs. The most optimistic interpretation is to say that we are going through a period of economic restructuring following (or is it still preceding?) a low point in the long cycle of world economic growth: what we can look forward to, with luck, is sustained growth in the 1990s. But we are not there yet. For the next decade economic conditions will remain harsh, especially in an exposed economy like Australia's.     

Innovation or episodes? Multi-scalar analysis of governance change in urban regeneration policy in South Korea

Governance-beyond-the-state has been widely adopted in urban politics in recent decades of global neoliberalism. However, how the governance change actually takes place in the planning system needs careful substantiation and contextualisation. By applying the ‘levels of governance’ concept, this paper examines diverse factors of governance innovation with a reference to the recent participatory urban regeneration policy in South Korea. Through multi-scalar analysis of the comparative case studies of three districts in the city of Daegu, we explain a combination of various factors at the local level that has a significant influence on governance innovation. We also highlight that governance innovation is engendered on the basis of the material and relational resources available at other spatial scales and involves multi-scalar institutional restructuring. This multi-scalar dimension would broaden our understanding of what makes governance change possible and how it takes place.     

What’s Critical about Critical Infrastructure?

Abstract

Critical infrastructure (CI) has received much attention in research, policy and political discussions in recent years, following concern over exposure of infrastructure to terrorist attack, disruption through disasters, rising awareness of the interdependent nature of infrastructure in modern urban systems, and changes in the ownership of and responsibility for infrastructure assets. In this paper, we explore the implications of different framings of both “critical” and “infrastructure”, through two questions: critical how and for whom; critical when and at what scale? Framings of CI, and their increasingly important manifestations in policy and law, have deep but too-often unexposed implications: the lines drawn between what is defined as critical and that which is not concerns not only the physical or informational assets, but the inclusion/exclusion of communities and their places and values as important aspects of modern urban governance. We argue that a better understanding of what is critical about urban infrastructure is not just recognition of their vulnerability and interconnectedness, but also of the key linkages between critical infrastructure and human and environmental system integrity and equity within the context of capitalist urbanisation.     

Policy Review: Reforming Private Housing Finance: Evaluating the Achievements of the Clinton Administration

The financial infrastructure of guarantees, insurance and regulation that underpins US housing markets is an important federal policy tool. Historically, housing policy in the US has relied much more heavily on regulating private market actors to achieve public goals, than it has on direct expenditures. But the commonalities between the US and restructured welfare states such as the UK and Canada have become more striking in recent decades. Similar dilemmas face policy makers in many settings: if homeownership is to be the centerpiece of housing policy, how do we ensure it is affordable and sustainable for those once served by a larger social housing sector? If direct expenditures are to be cut back, with what do we replace them? The story of the Clinton administration's efforts to reform the US financial infrastructure illustrates how these dilemmas have been addressed (although obviously not resolved) in a specific instance.     

Social Justice and the Centralisation of Governance in the Australian Metropolis: A Case Study of Melbourne

The prodigious, low-density spread of the Australian metropolis is creating communities of divergent aspirations and diminished social mobility. To a large degree, these patterns can be attributed to structural economic change, characterised by powerful centripetal tendencies within high value added, ‘knowledge-intensive’ and globally linked industries. However, reforms in metropolitan governance have also played a part. As evidenced in Melbourne, most Australian cities have seen a steady centralisation of planning, infrastructure and development facilitation functions into State Governments, the only constitutionally recognised sphere of governance in Australia besides the Commonwealth (federal) government. The upshot is that metropolitan communities effectively have no voice for their collective will. Many urban policy initiatives and investments that may have mitigated some of the socially adverse features of the modern economy have been foregone or implemented in a desultory manner. Moreover, these foregone opportunities to foster a more compact and connected metropolis have diminished human capital accumulation to the detriment of Australian productivity and competitiveness. Reinstatement of a metropolitan governance forum, with its own democratic mandate and fiscal capacity, to operate separately from, but in cooperation with, state and local governments, may be necessary if the trends in social division and lost productivity in the Australian city are to be reversed.     

Unstable Immigrant Concentrations in Amsterdam: Spatial Segregation and Integration of Newcomers

Watching the profound changes in the last decades in virtually any big city in Western Europe in the field of migration, minority and ethnicity, many national and urban governments in Europe fear for large spatial concentrations of immigrants who originate from non-industrialised countries. The basic assumption behind that attitude seems to be that large concentrations of (ethnic) immigrants would prevent their full integration and thus participation in society. Such a risk of insufficient integration would particularly be great when the immigrant population occupies the lower positions of the socio-economic ladder. However, two things should be investigated with care. First, what are the actual explanations for the social and spatial divisions that are encountered in cities? What does that imply for the (spatial) inequality in Dutch cities? Second, what can be said about the effects of recent changes that can be observed with respect to the explanatory dimensions in the Dutch context? How do these compare to the actual size and stability over recent years of the spatial patterns of immigrants? Popular images of the processes of immigration describe the development of 'ethnic ghettos'. These would particularly develop where state intervention in the spheres of housing and in many other spheres is small or, as in the Netherlands, is declining. This paper investigates whether that view does justice to the actual development, applying micro-level data on immigrant settlement patterns in the city of Amsterdam over the period 1994-99. It is argued that ethnic residential concentrations tend not to be stable and are just growing areal units, but many changes can be shown, which may reflect processes of housing careers and of integration in society.     

Making Children Matter in Slum Transformations: Lessons from India's National Urban Renewal Mission

This paper looks at two successful slum redevelopment projects under India's flagship urban renewal mission, which mandate citizen participation and inclusive planning to create planned equitable cities. It examines how children's concerns are addressed and children's well-being is affected in the best of projects. The two case studies represent different design and planning approaches to in-situ redevelopment: (1) replacing the slum with flats; and (2) selective infill houses. The paper, in discussing the planning and design process adopted by the two projects, seeks to answer the question: what can urban design learn from children's use and activities in the urban space of slums to provide qualitatively superior local areas, and from children's perceptions of slum upgrading and redevelopment?     

The Father of the House: An Interview With Tom Uren

Tom Uren was the Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam government, and Minister for Local Government and Administrative Services in the first and second Hawke governments. After the July 1987 election, he decided he no longer wanted a ministerial position and now is an active backbencher in the third Hawke government. He has been a prinicpal architect behind serveral significant changes in intergovernment relations in his periods in office. He was Australia's first federal minister for local government. He has long been an advocate for regional cooperation amongst local councils, and an enhanced role for local government in providing services. Local government now has guaranteed funding from the federal level. As the minister for DURD he led the most profound review of the commonwealth's role in urban and regional planning. Growth centres, National Heritage, improved urban infrastructure and social equity became key elements of urban and regional planning in the 1970s.     

Does the classic American main street still exist? An exploratory look

The classic American main street ? walkable, well-serviced and supportive of mom and pop stores ? has been struggling for decades. This paper attempts to quantify the degree to which the American main street, or some aspects of it, still hangs on. It presents an exploratory, large sample look at the degree to which the blocks of one US city, Chicago, actually conform to idealized main street principles. The paper offers both an empirical and a methodological contribution: what metrics might be used to capture main street principles, and how does a large city like Chicago stack up to these stated norms? Eight variables are operationalized at the block level. While the metrics here do not reflect absolute consensus about what is important in an urban neighbourhood’s commercial core, they do cover three dominant narratives: servicing, opportunity and quality. The paper finds that the overlap in these three dimensions is weak.     

What developing countries' past energy policies can tell us about energy issues today? Lessons from the expropriation of American Foreign and Power in Brazil (1959–1965)

This paper supports those who believe that history can provide invaluable insights for understanding recent shortcomings in the energy sector. Focussing on the political economy of Brazil's past energy policy, the paper analyzes how foreign companies, federal government, and international interests have shaped outcomes in the sector. For this, the expropriation of Amforp's in the Brazilian electric sector shows that what could be settled by a juridical agreement between the company and the government became an US–Brazilian diplomatic issue. The paper analyses these diplomatic agreements, showing how it changed the role played by the Brazilian state in the electric power sector.     

Local Innovation And Global Change: ‘Remaking The Welfare State’ In Sweden1

Swedish urban planning and housing policies have been seen as exemplars by many Australian policy makers. The mixture of state activism, strong local government, broad concepts of welfare policy and social housing, coupled with wide community acceptance of these ideals, has enabled major innovations in housing policy. This article describes the historical background and recent changes to these policies within Sweden's changing political framework. It also shows that global fiscal changes, coupled with Sweden's entry into the ‘federalising’ European Union, have changed the context of these policies. Swedish housing and urban policy is changing; Swedish local government has a strong role in the development and implementation of these changing policies. There are many interesting lessons for Australian urban policy in these changes.     

Urban conservation in Lijiang,China: Power structure and funding systems

Over recent decades, urban conservation has become an important strategy to improve urban competitiveness in the global economy. Insufficient attention has been paid to how urban conservation is governed and funded. Drawing on Lijiang Ancient Town, a Chinese World Heritage city, this study examines the power structure and funding systems of urban conservation, how social groups negotiate with the state in this process, and how this framework of governance and funding fits the general patterns of neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics. It argues that the framework turns urban heritage into a growth machine and strengthens the state’s politico-economic power. It also reveals that the entrepreneurial governance strategies are implicated in the interaction between state institutions and social groups. This paper will unravel how different forces can influence the conservation of heritage, and will contribute to an understanding of urban governance in Chinese cities.     

Collaborative governance: A potential approach to preventing violent demolition in China

Due to the unbalanced and confrontational state-citizen relationship, China's urban redevelopment has been accompanied with continuous violent conflicts, which to a large extent damages the public image of Chinese government in recent years. This article first overviews the governance dilemma underlying China's violent demolition from the perspective of institutional arrangement, and then argues a collaborative approach can be a remedy for the dilemma. After the introduction and definition of collaborative governance, this article demonstrates its application in preventing violent demolition with the Caojiaxiang project in Chengdu as a case. It is found that collaborative governance is advantageous in enhancing the legitimacy of governance, increasing the potential to find effective solutions, and enhancing the trust between government and citizens. Despite the disadvantages of collaborative governance, including limited effect and the dependence on social capital, quality of stakeholders' interaction and leadership, this paper argues the success of Caojiaxiang project may be duplicated given the following institutional requirements are met: 1) an institutional procedure to establish and operate evictees' association in urban redevelopment projects; 2) an effective complaint system for the upper-level government to monitor the malpractice of lower-level government; and 3) an judicial system independent of local governments and legal proceeding over any illegal behavior in demolition.     

Daniel Burnham and Australia's Federal Capital, 1893–1912

Celebrated architect and city planner Daniel Hudson Burnham enjoyed a rise to fame in the aftermath of his widely acclaimed achievement as Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition, held in his adopted Chicago in 1893. Roughly in parallel with Burnham's rise, town planning movements were coalescing in Australia, and it would not be long until the Chicagoan's name was circulating in Australian professional circles. This is a pilot study broadly aimed at chronicling and interpreting Australian awareness of Daniel Burnham at the turn of the twentieth century. More specifically, it is concerned with the reception of Burnham's civic design ideals and why some believed them to be of antipodean relevance. Their Australian impact, however, is beyond the present study's scope. Reciprocally, this essay also surveys Burnham's knowledge of Australia. Special emphasis is given to Burnham within the context of the Australia's Federal Capital competition (1912), arguing that although the Chicagoan did not compete, he profoundly, albeit vicariously, impacted the capital's design.     

Beyond Le Corbusier and the modernist city: reframing Chandigarh's ‘World Heritage’ legacy

Mounting concern about the slow progress of the drive to reconstruct Britain's cities in the late 1940s and 1950s led to a sustained debate about strategies and priorities. This paper offers insight into the climate of ideas of a key period in the recent past by considering the work of the Society for the Promotion of Urban Renewal (SPUR). A pressure group that campaigned for resuscitation of urban reconstruction under the banner of ‘urban renewal’, SPUR staged exhibitions and published manifestoes that reasserted core urban values, reconfigured decentralization on an intraurban basis, proposed multi-level circulation systems and, latterly, sought to redress the balance of rehabilitation and conservation strategies against comprehensive redevelopment. After a contextual introduction, the opening section of this paper clarifies two key concepts – ‘reconstruction’ and ‘renewal’ – that shaped thinking about the replanning of British cities in the early postwar period. The ensuing sections analyse the origins and founding ideals of SPUR and examine its key projects and manifestoes. The conclusion reflects on consensus and plurality in the group's work in the context of wider currents of thought about urban renewal.     

Transforming Australia's Social Housing: Pointers from the British Stock Transfer Experience

The expanding provision of affordable housing by non-profit community housing organisations, coupled with possibilities of substantial stock transfer from State Housing Authorities, suggest Australia's social housing sector may be entering a transformative phase. Based on a review of restructuring in Britain, where over the last 25 years, traditionally owned and managed ‘council housing’ has been reduced from over 90 per cent to less than 30 per cent of overall social housing stock, this article considers possible policy implications for Australia. In particular, it analyses British experience which could inform Australian decisions on organisational size, institutional vehicles and governance structures within the context of the future programme of stock transfers envisaged by many commentators on the Australian housing scene.