Introduction
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extend the scale and scope of the urban co-design process to encompass multi-scale, cross-sector, and multi-agent connectivity and decision making, in support of more integrated, evolutionary and transformational change;
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develop a shared knowledge framework through the co-design process supplemented by insights from the international literature; and
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identify through co-design some high leverage focal areas that are essential for urban sustainability, and related trade-offs and synergies at various scales, drawing initially on the experience of multiple Australian cities.
Policy and decision drivers | Examples of issues identified that influence actual decisions |
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Overarching drivers
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Extent of shared vision, goals and leadership at multiple levels | Very variable levels of leadership, and of engagement with stakeholders and communities, across levels of government; short-termism of electoral cycles versus the need for sustained long-term planning; unclear translation of goals to local or project implementations, and to agreed indicators of success |
Extent of systemic and enabling policy cohesion | Lack of consistent national government direction and coordinated policies and governance across other levels/sectors; including policies to address many of the more specific drivers below, in order to turn barriers into enablers |
More specific drivers
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Specific urban context (e.g. geomorphology; history of development; etc.) | Extent of land available for new development influences ‘sprawl’ (e.g. Melbourne has more than Sydney); centrally planned decisions legacy (e.g. very strong in Canberra) |
Social drivers | Citizens’ consumption behaviours diverge from stated values (e.g. on sharing and waste); growing urban social issues and disadvantage often hidden from view (e.g. income and wealth inequality; unemployment and entrenched poverty) |
Environmental drivers | Lack of appreciation of the value of ecosystem services notwithstanding pollution, waste and natural resource systems depletion/degradation; limited investment in green/blue (living) infrastructure |
Economic and financial drivers | Difficulty matching economic development (and jobs) with housing locations; greenfield (vs. infill, and especially ‘greyfield’) development easier economically for governments and developers in the short term; business cases do not reflect externalities and life-cycle costs and benefits; problems mobilising financial capital to include sustainability considerations, including value capture; gaps in practice between ‘as designed’, ‘as built’ and ‘as operated’ performance, suggesting better whole-of-life-cycle approaches needed; sustainability accreditation schemes focus more on buildings than the broader scale |
Institutional and organisational drivers | Political cycles and influence; difficulty changing a system that is controlled by a powerful minority (incumbents) who benefit from that system; risk averse planning cultures; lack of consistent and coherent policy and governance across levels/sectors; limited governance transparency and accountability |
Technology drivers and new business models | Need to open up access and speed up response to high potential but potentially disruptive technologies (e.g. peer to peer systems and collaborative consumption—Uber etc.; crowd funding; ‘B’ Corporations or Social Enterprises); need to integrate technology with social and institutional change, and new ideas of shareholder value |
Spatial and temporal scale complexities | Intrinsic difficulty in evaluation and governance of complex cross-scale issues |
Urban planning issues, strategies and practices | Traditional planning (and related professions) focus on urban form and design that is often formulaic using old ‘planning manuals’ and neglecting people and ‘place-making’; planning not well connected to urban ‘processes’ and ‘metabolisms’; political lobbying of powerful private interests distorting ‘public good’ planning; economic development considerations override planning principles |
Knowledge, innovation and learning drivers | Limitations on data and credible modelling capabilities, especially across various scales and in support of more integrated and transformational change; need for better evidence base to move from local innovation to scaling up, and speeding up, the transfer and translation of ‘solutions’ into diverse local contexts; need to motivate and activate multiple distributed actors for innovation |
The co-design and co-production process
A knowledge framework for sustainable urban development
Component A: Urban goals and decision making
Component B: Understanding how complex urban systems behave and evolve
Component C: Urban outcomes over time
Component D: Key focal areas for action
Insights on Australian urban issues from the co-design process
Understanding the gaps between stated intent and actual implementation
More compact form rather than continuing urban sprawl | |
Productive agricultural land and connected landscapes protected | |
Polycentric city with distributed activity and job growth centres | |
Reduced car dependency, increased public transport, ‘30 min city’ | |
Place-based mixed-use development allied with transport corridors and hubs | |
Mixed-use and more self-contained communities | |
More distributed infrastructure (e.g. water, energy, food) | |
More self-sufficiency in food, water, energy through, for example, urban agriculture, water sensitive urban design, rooftop solar/renewables | |
Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) | |
Increased focus on blue and green (living) infrastructure | |
Physical and social infrastructure that facilitates diverse social interaction, supporting creative innovation | |
Neighbourhoods and entire metropolitan areas that are walkable and cyclable | |
Greater housing choice, more compact and affordable housing, more quality shared spaces (public and utility spaces) | |
Circular economy with reduced resources usage/waste/emissions and ecological footprint | |
Low carbon, climate resilient strategies with emphasis on coherent strategies so that decarbonisation and resilience achieved concurrently |
Strategic focal areas for integrated and transformational change
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clarifying the roles of the city in the development of the broader region (Neuman and Hull 2009), including concepts of the ‘polycentric region’, and recognition that urban and rural systems are strongly coupled;
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clarifying the relative value of development and infrastructure investment in the inner vs middle vs outer suburbs, including approaches to the ‘polycentric city’, central vs distributed industry and job locations, and the desire to reduce urban sprawl; and
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resolving sector and cross-sector issues that traverse the city scale, including new approaches and strategic investments in key interconnected metropolitan infrastructure and service networks: energy, water, transport and food (e.g. Newton 2012, 2013). This includes issues such as centralised vs distributed energy, water and food infrastructure; understanding cross-sector interactions, trade-offs and synergies (e.g. the urban food–energy–water nexus (GIZ and ICLEI 2014), and the urban planning/infrastructure–transport–health nexus (Bai et al. 2012)); and reinforcing links from these to local and city-wide decarbonisation and climate adaptation strategies.
Regional scale
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Urban growth vs. maintaining peri-urban/rural land uses and livelihoods | |
Resolving food—energy—water nexus issues | |
Metropolitan/local council scale
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Activity growth centres: larger number of smaller centres (more distributed) vs. smaller number of larger centres (more centralised) | |
Increased density vs. pressure on local space, environment, micro-climates | |
Public transport benefits vs. current/growing automobile-based road investments | |
Local council/precinct scale
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Land use zoning and regeneration: conflicting values and vested interest pressures | |
Centralised infrastructure interests vs. decentralised innovation, benefits | |
Asset hazard management strategies: protect vs. accommodate vs. retreat | |
Household scale
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Greater affluence and expectations vs. drive for smaller living/working spaces, reduced consumption, | |
Climate resilient building materials vs. sustainable building materials vs. cost |
Higher density, distributed activity growth centres connected through mass/electrified/integrated/active transport—agglomeration benefits; less travel time; reduced resource use/pollution; community resilience and health benefits; economic benefits | |
Regeneration of settlements/precincts with distributed energy, water, food infrastructure and enhanced green, blue, social infrastructure—more housing/work choice; local community ownership/cohesion; greater accessibility; lower footprint; more resilience; stronger ecosystem services; community amenity; health benefits; economic value generation | |
Reduced sprawl, preservation and improvement of hinterland/peri-urban natural and agricultural assets—improved natural resources services, access and quality; amenity and tourism; broader economic value and livelihoods; health benefits | |
More sustainable industry, business, household resource use, consumption and waste management—resource efficiency; less waste (food, water, energy, materials, pollution, GHG); improved diet/nutrition; multiple health benefits; economic savings | |
Direct climate adaptation measures (e.g. risk mitigation; impact cascade, contingency emergency and health services planning)—community resilience; health benefits; reduced economic losses | |
Green growth and green business development—innovation and opportunity; economic benefits |
Discussion and conclusions
Reflections on urban policy and decision making
Developing systemic, multi-faceted and multi-layered responses
Broader framing of individual urban issues: At all scales
Addressing the urban planning and design dilemma
Innovation in institutions, governance and engagement
Reflections on supportive and collaborative research
Taking an integrating ‘whole-of-system’ perspective
Drawing on multiple disciplines, frameworks and methodologies
Developing metropolitan-scale, cross-sector and behavioural models and data
Assisting in the translation of learning from others
Reflections on the co-production process and taking the agenda forward
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Starting the engagement process primarily with government stakeholders at various levels and across jurisdictions is useful, as they are likely to take the broadest perspective and are closest to being ‘owners of the system’ on behalf of the communities they represent. They also have the potential to set a more coherent ‘multi-level’ governance framework that can facilitate the actions of other non-government decision makers.
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However, no one owns the whole system so it is necessary at an early stage to also engage with private and community sector stakeholders, even at the broad national and international agenda-setting stage. These stakeholders will bring their own values and priorities, and some will be potential collaborative partners and resource providers going forward.
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Running a good practice co-design/co-production process is no guarantee by itself that findings will be taken up in practice. It is especially a challenge to establish stakeholder ownership of complex multi-level issues, and the necessary cross-organisational leadership to challenge traditional institutional thinking. In the Australian context, and to complement and support ground-up initiatives, this will require more coherent national and sub-national government policy direction, sustained beyond short-term election cycles, and including facilitation of the multi-level processes.
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Pursuing a collaborative agenda of this nature is a long-term process, requiring sustained program management, team building, and development of relationships built on trust. As it is likely in practice to be implemented by multiple, independently funded projects, the challenge is to coordinate and integrate these efforts to progress the overall agenda. This also requires continuing commitment and shared leadership.
Collaborative activity | Comments/examples |
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Internationally: link to international networks including Future Earth Urban Knowledge Action Network (global and regional) Australia: Build on existing collaborative programs (e.g. Cooperative Research Centres for Low Carbon Living and for Water Sensitive Cities; the ‘Visions and Pathways 2040’ project) | |
Map and consolidate (or link) knowledge into more integrated and accessible platforms, initially drawing on existing research and knowledge bases, drilling down from a shared overarching knowledge framework (e.g. Fig. 2) | The need to improve synthesis, translation and application of existing as well as new knowledge, was identified as crucial. This included sector-oriented knowledge, though the most significant gaps identified were at the integrated systems level |
Move from co-design to co-production of new integrated knowledge in identified priority areas, through specific collaborative research projects | Priorities could for example be identified from the high leverage strategic urban issues identified (e.g. “Strategic focal areas for integrated and transformational change” section/Fig. 3 in the Australian context), with framing that includes critical trade-offs and synergies. This would advance systems-based and transformational collaborative research in specific cities and contexts |
Initiating meta-studies and comparative case studies across multiple cities, to yield insights on potential solutions, and on the extent to which (or context in which) they may be transferable | Most useful when international. Through the co-design process, examples from several Australian jurisdictions were identified as potential case studies, often drawing on urban initiatives already completed or under way |
Continuing to develop an overarching knowledge framework (or equivalent) through further collaborative activity | The knowledge framework at Fig. 2 evolved iteratively throughout the co-design process, and also built on other existing frameworks. It should continue to evolve in practical use, as a vehicle to enhance shared understanding and practical application |