182 research outputs found
The NSW (Australia) Planning Reforms and their Implications for Planning Education and Natural and Built Environment
No full textPlanning reforms in NSW have gathered pace. In the past few years, the state government has churned out a series of reforms. These reforms are becoming more urgent in their rhetoric and more dramatic in their impacts. The reforms have included planFrist, BASIX, standardization of LEP, changes to the major projects regime, and changes to the development contribution system. Near the end of 2007, another set of major reforms was proposed through a discussion paper, and some of these reforms have already been speedily legislated. These reforms are being enacted to achieve economic efficiency through uniformity in the planning system across jurisdictions, simplicity and speed for the developers, delivery through electronic systems (ePlanning), development assessment by independent panels and private certifiers, and flexibility via voluntary mechanisms (planning agreements). It has been argued that the reforms are necessary because they are taking place internationally and in other parts of Australia. Contrarily, some sections of the society feel that the reforms are a power grab by the state government or that they are an outcome of the strong influence of the development lobby. On the other hand, a number of planning scholars believe planning reforms are a natural and inevitable outcome of the ascendance of the neo-liberal economic order of the past two to three decades. This paper reviews the motivations behind planning reforms and discuses the profound implications that changes in the planning system in NSW have for natural and built environments in the state.
Geoinformatics for guiding industrial location in Punjab Pakistan
No full textThe way industries are located in a region has profound impact on its environment. Urban and regional planners have been mostly concerned with locating industries for economic development. Environmental impact assessment (eia) has been their main tool for dealing with environmental issues related with industrial locations. Even the new glorified form of eia, strategic environmental assessment (sea), is for evaluating plans and programs and not a theoretical approach that could form the basis of policy formulation for industrial locations. This paper presents a new approach that attempts at determining the types and volumes of industries that may be allowed in different parts of a region without violating the limits natural environment. The new environment-based approach is meant to be for developing countries and its application has been demonstrated in a case study of Punjab province, Pakistan. Using the understanding of planning support systems and the conditions in the study region, the environment-based approach was translated into a methodology having four modules. The first three analytical modules cover three important aspects of regional planning (land, water, accessibility) and are a fair cross-section of current techniques (gis based overlay methods, hydrological modeling and location/allocation methods). The fourth and last module sheds light at the policy and planning implications of the findings of the three earlier modules of the methodology
Better awareness for better natural hazards preparedness in Pakistan
No full textone each from the categories of geophysical hazards and hydro-meteorological hazards, where knowledge and awareness is lacking and where improvements in the same can lead to better adaptation and preparedness. The first case study discusses mitigation of seismic hazards to non-engineered buildings through better knowledge of low-cost structural engineering solutions. It is demonstrated that seismic performance of these structures can be improved from life-safety viewpoint by adopting simple low-cost modifications to the existing construction practices. The second study points at lack of awareness among local planning officials of climate change impacts leading to water scarcity and flood hazards at different times. The research demonstrates a lack of institutional capacity in Pakistan that was discovered through primary research conducted for this study. Tit was found there are common themes across the two very different case studies and there are common lessons that can be learnt for hazard preparedness in Pakistan
Sustainable transport: Bridging the gap between policy rhetoric and action
No full textThe State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research.
This paper was presented at SOAC 4 held in Perth from 24 to 27 November 2009.
SOAC 4 was hosted by the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, Edith Cowan University and Murdoch University and held at The University of Western of Australia’s Crawley campus.SOAC 4 was a collaborative venture between colleagues from the planning, geography and related disciplines across the four public universities.
The meta-theme of this conference - city growth, sustainability, vitality and vulnerability – sought to capture the dynamic and complex nature and contexts in which Australian cities find themselves in the early 21st century.
The last decade or so has seen Australian cities and many of their residents benefit from significant economic prosperity. With this economic prosperity, largely on the back of a resources boom, Australian cities and resources and mineral-rich regions, particularly in Queensland and in WA, have been subjected to profound demographic, social, economic, environmental and political changes. In the wake of the so-called ‘global financial crisis’ we have witnessed the rise of what might be called ‘neo-Keynesianism’ as various liberal democratic nations have pumped billions of dollars into their national economies via ‘bail outs’ or a stimulus package’ in an effort to stave off economic recession. The economic prosperity and more recent uncertainty that has been experienced in the last decade provides a fascinating and dare we say it a timely backdrop to critically reflect on the condition of urban Australia.
All published papers have been subject to a peer reviewing process
Cities within a city : the NSW (Australia) planning policy divergence
No full textThe shaping of any policy depends on the broader dynamics of power (Richardson, 1996). Indeed, state-led reinforcement of gentrification has become prototypical of neoliberal urban planning policies that supports the preferences of a specific class of people (Hochstenbach & Musterd, 2018). The background to these deviations lies in the neo-liberal political hegemony (Randolph & Tice, 2017), disregard for implications of urban planning reforms in different parts of the city and selective application of urban planning policies (Piracha, 2016; Saulwick, 2017). Urban planning policy consequences have been wicked and have progressively detached from tangible urban outcomes (Troy, 2018). As the socially deprived people have shifted into the suburbs, they have become increasingly distanced from opportunities (Kneebone & Holmes, 2015). Lee et al. (2018) argued for the development of affordable housing in the north, generate more white-collar jobs in the west and south, and improved public transport connectivity in Sydney to reduce the NIMBY-Land and Bogan-Land division. The socially just city should be designed in a way that all groups of the society are included (Schmitt & Hartmann, 2016). The urban policy should endeavour to establish an equitable and just city to ensure social harmony and opportunities for all in Sydney. It is acknowledged, this paper is limited to recent urban policy changes of Sydney/NSW and used secondary research methods only. However, this paper has shown light on the greater Sydney inequalities caused by the urban policy changes. This paper also describes how community resistance by affluent parts of the city is leading to unequal application of urban policies and thus patronizing urban discrimination. The scenario of greater Sydney is not necessarily unique, this sort of imbalance in urban policy application might be present in others part of the world. This paper can serve as template to study the socio-economic division in other cities
Who am I? Analysing Digital Personas in Cybercrime Investigations
No full textOnline cybercrime activities often involve criminals hiding behind multiple identities (so-called digital personas). Unraveling these multiple digital personas is a non-trivial problem owing to the large amounts of text communicated in online social media and the large numbers of digital personas involved. The cognitive load for cybercrime investigators is immense { existing tools lack the sophisticated capabilities required to analyse digital personas in order to provide investigators with clues to the identity of the individual or group hiding behind one or more personas. In this article, we present the Isis toolkit which addresses this very problem
Water conservation of Pakistan's agricultural, municipal and industrial water
No full textPakistan is located in semiarid to arid region where rainfall is highly deficient and does not match the crop requirements. Agriculture of country is mostly dependent on Indus River System (IRS). IRS maintains World’s largest integrated irrigation network called Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS). Like other developing countries the population of cities and municipalities are increasing abnormally. The precious resource of water is scarce in this semi arid country. Pakistan is faced with the challenge of meeting the needs and aspirations of a very large population with very low natural and human resource base. The natural resources including energy and water are scarce in this semi arid country. The water situation is likely to be worsened by melting of glaciers as an outcome of global warming. Rapid development, management and protection of water resources have to be an integral element in a suite of policies to be developed to meet the environmental challenges faced by this country. This paper investigates and argues a case for changing mindset among policy makers and regional planners the water conservation, management and governance practices required in agriculture, municipal and Industrial sectors of the Pakistan can be adopted globally in the developing world based on last 2 decade data and based on the population growth and demographic trends forecast for the year 2025. The results show that water can be conserved by avoiding water pollution due to industries; by controlling population of the cities and municipalities finally the main consumer agriculture can be managed by good irrigation practices along with construction of dams to avert a possible threat due to climate change and population explosion in the country
Understanding and addressing community opposition to affordable housing development
No full textThis research investigated the causal roots of local opposition to affordable housing projects in Australia. It shows that planning concerns (traffic and built form) can mask prejudice against low-income residents. However community opposition can be exacerbated by dismissive attitudes by government. Developers and government both have roles to better explain to the public what affordable housing is, target more receptive communities for affordable housing, allay community fears through education, and ensure planning processes are clear and fairly implemented.
Authors: Gethin Davison, Crystal Legacy, Edgar Liu, Hoon Han, Peter Phibbs, Ryan van den Nouwelant, Michael Darcy and Awais Piracha
Awareness of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation at Local Level in Punjab, Pakistan
No full textClimate change awareness is an imperative to achieve sustainability in
developing countries. Lack of awareness is a significant barrier to climate change adaptation in developing countries. Raising climate change awareness at the local level is critical for Pakistan as climate change impacts are exacerbating the number and extent of disasters in this disaster-prone country. Pakistan's vulnerability to climate change impacts is very high (ranked 12th in the world). This research assesses the awareness of climate change impacts among the local planning officials in Punjab, Pakistan. The research contextualises its findings in the context of Pakistan's resilience to deal with the adverse impacts of climate change given its unique and unusual set of socio-political circumstances. The findings of this chapter are based on a detailed survey conducted with local planning officials of Lahore, Pakistan. The survey explores the level of awareness of climate change, its causes and impacts in Pakistan. The survey and subsequent analysis in particular focuses
on the potential role of use of Geographical Information System (GIS) in raising
climate change awareness
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