City Road Podcast
Informed stories about cities and urban life. Listen live on the Community Radio Network. Podcast on iTunes.
82. Transport Futures
From horse-drawn carriages to automobiles and mass transit, new transport technologies have historically transformed and disrupted cities. Today, autonomous vehicles and other forms of smart transport technology are predicted to remake transport networks and contribute to a new round of urban expansion. Are Australian cities preparing for a driverless future? This session explores how autonomous vehicles may impact Australian cities and how governments are preparing to address the potential challenges and opportunities. Festival of Urbanism Panel Dr Allison Stewart is …
81. Infrastructure Innovation
Despite existing technological capabilities, deeply entrenched barriers to sustainable and equitable transitions often fall to questions of urban governance. Festival of Urbanism Panel Chair: Associate Professor Tooran Alizadeh Haruka Miki-Imoto, Operations Officer for the World Bank in Japan Professor Tim Bunnell from the National University of Singapore James O’Keefe, the Director of the Roads to Home Program in the NSW Department of Planning and Environment Dr Aidan While, University of Sheffield, Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University …
Coming soon!
We have an exciting new project with a fantastic new partner coming very soon! You can have a sneaky listen now 🤓
80. Food Futures
Climate-change threatens peri-urban agriculture and food security. This session explores innovative social practices that secure food futures: in Sydney an evolving system connecting urban organic waste to peri-urban agriculture, and in Bologna Italy cooperatives in emerging food solidarity economies. Each case demonstrates how trusting relationships ensure local food futures in urban places. Panel Dr Abby Mellick Lopes, University of Technology Sydney Gabriele Morelli, University of Milan-Bicocca Dr Michelle Zeibots, University of Technology Sydney Dr Stephen Healy, Western Sydney University Chaired …
79. Platform Urbanism
Cities and regions across the world have experienced profound disruption from the rise of digital platforms across all areas of urban life. From housing, to transport, shopping, and the way we work, global firms such as ‘Airbnb’ and ‘Uber’ typically evade local (place based) policy and regulatory settings. However, their impacts have large socio-spatial footprints which need to be understood and factored into future urban policy and planning. Understood within the wider prism of technological innovation and emerging forms of …
78. Decarbonising the City
Many of the built environment’s peak industry associations recognise the need for rapid decarbonisation and have publicly stated their commitment. But what does it mean in reality? What are the barriers that we need to urgently address? How do we support innovation and accommodate rapid technological advances through our planning system? What opportunities should we leverage now and what preparation do we need for future changes? This Panel will focus on the practicalities and challenges facing those working towards zero …
77. Cities In A Sunburnt Country
This new book considers how Australians have provided water and sewerage for growing, sprawling urban centres. In this land of drought and flooding rains, we may need to rethink water use strategies, including embracing centuries of Aboriginal knowledge, seeing water as a resource to be conserved, rather than wasted or exploited. Panel Dr. Margaret Cook is an environmental historian who specialises in the history of ‘natural’ disasters in Australia, especially floods. The history of floods in the Brisbane River catchment …
76. The City We Became
We’ve got a treat for you today, a conversation about speculative fiction and cities with a fantastic panel. Our panel includes award-winning author and critic James Bradley. James is the author of books such as Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist and Clade, the first two books of The Change Trilogy for young adults, The Silent Invasion and The Buried Ark, a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. His latest novel, Ghost Species, was …
75. Reimagining Regional Growth
Fifty years after former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s short-lived attempts to foster decentralisation, this event, held in Albury, one of Whitlam’s flagship National Growth Centres, examines the prospects for future growth in regional Australia. With a diverse panel of regional leaders and experts, the discussion will canvas opportunities and risks confronting communities beyond the major cities and the priorities for contemporary government intervention. For the first time in four decades, Australia’s largest cities – Sydney and Melbourne – witnessed population …
74. Renovate or Detonate
Australia’s housing system is in crisis, and recent policy interventions have ranged from ineffective to counterproductive. From the deepening divide between home owners and renters, to unsustainable patterns of residential development and escalating climate risk – Australia’s housing policy framework needs an urgent reset. With new national and state housing initiatives on the table, this panel will debate whether it is possible to ‘renovate’ Australia’s housing system or whether radical change is needed to bring about a more inclusive and …