Sustainable Urbansim: A Resilient Future Part Two

The following morning had us reviewing research on city approaches commencing with Peter Doherty, Jane-Francis Kelly, and Peter Newton (Peter Newton also presented on behalf of Peter Newman). Then without much ado Gilbert had us on our feet and clumsily bumping into each other in a game of networking. The workshops followed with the participants forming four workshop groups focussing on the how to create resilient cities based on pathways for economics led by John Wiseman; cultural health and wellbeing led by Gilbert Rochecouste; green infrastructure led by Allen Kearns; and built infrastructure and design led by Janis Birkeland.

I participated in the built environment and design workshop looking at the pathways required to evolve our communities into entities delivering positive resource and other benefits as opposed to negative drain on resources from the rural sector. There was much debate which came back to political will and community belief in the change; however the overwhelming theme was the need to clearly express the pathway and benefits of this to the general community to bring the community along. As with all change the community must be engaged and participate in the journey.

The outcomes of the workshop were summated by Dorte Ekelund of the Major Cities Unit, Infrastructure Australia. Sustainable Urbanisation: a resilient future is organising two publication outputs (i) special issue of journal and (ii) edited book. Details can be found on the Sustainable Urbanisation website