Melbourne Case Research Articles

Infrastructural gaslighting and the crisis of participatory planning

This paper traces and critiques gaslighting – the manipulation of circumstances by elite actors to sow doubt or confusion in residents over what is ‘real’ – as an affective experience of infrastructure planning. Predominantly observed within intimate relationships, scholars now identify gaslighting as a structural condition that manipulates whole communities and reproduces systemic oppression. We concur, extending analysis to the realm of urban infrastructure planning, and drawing connections with Rancièrian critiques of elite orders of governance. In infrastructural worlds, regulatory arrangements have been harmonised to suit coalitions of elite government and private actors whilst extolling the virtues of participatory governance. Megaprojects are legitimised by planning processes that cement monopolies and shroud elite public-private deal-making, while detractors are delegitimised discursively in political and media discourse. Yet, dissent is also pacified via participatory planning processes that invite publics to give testimony but undermine their epistemic and moral validity. This, we contend, is an example of infrastructural gaslighting. The case of Melbourne’s West Gate Tunnel Project (WGTP) is instructive – a ‘Market-Led Proposal’ from corporate infrastructure giant Transurban, backed by the Victorian government – where participatory planning was not simply tokenistic, but rather a discombobulating experience, concealing and ‘breadcrumbing’ information to publics, while undermining deliberative capacities. Exposing grounded experiences of infrastructural gaslighting, we join other critical urban scholars seeking conditions for just planning practices. Infrastructural planning regimes are consequential, but the realities they police are illusions that are as tenuous as they are politically constituted and, like other forms of gaslighting, are ready for challenge.

Forecasting the daily natural gas consumption with an accurate white-box model

Compared with artificial intelligence black-box models, statistical white-box models have less application and lower accuracy in forecasting daily natural gas consumption that contains high dimensional and large samples. Parallel model architecture (PMA) is a forecasting strategy that improves the accuracy of forecasting models. However, due to the large numbers of non-stationarity subseries generated by PMA in daily natural gas consumption forecasting, the forecasting problem becomes more difficult. This paper proposes a weighted parallel model architecture (WPMA) strategy that reduces the numbers and the non-stationarity of subseries by introducing k-means clustering and weighting the forecasts of subseries for out-of-sample forecasting. By combining WPMA with principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple linear regression (MLR), a white-box hybrid model is generated called PCA-WPMA-MLR. Principal component analysis is a dimension-reduction algorithm that is used to extract the components from input variables, and MLR is a white-box forecaster. Additionally, the historical datasets of four representative cities distributed in three climate zones are collected in case studies. The results show that the PCA-WPMA-MLR model provides comparable forecasting performance with the deep learning model. WPMA outperforms PMA in improving forecasting accuracy, and it reduces the mean absolute percentage error of MLR by 39.07% in the Melbourne case.

Placing production in urban cultural policy: The locational patterns of cultural industries and related manufacturing

ABSTRACT Urban cultural policy has long been framed with a limited geographic focus. Policy predominately targets central city areas where arts amenities and creative services visibly concentrate. This focus stems from a restricted definition of cultural activity, which tends to emphasize cultural consumption over production. This excludes a range of “cultural manufacturers,” which produce specialized products and inputs for the wider cultural economy. Although these industries play an integral role in the cultural ecosystem, their locational attributes have been largely overlooked in urban policy and research. Drawing on the case of Melbourne, Australia, we map location patterns of cultural industries and related manufacturing, revealing co-location in the central city and robust cultural manufacturing concentrations on the urban periphery. Our findings present a potential route for urban cultural policy to affect meaningful change in divided central cities, as well as under-served outer areas where most cultural industries and manufacturing workers live.

Stormwater harvesting infrastructure systems design for urban park irrigation: Brimbank Park, Melbourne case study

Abstract Stormwater harvesting for residential and non-residential reuse is an important and crucial aspect to reduce freshwater demand to address climate change, population growth and urbanisation challenges. It is important that freshwater be conserved as much as possible through capturing rainwater and stormwater and using these resources for fit for purpose end uses such as irrigation of public open parks and residential non-potable end uses. The paper describes a methodology for the planning and design of a stormwater harvesting system for park irrigation. The application of suitable models for storage tank capacity and pipe sizing considering peak flows are described. The application of the approach is demonstrated with a local case study for the benefit of wider water professionals engaged in water-sensitive urban design.

An interdisciplinary and catchment approach to enhancing urban flood resilience: a Melbourne case.

This paper presents a novel interdisciplinary and catchment-based approach for exploring urban flood resilience. Our research identified and developed a diverse set of adaptation measures for Elwood, a suburb in Melbourne, Australia, that is vulnerable to pluvial and coastal flooding. We drew on methods from social science, urban design and environmental engineering to gain integrated insights into the opportunities for Elwood to increase its flood resilience and urban liveability. Results showed that an appropriate balance of social, infrastructural and urban design responses would be required to retreat from, accommodate and protect against flood risk. These would also deliver broader benefits such as securing water supplies through harvested stormwater and mitigating extreme heat through greener landscapes. Our interdisciplinary approach demonstrated the value of (i) engaging with the community to understand their concerns, aspirations and adaptation ideas, (ii) exploring design measures that densify and use urban forms in ways that implement adaptation measures while responding to local context, (iii) adopting modelling techniques to test the performance, robustness and economic viability of possible adaptation solutions, and (iv) innovating governance arrangements and principles needed to improve flood resilience in the Elster Creek catchment. Our research also provided valuable insight on how to operationalize interdisciplinary work in practice, highlighting the importance of sharing an impact agenda, taking a place-based approach, developing a common conceptual framework, and fostering a constructive team culture.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Urban flood resilience’.

Challenges for wildfire-prone urban-rural interfaces: The case of Melbourne

Challenges for wildfire-prone urban-rural interfaces: The case of Melbourne

Strategies for developing transformative capacity in urban water management sectors: The case of Melbourne, Australia

Individuals and organisations are pivotal in changing dominant practices in industry sectors by creating system-level conditions that facilitate transformative change. Yet, the types of agency processes best suited to develop such conditions are not well researched. This paper addresses this gap by empirically investigating how institutional entrepreneurs developed transformative capacity in a successful case of dominant practice change: stormwater management with Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) in the urban water management sector in Melbourne, Australia. We identify ten key strategies that institutional entrepreneurs employed to support the successful introduction, diffusion and establishment of WSUD. By interfacing these strategies with a transformative capacity framework, we describe which combinations of strategies are most relevant for developing different transformative capacity domains across three different phases. The paper contributes to theory on transformative capacity in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems research by providing practical guidance on how transformative capacity can be build up and by distinguishing and describing three distinct phases of transformative capacity development (Introductory Capacity, Diffusional Capacity, Establishment Capacity).

Institutional arrangements for greater inter-modality between bicycles and buses: A Melbourne case study

This paper presents a case study that exemplifies how voluntary professional associations (VPAs) can contribute towards the achievement of societal goals like improving public health, reducing the rate of growth of congestion and reducing transport emissions by developing and implementing multi-stakeholder, industry-wide initiatives that aim to improve the extent of inter-modality for users of bicycles and buses in Victoria, over the long term, not just as an agent of bus operators, but of Government as well. This paper details the historical and current state of the carrying of bicycles on buses in some local and international jurisdictions and suggests two theories that underpin the initiative, being agency theory and the stakeholder perspective. It is expected the results will aid in the decision making associated with the greater proliferation of bicycle racks on buses. This paper extends the hypothesis of agency theory with two agents and presents a case study exemplar for other VPAs (or industry representative bodies) looking at developing industry-wide responses to societal issues.

The impacts of relocating a logistics facility on last food miles – The case of Melbourne’s fruit & vegetable wholesale market

The distribution activities of fresh produce by retail and wholesale trade industries generate a large volume of freight movements in urban areas. Recently, the local government in Melbourne, Australia have relocated the fruit & vegetable wholesale market from a centrally located suburb: West Melbourne to Epping, a suburban area on the fringe of Greater Melbourne. This paper investigates the impacts of the market relocation on the freight activities for fruit and vegetable retailers and wholesalers that source fresh produce directly from the wholesale market. This study utilised a telephone questionnaire with retailers to identify their delivery schemes and evaluate the impact of the market relocation on their freight trips. The analysis of the responses indicated that the market relocation has led to a significant increase (31%) in distance travelled (VKT) by retailers compared with the former site in West Melbourne. It is estimated that this additional distance contributes 830 tonnes of CO2-e per year for all the freight trips by the retailers. Furthermore, nineteen fruit & vegetable wholesalers participated in the semi-structured interviews to evaluate the impacts of the market relocation on their freight activities with respect to additional vehicle-km and explore any changes to their freight trips. It is estimated that wholesalers have to drive on average an additional 14.1 km to distribute the fresh produce to their customers due to the market relocation. Analysis for the wholesalers revealed that the market relocation complicated their ability to sustain their customer base and geographical coverage due to the additional vehicle-km.

Restoration of contaminated ecosystems: adaptive management in a changing climate

Three case studies illustrate how adaptive management (AM) has been used in ecological restorations that involve contaminants. Contaminants addressed include mercury, selenium, and contaminants and physical disturbances delivered to streams by urban stormwater runoff. All three cases emphasize the importance of broad stakeholder input early and consistently throughout decision analysis for AM. Risk of contaminant exposure provided input to the decision analyses (e.g. selenium exposure to endangered razorback suckers, Stewart Lake; multiple contaminants in urban stormwater runoff, Melbourne) and was balanced with the protection of resources critical for a desired future state (e.g. preservation old growth trees, South River). Monitoring also played a critical role in the ability to conduct the decision analyses necessary for AM plans. For example, newer technologies in the Melbourne case provided a testable situation where contaminant concentrations and flow disturbance were reduced to support a return to good ecological condition. In at least one case (Stewart Lake), long‐term monitoring data are being used to document the potential effects of climate change on a restoration trajectory. Decision analysis formalized the process by which stakeholders arrived at the priorities for the sites, which together constituted the desired future condition towards which each restoration is aimed. Alternative models were developed that described in mechanistic terms how restoration can influence the system towards the desired future condition. Including known and anticipated effects of future climate scenarios in these models will make them robust to the long‐term exposure and effects of contaminants in restored ecosystems.

Assessment of Natural Ventilation Potential for Residential Buildings across Different Climate Zones in Australia

In this study, the natural ventilation potential of residential buildings was numerically investigated based on a typical single-story house in the three most populous climate zones in Australia. Simulations using the commercial simulation software TRNSYS (Transient System Simulation Tool) were performed for all seasons in three representative cities, i.e., Darwin for the hot humid summer and warm winter zone, Sydney for the mild temperate zone, and Melbourne for the cool temperate zone. A natural ventilation control strategy was generated by the rule-based decision-tree method based on the local climates. Natural ventilation hour (NVH) and satisfied natural ventilation hour (SNVH) were employed to evaluate the potential of natural ventilation in each city considering local climate and local indoor thermal comfort requirements, respectively. The numerical results revealed that natural ventilation potential was related to the local climate. The greatest natural ventilation potential for the case study building was observed in Darwin with an annual 4141 SNVH out of 4728 NVH, while the least natural ventilation potential was found in the Melbourne case. Moreover, summer and transition seasons (spring and autumn) were found to be the optimal periods to sustain indoor thermal comfort by utilising natural ventilation in Sydney and Melbourne. By contrast, natural ventilation was found applicable over the whole year in Darwin. In addition, the indoor operative temperature results demonstrated that indoor thermal comfort can be maintained only by utilising natural ventilation for all cases during the whole year, except for the non-natural ventilation periods in summer in Darwin and winter in Melbourne. These findings could improve the understanding of natural ventilation potential in different climates, and are beneficial for the climate-conscious design of residential buildings in Australia.

Human Capital and the Structural Integration of Polish Immigrants in Australia in the First, Second and Third Generations

ABSTRACTThe Polish diaspora is one of the largest in the world. Australia's 2011 census identifies 48 611 born in Poland and 170 000 claiming Polish ancestry. Using the census, we assess the structural (socio-economic) and spatial integration of the first (Poles who arrived in the post-World War II period as largely displaced persons and refugees), second (their children) and third (grandchildren) generations, and compare the first generation with another cohort: the skilled first-generation (‘Solidarity') immigrants who arrived in the 1980s and early 1990s. Key OECD indicators of integration—education attainment, proficiency in English, employment status and occupational progression, home ownership, naturalisation, return rates and patterns of residential distribution—are examined. Results point to their successful integration, with high levels of labour market participation, earnings, and naturalisation, levels of spatial integration as exemplified in a Melbourne case study (where the highest proportions of those of Polish birth or ancestry reside), return migration and language retention, and levels of owner-occupied housing (the ‘middle-class dream') higher than among Australians generally.

Justifying Redevelopment ‘Failures' Within Urban ‘Success Stories': Dispute, Compromise, and a New Test of Urbanity

AbstractLarge‐scale waterfront redevelopment projects, an urban development phenomenon that originated in the 1970s, are attractive to a growing suite of cities worldwide. But why? These mega‐projects are full of pitfalls, broken promises, cost overruns, disappointments and are often accused of promoting inequality. In this article, we consider the specific case of Melbourne's Docklands, which local popular opinion has roundly judged a failure despite the countervailing judgment of success in the revival of ‘liveability' of the adjacent Melbourne central business district. We use the Docklands case to illustrate the utility of a ‘critical pragmatic' framework of analysis to get behind dominant explanations of the demands of the urban growth machine and postmodern neoliberal capitalism. Without denying the existence of these dynamics, nor their hegemony, we nevertheless explicate how a critical pragmatic analysis can reveal the social dynamics driving the judgments and justifications offered by actors in urban redevelopment. A pragmatic analysis of these dynamics of argument and action at critical moments in the long process of an urban redevelopment can reveal new kinds of compromises and tests by which these projects are judged. In other words, what counts as failure and as success in the work of city building will shift, depending on what actors do and how they talk about it, and on how well these actions and justifications hold up to public challenges about the true character of a successful city. By gauging how these challenges are constituted and settled, we can better understand the evolution of the urban value proposition, and the new notion of justice grounded in urbanity that is emerging at the urban redevelopment frontier.

Transport sustainability index: Melbourne case study

Quantifying the sustainability of urban transport is important as evidenced by a growing number of studies to measure sustainability in transportation. This paper reviewed major initiatives reported in the current literature, which dealt with the challenge of measuring transport sustainability using long lists of indicators. To overcome the issue of using too many indicators for evaluation, this paper develops a method for obtaining a composite transport sustainability index for Melbourne statistical local areas (SLAs). Nine sustainability indicators relevant to urban transport which deal with environmental, social and economic aspects were selected by assessing and reviewing past research and based on available data for Melbourne. The indicators were integrated to environmental, social, and economic sub-indices and then to a composite index, in a way that overcomes the limitations on normalisation, weighting and aggregation. Indices developed based on the applied method allow comparisons between different statistical local areas (SLAs) and could help organisations for better understanding of the measures and activities that influence the sustainability of urban transport, and for identifying appropriate responses for addressing them in Melbourne.

Actors working the institutions in sustainability transitions: The case of Melbourne's stormwater management

The role of agency in overcoming path dependence and enabling sustainability transitions is receiving increasing attention. Currently lacking are more empirically derived explanations of the co-evolutionary dynamics between actors and institutional change that could potentially provide guidance on facilitating such transitions into the future. This paper investigates these dynamics through a longitudinal case analysis of Melbourne's transition to improved stormwater quality treatment. The complex data collection, analysis and validation approach, which included oral histories, semi-structured interviews, industry workshops and documentary analysis, examined the nuances of the actor-related strategies and institutional enabling processes throughout the different phases of the transition over the last fifty years. The results revealed the importance of a small group of loosely connected frontrunners from across government, private, community and scientific sectors who, through a mix of creating and disrupting institutional strategies, managed to facilitate a growing and diverse actor-network that steered this transition over decades. The establishment of networked bridging organisations was also instrumental because they formed different types of networks and alliances over time for protecting and deepening the reach of the transition dynamics across the city. The findings suggest there is no single cause–effect relationship nor one dominant intervention or action that shifted the urban stormwater management regime. Rather, it showed that the co-evolutionary processes between the broader transitional dynamics were played into by frontrunners and their actor-networks in such a way that emerging new narratives diffused, giving meaning to the evolving scientific agendas and on-the-ground experiments, which led to new institutional structures and enabling administrative tools. It seems as though each one of these dimensions is as crucial as the other in explaining the outcomes of this successful sustainability transition.

Building Energy and Cost Performance: An Analysis of Thirty Melbourne Case Studies

This study investigates the energy and cost performance of thirty recent buildings in Melbourne, Australia. Commonly, building design decisions are based on issues pertaining to construction cost, and consideration of energy performance is made only within the context of the initial project budget. Even where energy is elevated to more importance, operating energy is seen as the focus and embodied energy is nearly always ignored. For the first time, a large sample of buildings has been assembled and analyzed to improve the understanding of both energy and cost performance over their full life cycle, which formed the basis of a wider doctoral study into the inherent relationship between energy and cost. The aim of this paper is to report on typical values for embodied energy, operating energy, capital cost and operating cost per square metre for a range of building functional types investigated in this research. The conclusion is that energy and cost have quite different profiles across projects, and yet the mean GJ/m2 or cost/m2 have relatively low coefficients of variation and therefore may be useful as benchmarks of typical building performance.

Reconstructing the Energy History of a City

SummaryFor informed decision making about the current state and near future of any city, it is important to consider the long‐term resource use trajectory and legacy of its past. Such information is not always readily available. Urban metabolism analysis for any given time period can be challenging due to the lack of metropolitan‐ or city‐level data, and reconstructing a time series of urban energy or material flows is seldom attempted. For the case of Melbourne, Australia, we demonstrate how time series operational energy demand and supply data can be reconstructed from original sources. Primary energy consumption is calculated based on direct and upstream energy use in common with “scope 2” standards for emissions reporting. This extends the usual treatment of energy in urban metabolism studies by (1) providing time series data and (2) attributing upstream primary energy consumption to sectors based on their direct secondary energy usage. Results indicate that the transport, commercial, manufacturing, and residential sectors have contributed most to the doubling of Melbourne's energy consumption over four decades. We discuss recent urban development history and its relation to energy consumption and briefly examine potential scenarios of and responses to future change.

A Study of Australian Muslim Youth Identity: The Melbourne Case

Australia is the home of 340,393 Muslims and they constitute about 1.7% of the total national population of 19,855,287 million people.1 Muslims have migrated to Australia from several Muslim countries on their own will for a better life. The Australian government also welcomed the immigrants because it needed labor for a sustainable economy. However, in times of crisis, for example, after the 9/11 incident the media and some politicians positioned the Muslims as the “Other”. In December 2005 there was a riot at Sydney's Cronulla beach between some Lebanese-Australians and the mainstream Australians but the politicians and the media sided with the wider society. In September 2006, when the Egyptian-born Mufti al-Hilali presented a controversial sermon in Arabic in which he depicted scantily-dressed women as uncovered meat and blamed them for inciting men to rape, the rhetoric of “us” and “them” was final. The racial profiling of Muslims through the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 has also caused unease in the society. Against this backdrop I interviewed 14 Muslim youths of diverse backgrounds, 15–17 years in Melbourne and tried to gain an understanding of their identity. Overall, the participants appeared to be peaceful, and their bicultural skills strengthened their Australian citizenship.

The long-term reform of the water and wastewater industry: The case of Melbourne in Australia

Since the 1980s, one of the most important parts of Australian microeconomic reform has been the restructuring of the country’s government owned utilities – including water supply and wastewater disposal. This process was encouraged by the perception that the state owned authorities performed poorly in the 1970s and 1980s. This paper analyses economic performance of the Melbourne water and wastewater industry from the early 1970s. Over the longer term, the industry has improved its economic performance in terms of productivity and returns to the shareholder, however, consumers have not substantially benefited from this process in terms of lower prices.

Ambient Anomie in the Virtualised Landscape? Autonomy, Surveillance and Flows in the 2020 Streetscape

Ambient Anomie in the Virtualised Landscape? Autonomy, Surveillance and Flows in the 2020 Streetscape