Australia proposes research center on Southern Hemisphere cities

The purpose of the center will be to conduct collaborative studies of urban planning policies implemented by major Australian and South American cities.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – The University of Melbourne in Australia plans to set up a research center on cities in the Southern Hemisphere that will link researchers in architecture and urban planning at universities and research institutions in Australia with counterparts in South America.

The proposal was presented by Thomas Kvan, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, University of Melbourne, at a meeting in São Paulo on April 22 between researchers from Victoria, the state of which Melbourne is the capital, and Brazilian researchers. Representatives of FAPESP also attended the meeting. The event was part of a Victorian Government mission to Latin America to generate research partnerships in fields such as education, water management, urban planning, agriculture and biotechnology.

“Our government is committed to fostering research networks, and urban planning could be a central theme for collaborative studies by researchers in Victoria and São Paulo State,” said Steve Herbert, Victoria’s Minister for Training and Skills, opening the event.

“Good research on urban planning issues is being done in South American countries, including Brazil, as well as in Australia and South Africa. This is why we should work together and create a center for collaborative research on Southern Hemisphere cities,” Kvan said.

“We want to establish a research center that will study and discuss urban issues relating to cities in the Southern Hemisphere because most of the research done in this field relates to big cities in the United States and Europe, and often doesn’t reflect the reality of cities in our hemisphere.”

The Southern Cities Research Center (SCRC) will be hosted by the University of Melbourne, involving representatives of government, business and civil society as well as researchers.

Governance and funding models in urban policy, health and urban environments, ecological processes in cities, urban effects on the environment and climate change, vitalizing infrastructure and affordable housing deficits will be some of the themes to be studied at the SCRC.

According to researchers who attended the meeting, Australia shares common attributes with South American countries such as Brazil and Chile. For example, they are all resource-rich, highly urbanized nations that face challenges in managing urban growth while seeking to foster equity and sustainability in cities.

Although many of the urban issues faced in Australia and South America are similar, the solutions applied vary considerably, they said.

The SCRC therefore offers an opportunity for comparative studies on the urban planning policies implemented by different cities and for replicating successful models.

“We’re starting to identify themes that can be addressed by research done under the aegis of the SCRC,” said Tony Dalton, Deputy Director of the Global Cities Research Institute at RMIT University in Melbourne. “One of them is the importance of suburbs to our cities.”

Suburbanization

Like other highly urbanized countries, Dalton said, Australia also faces growing suburbanization, a process characterized by rapidly increasing urban sprawl.

Many of the properties available in the suburbs cannot be used as dwellings, however, because they are old and unsuitable for housing purposes.

However, the suburban revitalization plans under discussion must take into account the need to reduce energy use and adapt to climate change, Dalton explained.

“We need to think about the types of building material to be used in these homes, which will have to be smaller and have less heating and more cooling because of the heat waves Australia is experiencing,” he said.

The average size of Australian houses has decreased in recent years, Dalton went on. Conversely, per capita power and water consumption is rising, and projections point to a continuation of this trend.

“Australian households have a very low standard of energy efficiency,” he said. “Domestic water saving has improved a little as a result of the severe drought lasting almost ten years in southern Victoria and Western Australia and ending only a couple of years ago. People were forced to economize on water for the first time ever. But we still have a long way to go.”

In recent years the government has introduced a number of measures offering Australian households incentives to improve energy and water use efficiency.

However, official initiatives in this area are incipient. “There’s a certain amount of government support for homes to consume water and power more efficiently in Australia, but it’s still insufficient,” Dalton said.
 

Visit to Brazil

Brazil was the second country visited by the Victorian education mission to Latin America.

The delegation comprised 29 high-level representatives of Victorian universities and research institutions, as well as senior government officials. It visited Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru from April 20-30.

Eight of Australia’s 38 public universities are located in Victoria. Although they represent slightly more than a fifth of the national total, Victoria’s public universities attracted over 40% of the health research budget available nationwide in 2013, said John Dewar, Vice Chancellor of La Trobe University.

“In 2013, Victoria’s eight public universities attracted 1 billion Australian dollars for research in a range of fields,” Dewar said. “This shows that the state of Victoria, especially its capital, Melbourne, is Australia’s research flagship.”

FAPESP has cooperative agreements with six Australian universities, including the University of Melbourne. The latest agreement was signed in December 2014 with Victoria University.

“One of our concerns at FAPESP in the process of promoting scientific collaboration between researchers in São Paulo State and abroad has been to go beyond the usual places in search of these opportunities because in today’s world research isn’t concentrated only in a few major countries but is being done all over the world,” said Celso Lafer, President of FAPESP, at the opening of the event.

“In this context, Australia is evidently an important partner.”