ORCID Profile
0000-0002-6160-5252
Current Organisation
National University of Singapore
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2021
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 21-06-2017
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between complexity theory and the analysis, planning and designing of cities, specifically their suburban and neighbourhood subsystems. It argues that while complexity theory is an apposite goal for postmodern urban planning, and it has been influential in the analysis and modelling of urban environments, it has been far less influential in their actual planning and design. In particular, the postmodern era has seen a decline of complexity within urban subsystems, as the self-organised complexity found within the traditional town centre and high street has been progressively superseded by the top-down mechanistic order of the shopping centre. This article argues that postmodern planning has often been an accomplice to this process because its antipathy to spatial determinism and/or the expert as arbitrator of what is right or proper in urban planning has left postmodern planners admiring complexity but not necessarily advocating for it. This has left the design and management of urban subsystems to the demands, choices and purposes of giant corporations, a situation more likely to deliver modernist mechanical order than postmodern complexity.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.SOCSCIMED.2019.112594
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to investigate whether the neo-liberal goal of global economic competitiveness when included alongside image-inspired social goals such as liveability and environmental goals such as sustainability can lead to policies that impact positively on health and health equity. The paper presents an analysis of the content and intent of strategic planning and transport plans from two Australian state governments. The analysis was undertaken using a thematic document analysis of each plan and interviews with agents (n = 21) directly involved in the preparation of each document. Key strategic documents formulated under a neo-liberal hegemony simultaneously provided and reduced opportunities to promote and advance health. The policies viewed goals like liveability and sustainability as means of enhancing their cities' image in global competition for exogenous capital flows. Although liveability has many definitions, one definition was able to be used in one jurisdiction as an avenue to include a broad array of social determinants of health into urban planning policy. However, a productivity or a narrowly focussed image narrative can undermine the social determinants of health credentials of liveability. Overemphasising immediate city problems like road congestion as mechanisms to enhance global competitiveness can undermine necessary long-term strategies for city planning that are known to improve liveability and human health. Even where liveability is at the fore, there is a high risk of exacerbating spatial inequities through liveability investments for competitive advantage because they tend to flow to parts of cities with the greatest connections to the global economy, not those with the greatest social need. A neo-liberal-inspired competitive city paradigm provides opportunities for the advancement of health in urban development. However, when driven by the goals of productivity and/or liveability as image enhancement it can potentially exacerbate health inequities.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 19-05-2021
Abstract: In Australia, incarceration rates have steadily increased since the 1980s, providing an imperative for crime prevention. We explored the extent to which Australian justice sector policies were aimed at preventing crime, using a framework for “primary, secondary and tertiary” crime prevention. We analyzed policies and legislation ( n = 141) across Australian jurisdictions (a census was undertaken from May to September 2016, with policies spanning from 1900 to 2022). We found a strong focus on tertiary crime prevention, with reci ism rather than root causes of crime problematised. We also found little focus on primary crime prevention, despite some high-level cross sectoral strategies designed to prevent crime. In this paper, we will use the framework of Bacchi’s “what’s the problem?” approach, considering levels of crime prevention, social determinants of health, and discourses surrounding crime. We discuss policy implications and make suggestions for policy reform and accountability mechanisms to reduce crime and incarceration.
Publisher: Australian Cities Research Network
Date: 2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-06-2020
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-03-2016
Abstract: The metropolis can be understood as a complex adaptive system made up of complex adaptive subsystems that agglomerated to help create the city’s strength, resilience and dynamism. In particular, the accumulated strength and dynamism of the in idual neighbourhoods that form and evolve its districts and the districts that form its regions have major impacts on the organisation and evolution of the metropolis. This article discusses the subsystems of the city, in particular its regional, district and neighbourhood transaction places or activity centres. While all metropolitan areas are complex adaptive systems, many urban subsystems constructed in the post–World War II period are not. They are instead chaotic or controlled by mechanical order. It will be argued that only the traditional ‘commons’ has the principles required of complex adaptive systems and that being such confers many benefits to the communities they serve.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-04-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1186/S12992-019-0509-3
Abstract: Sustainable management of the natural environment is essential. Continued environmental degradation will lead to worsened health outcomes in countries and across generations. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework for viewing the preservation of natural environments and the promotion of health, well-being and health equity as interconnected pursuits. Within the SDG framework the goals of promoting environmental sustainability and human health are unified through attention to the social determinants of health and health equity (SDH/HE). This paper presents findings from a document analysis of all Australian environment sector policies and selected legislation to examine whether and how current approaches support progress toward achieving SDG goals on water, climate change, and marine ecosystems (Goals 6, 13 and 14), and to consider implications for health and health equity. Consideration of a broad range of SDH/HE was evident in the analysed documents. Related collaborations between environment and health sectors were identified, but the bulk of proposed actions on SDH/HE were initiated by the environment sector as part of its core business. Strengths of Australian policy in regard to SDGs 6, 13 and 14 are reflected in recognition of the effects of climate change, a strong cohesive approach to marine park protection, and recognition of the need to protect existing water and sanitation systems from future threats. However, climate change strategies focus predominately on resilience, adaptation and heat related health effects, rather than on more comprehensive mitigation policies. The findings emphasise the importance of strengthened cross-sectoral action to address both the drivers and effects of environmental degradation. A lack of policy coherence between jurisdictions was also evident in several areas, compounded by inadequate national guidance, where vague strategies and non-specific devolution of responsibilities are likely to compromise coordination and accountability. Evidence on planetary health recognises the interconnectedness of environmental and human health and, as such, suggests that ineffective management of climate change and water pose serious risks to both the natural environment and human well-being. To address these risks more effectively, and to achieve the SDGs, our findings indicate that cross-jurisdiction policy coherence and national coordination must be improved. In addition, more action to address global inequities is required, along with more comprehensive approaches to climate change mitigation.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-08-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-07-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 16-08-2016
DOI: 10.1017/S096392681600047X
Abstract: Suburbs are significant to any understanding of Australian urbanization as they have been the dominant organizational element in the morphology of metropolitan areas. A case-study of suburban growth in Adelaide, South Australia, in the period from 1850 to 1930 suggests that dominant accounts of Australian suburbs of the era, as places of tranquillity, leisure, home and family, whose growth was driven by aspiration and social mobility, are largely illusory. Suburban growth was instead driven by speculation and economic opportunity. Accounts of commercial, recreational and industrial activity in Adelaide's suburban municipalities of the time suggests economically and socially erse communities. Whereas the desire for the quarter or half acre block in the suburbs was most often due to its productive potential rather than bourgeois aspirations for seclusion and semi-rural tranquillity.
Publisher: Australian Cities Research Network
Date: 2018
No related grants have been discovered for Michael Patrick McGreevy.