Peter Newman

Curtin University · Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Insitute

This paper provides an overview of insights and lessons learned from nearly 20 years of running a Master’s unit called Leadership in Sustainability and how it has been used to foster change agents in small business enterprises, as well as other parts of our economy and community. The unit is based on five ‘C’ pillars, which are discussed in this pa...

The need for transit oriented development (TOD) around railway stations has been well accepted and continues to be needed in cities looking to regenerate both transit and urban development. Large parts of suburban areas remain without quality transit down main roads that are usually filled with traffic resulting in reduced urban value. The need to...

The need for Transit Oriented Development (TOD) around railway stations has been well accepted and continues to be needed in cities looking to regenerate both transit and urban development. Large parts of suburban areas remain without quality transit down Main Roads which are usually filled with traffic resulting in reduced urban value. The need to...

The future ability of urban centres in Australia and around the globe to adapt and respond to big challenges of climate change, economic development, and social inclusion, will depend on how well we integrate and embed them within these built environments. Such a complex agenda presents a major collective challenge for designers, planners and engin...

Background: Bhutan has pledged to remain carbon neutral (CN) in perpetuity. Whether they can sustain this is questionable due to the country’s increasing economic growth (GDP) and commitment to gross national happiness (GNH) outcomes, both of which can lead to a rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The nexus between GHG, GNH and GDP is the essen...

Background: Bhutan has pledged to remain carbon neutral (CN) in perpetuity. Whether they can sustain this is questionable due to the country’s increasing economic growth (GDP) and commitment to gross national happiness (GNH) outcomes, both of which can lead to a rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The nexus between GHG, GNH and GDP is the essen...

The future ability of urban centres in Australia and around the globe to adapt and respond to big challenges of climate change, economic development and social inclusion, will depend on how well we embed structural and social resilience within these built environments. Such a complex urban resilience agenda presents a major collective challenge for...

There is growing interest in the concept of Trackless Trams as part of the suite of transport technologies available to help shape more urban outcomes. However, there is much more for decision-makers to consider than the vehicle itself. This paper discusses both the city shaping possibilities of these systems and the challenges and opportunities in...

Climate policy across the world is proceeding at a highly variable pace, with some places very committed to decarbonizing their economies and others just beginning. Emerging nations are generally just starting along this journey. However, among the few nation states that have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality, is Bhutan, a least developed countr...

With the onset of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change, the world's nations were to create economic development integrating environmental and social improvement. However, there is still much uncertainty in the world of politics and academia as to whether these integrated goals are achievable and how...

The driving force for global resilience will continue to be cities. This book has suggested six principles to create resilient cities and, perhaps, even regenerative cities. We need to create cities that rapidly accelerate the process of decoupling economic growth from fossil fuels. We need to use the knowledge and creative force of cities to build...

A city is only as resilient as its most vulnerable residents. A resilient city provides access to healthy food, clean water and air, safe transportation infrastructure, healthy buildings, and health services for all citizens. But as the economic divide increases between the haves and have-nots, the health disparities increase, leaving the neediest...

Every city has a disaster at some time in its history. A few may have been mild, as in Perth, which has experienced only mild earthquakes and flooding, but urban history is dotted with disasters. The ancient city of Megiddo in the Middle East—after which the word “armageddon” was derived to mean “a dramatic and catastrophic conflict, especially one...

Most of the oil consumed in the world is for transport. But transport can phase out oil rapidly, just as power systems are phasing out fossil fuels, as shown in chapter 1. As with power systems, this change will be driven by the world’s cities through advances in technology and strategic changes in the way cities are designed, planned, and operated...

As we approach the end of this book, we look toward some more visionary unfinished agendas for resilient cities that are also related to overcoming fossil fuel dependence. In recent years there has been a focus on the nine “planetary boundaries” that show how human activities, mostly in cities, are setting up limits to our growth. The constraints a...

What does it mean to be a resilient city in the age of a changing climate and growing inequity? As urban populations grow, how do we create efficient transportation systems, access to healthy green space, and lower-carbon buildings for all citizens? The authors respond to these questions in this revised and updated edition. Since the first edition...

In the first edition of this book, we wrote about a group of cities showing how to experiment with solar energy and wind power. They were proudly and bravely stepping into a largely unknown world, passionate about starting a journey that had to be embarked on no matter what it cost. These included Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates; Freiburg a...

Resilience in our personal lives is about lasting, about making it through crises, about inner strength and strong physical constitution. Resilience is destroyed by fear, which causes us to panic, reduces our inner resolve, and eventually debilitates our bodies. Resilience is built on hope, which gives us confidence and strength. Hope is not blind...

Biophilic urbanism is based on the knowledge that humans have an innate connection with nature that should be expressed in our daily lives, especially in cities. This has not been a strong feature of architectural principles (even though there is a long tradition of landscape architecture), yet potentially it offers great rewards if it is implement...

The theory of urban fabrics is outlined showing how different types of cities are combinations of walking, transit/public transport and automobile/motor car fabrics based on their transport systems and the universal travel-time budget. The distances/transport speeds that generate these urban fabrics and their associated elements, functions and qual...

Urban rail transit is emerging around the world as a catalyzing developmental solution to enable 21st century sustainable cities. However, these transit systems are capital intensive and cities worldwide are seeking innovative funding and financing mechanisms. Recently, land based value capture (VC) mechanisms have emerged as a pioneering solution...

This chapter examines the effect the rise in voluntary action is having when addressing climate change, particularly regarding the demand for ‘green’, low-carbon and carbon-neutral products. Issues around ‘greenwashing’ and the reliability of carbon claims are discussed. Various definitions of carbon neutrality are provided along with a discussion...

This book has emphasised the importance of a scientifically credible framework for defining the carbon involved in urban development. A new framework for calculating the emissions associated with precinct-scale development is proposed in this chapter, based on the carbon abatement opportunities identified in Chaps. 3 and 4. Guidance is provided on...

Three wicked problems—climate change, resource depletion and population growth—are seen to be interrelated and beyond simple technical solutions. They challenge our view of the future and need new approaches. The book is introduced as offering an approach to structural change that uses the power of urbanisation—the most significant global change pr...

This chapter examines the importance of the precinct scale, defines what is meant by precinct and examines why this level is identified as the optimal scale for GHG abatement. Five key reasons for targeting the precinct are identified. Namely, that precincts: enable additional emissions sources to be included; are where communities are formed, and...

Australia’s National Carbon Offset Standard Carbon Neutral Program (NCOS CNP) is identified as one of the leading independent certification schemes worldwide and is thus discussed in greater depth in this chapter. This chapter identifies and discusses several potential issues and challenges for urban development to achieve certification under this...

This chapter provides a summary of existing tools that target GHG emissions at the precinct scale. Eight of the most well-known frameworks and tools are discussed including four international tools (BREEAM Communities, LEED Neighbourhood, CASBEE Urban Development and One Planet Communities) and four Australian tools (Green Star Communities, EnviroD...

This chapter begins with an examination of the concept of eco-cities. It analyses their emergence, growth and their evolution into the new low-carbon and carbon-neutral cities of the twenty-first century. The chapter provides a review of nine eco-cities and low-carbon developments: six international case studies (BedZED, Vauban, Malmo B001, Hammarb...

This chapter discusses broadly how the world has approached carbon reduction within economies. It distinguishes between what we term the ‘Front-End’ of the economy and the ‘End-User’. The ‘Front-End’ approach (targeting power stations and large industries where fossil fuels enter the economy) is easier to scientifically measure and has only a few l...

The primary barriers preventing greater uptake of low-carbon land development within cities are analysed in this chapter. The barriers are related to information, high capital costs, split incentives, longer approvals processes, first-mover disadvantage, policy and pricing uncertainty, lock-in, credibility of carbon claims, multiple stakeholders an...

This chapter investigates whether certification can lead to greater credibility in carbon claims. Using the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) as a case study, it highlights some of the legal issues around making false carbon claims. An overview of the organisational structures and key documents underpinning the certification ind...

This final chapter highlights the key learnings from this book, particularly around urban development’s potential to reduce emissions, and the importance of acknowledging the role of urban development in global decarbonisation. Recommendations on how this research can help to inform policy are presented, particularly around issues of implementation...

This chapter highlights some of the main issues associated with the current large, centralised systems for managing resources in cities and how they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Several key opportunities to reduce emissions within our cities and built environment are identified, many of which are based around decentralised approaches to...

The world is facing an ‘age of scarcity’ which will challenge all cities to reduce their resource footprint, especially carbon, improve biodiversity and at the same time continue to create economic opportunities and liveable places. This is green urbanism. These problems are being understood and cities are taking steps to resolve them. Around the w...

We developed two simple, effective and consistent methods for predicting human health outcomes from physical activity in a typical urban development at a precinct scale. Considering the two primary transport outputs from an urban assessment model (vehicle kilometres travelled and mode share), we developed two methods using approaches based on the l...

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has long been seen in the USA as a tool for urban regeneration but the use of TIF for funding transit projects is less common. A four-step Transit Tax Increment Financing (TTIF) framework is proposed as a means of funding the investment in integrated land use and transit projects in low-density car-dependent cities. Th...

This book sets out some positive directions to move forward including government policy and regulatory options, an innovative GRID (Greening, Regenerative, Improvement Districts) scheme that can assist with funding and management, and the first steps towards an innovative carbon credit scheme for the built environment. Decarbonising cities is a gl...

Car dependence is in decline in most developed cities, but its cause is still unclear as cities struggle with priorities in urban form and transport infrastructure. This paper draws conclusions from analysis of data in 26 cities over the last 40 years of the 20th century. Statistical modelling techniques are applied to urban transport and urban for...

This paper investigates the impact of transit on urban land markets in the highly car dependent corridors of Perth with a focus on where new fast rail transit services have recently been built. It determines people’s willingness to pay for transit access within different pedestrian catchments for each of the corridors based on hedonic price modelli...

The need to decarbonise the economy can be greatly assisted if precinct scale city development can be a focus. The new low carbon technology for energy, water and waste are favoured by the precinct scale, especially the use of trigeneration, renewables, recycling wastewater, collecting rain water, waste to energy plants and automated solid waste co...

Road agencies face growing pressure to respond to a range of issues associated with climate change and the reliance on fossil fuels. A key part of this response will be to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel based energy (and the associated greenhouse gas emissions) of transport, both vehicles and infrastructure. This paper presents findings of in...

In cities, people spend a significant portion of their time indoors, much of which is in office buildings. The quality and nature of these spaces have the potential to be a strong determinant of people’s health and wellbeing. There is a body of evidence that suggests experiences of nature increase the rate of attention recovery, reduce stress, depr...

Highlights ► Healthy transportation choices are improved through built environment options that increase density, mix of land uses, accessibility, close proximity to transit, access to public spaces, particularly green space, and the presence of appropriate active transport infrastructure. ► Economic value is improved through healthy environments t...

Half of the world’s inhabitants now live in cities. In the next twenty years, the number of urban dwellers will swell to an estimated five billion people. With their inefficient transportation systems and poorly designed buildings, many cities—especially in the United States—consume enormous quantities of fossil fuels and emit high levels of...

Although road construction and use provides significant economic and social benefits, its environmental impact is of growing concern. Roads are one of the greatest greenhouse gas contributors, both directly through fossil energy consumed in mining, transporting, earthworks and paving work, and through the emissions from road use by vehicles. Furthe...

Biophilic urbanism, or urban design that reflects humanity’s innate need for nature, stands to make significant contributions to a range of national, state and local government policies related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, by investigating ways in which nature can be integrated into, around and on top of buildings. Potential benefit...

In the coming decades the design, construction and maintenance of roads will face a range of new issues and as such will require a number of new approaches. In particular, road authorities will be required to consider and respond to a range of issues related to climate change, and associated extreme weather events, such as the extensive flooding in...

Links between human health and wellbeing, and contact with nature are well understood in the fields of health and psychology, and more recently are gaining attention in the built environment industry. In 1984, E.O. Wilson coined the term ‘biophilia’ to describe the tendency for humans to have an innately emotional response to other living organisms...

The practice of road construction and maintenance is inherently lean and efficient; a result of the economic benefits that are gained by minimizing wasted resources. In this age of conservation and environmental management, the inbuilt sustainability of existing road construction practices is being developed and extended to produce variety of envir...

Roads and road infrastructure will be faced with multiple challenges over the coming decades – challenges that in many ways bear little resemblance to those previously faced - and as such will require new approaches. The opportunity exists to transform the way road infrastructure is conceived and constructed, as a key part of the process of assisti...

Green urbanism has been applied to cities but not in Asia. Seven characteristics of green urbanism are outlined and then applied to Singapore. The Renewable City is not yet a concept for Singapore. The Carbon Neutral City is being developed for an island Palau Ubin and by some firms but not to significant sectors or parts of urban Singapore. The Di...

The first signs of declining car use in cities are being observed. The data on this are summarized before six interdependent factors are examined that could help to explain this unexpected phenomenon. Introduction In 2009 the Brookings Institution were the first to recognize a new phenomenon in the world's developed cities – declines in car use (Pu...

Efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the buildings sector have been focused on encouraging green design, construction and building operation; however, the business case is not very compelling if considering the energy cost savings alone. In recent years green building has been driven by a sense that it will improve the productivity of occupants,so...

This paper outlines what are the likely global ‘events’ that peak oil could induce in our highly globalised world including supply disruption, volatility in prices and progressive price rises. All these will impact on our cities. We then pose three indicative development scenarios and assess them as a risk management exercise to examine the relativ...

New Urbanism is a recent American reform approach to urban development, which attempts to reduce car dependence through traditional design qualities such as connected streets with paths, higher density and mix with local centres. The Western Australian State Government has developed ‘Liveable Neighbourhoods’, which is a context-specific design code...

In this immensely practical book, Timothy Beatley sets out to answer a simple question: what can Americans learn from Australians about “greening” city life? Green Urbanism Down Under reports on the current state of “sustainability practice” in Australia and the many lessons that U.S. residents can learn from the best Australian programs an...

The energy, environmental and social benefits of sustainable transportation, i.e. public transit, biking and walking, have long been recognized but are now mainstream in global and local transportation policy debates. However, the economic value of sustainable transportation has always been seen as secondary, unless many external costs were include...

This is a visionary guide to developing cities that are livable, sustainable, and 'resilient'. Half of the world's inhabitants now live in cities. In the next twenty years, the number of urban dwellers will swell to an estimated five billion people. With their inefficient transportation systems and poorly designed buildings, many cities - especiall...

Australian university research output has been questioned by the Federal Government. A new research funding system is soon to be introduced which is likely to place a heavier weight on publications. Although the importance of publications is not disputed, the article argues that there is no reason for the performance of the Australian academics to...

Modern city dwellers are largely detached from the environmental effects of their daily lives. The sources of the water they drink, the food they eat, and the energy they consume are all but invisible, often coming from other continents, and their waste ends up in places beyond their city boundaries. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems shows how citie...

The author offers possible scenarios facing cities as oil peaks. The "die-off" scenario suggests that billions will die as the world's cities failed to adapt to the decline phase of the oil cycle. The ruralization of cities could occur if populations of cities will respond to the possibility of collapse by dispersing, and then create a more sustain...

Keywords: Citations; Institute for Scientific Information (ISI); Google scholar; Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy (ISTP); Research Quality Framework (RQF) EXTENDED ABSTRACT It has become usual practice for the Australian Federal Government to shape the country's research priorities to better reflect and care for the needs of the e...

In this issue of the Policy Review Section , Stephen Hall and Brendan Nevin of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, review the experiences of the first three rounds of the Single Regeneration Budget and against that background consider the next steps in the development of regeneration policy. In the second article, P...

Sustainability requires innovation that involves a series of demonstrations at the local level usually seen as merely symbolic gestures. However, when tested and found to fulfil sustainability objectives, then the opportunity is available for such innovations to be mainstreamed, though often there are major obstacles to such mainstreaming. This pap...

There is a growing international movement, "The New Urbanism", which seeks to reconnect transport with land use and in particular to establish transit-oriented development where higher-density, mixed-use areas built around high-quality transit systems provide a focused urban structure that can help to loosen the grasp of automobile dependence. Ther...

Sustainability is one of the key concepts that is associated with post-modernism. The old world with its modernist assumptions was based on increasing consumption of fossil fuels and other resources, reducing the natural and the diverse to simple, American-style mass production, with a strong state-based, large-scale approach to providing infrastru...

Cities around the world are struggling to reduce their automobile dependence and its impacts. One of the most significant tools in this struggle is physical planning, but at a time when it is most needed there are many commentators who have lost all confidence in planning. Such cynicism is analysed in terms of three approaches summarized as: ‘Peopl...

Examines the future of the urban freeway in the light of recentspectacular collapses of these giant structures in Los Angeles and SanFrancisco. Outlines how they no longer represent good urban policy froman economic perspective as well as social and environmental. Initiativesare reviewed in the USA, UK and Australia to develop alternativesthrough p...

Global electronic networking is one of the world's most rapidly growing technologies. It provides access to people and information on a worldwide scale and opens doors to new work practices. It is currently dominated by research and education users and it is not readily available to industry in Australia. This, together with its rapid growth and cl...