Tony Matthews

• PhD
• Lecturer at Griffith University

Recent international trends towards urban consolidation, intended to reduce outward urban sprawl by concentrating growth within existing neighbourhoods, can cause contention in cities. Understanding how the mass media represents urban consolidation can lead to more informed and democratic planning practices. This paper employs Social Representation...

Urban green infrastructure can help cities adapt to climate change. Spatial planning can play an important role in utilizing green infrastructure for adaptation. Yet climate change risks represent a different sort of challenge for planning institutions. This paper aims to address two issues arising from this challenge. First, it defines the concept...

Adaptation to climate change is an imperative and an institutional challenge. This paper argues that the operationalisation of climate adaptation is a crucial element of a comprehensive response to the impacts of climate change on human settlements, including major cities and metropolitan areas. In this instance, the operationalisation of climate a...

Urban space has the potential to shape people's experience and understanding of the city and of the culture of a place. In some respects, murals and allied forms of wall art occupy the intersection of street art and public art; engaging, and sometimes, transforming the urban space in which they exist and those who use it. While murals are often con...

This paper characterises climate change as a “transformative stressor”. It argues that institutional change will become increasingly necessary as institutions seek to reorientate governance frameworks to better manage the transformative stresses created by climate change in urban environments. Urban and metropolitan planning regimes are identified...

Enclave urbanism-the privatisation of land for housing, technology, and commercial purposes-is gaining currency among scholars as a notion for explaining contemporary spatial restructuring. However, existing scholarship tends to over-emphasise enclave urbanism as a universal phenomenon that has negative consequences for certain groups in society. R...

Land ownership is given little attention in scholarly accounts of how and why new city visions are mobilised and implemented in Africa. In this paper we examine the evolution of Accra City Extension Project (ACEP)-an urban strategy to modernise and respond to urbanisation pressures in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. We trace the origins and ration...

Rapidly ageing populations are coinciding with urbanisation and climate change providing a global challenge. Older people experience higher rates of mortality and morbidity from extreme heat. Climate change is expected to magnify urban heat island effects. Green infrastructure is increasingly recognised as capable of mitigating urban heat and could...

Many planning agencies worldwide now see climate change response as unavoidable. This paper proposes that a central task for contemporary planning theory is to guide planning practice as it develops multi-dimensional responses. We examine three theoretical constructs: anticipatory governance, legitimacy and social-ecological resilience. We argue th...

Rapid urbanisation and globalisation are creating relentless spatial transformation across the globe. There is a growing interest in understanding and conceptualising the emergent and often contested spatial morphologies and typologies in cities as they mediate the competing demands of global and local forces. This paper examines spatial and tempor...

This paper examines how storylines shaped policy responses to environmental imperatives in an Australian regional planning system between 1991 and 2017. It builds upon existing literature that utilizes the ‘storylines’ conceptual model to distil and critically examine how discursive framing can shape environmental policy responses. This paper empir...

Climate change research relating to “co‐benefits” suggests that the facilitation of social‐welfare outcomes through environmental policy offers a powerful means of incentivising climate change action. Concerns about social‐welfare, however, are often used to undermine climate change policies, typically through political claims that low‐to‐middle‐in...

The phenomenon of ‘climigration’ is an emerging and increasing challenge to human settlements. Climigration refers to community relocation undertaken in response to climate change impacts. This paper adds to early but critical scholarly discussions by providing a land-use planning framework for organising and responding to the governance, policy, i...

Originally published in Policy Innovation Hub / Machinery of Government - https://medium.com/@federalfuture

Green infrastructure has recently risen to international prominence for its purported capacity to enhance urban sustainability, and particularly to modulate ambient temperatures in the context of climate change. We assess whether comparatively disadvantaged residents in a sub-tropical Australian city perceive green infrastructure as an effective cl...

Originally published in Policy Innovation Hub / Machinery of Government - https://medium.com/@federalfuture

Published in The Conversation.

Originally published in Queensland Planner, republished in Policy Innovation Hub / Machinery of Government - https://medium.com/@federalfuture

Published in The Conversation.

Published in The Conversation.

Cities all over the world have activated policy support for urban consolidation in recent decades. Rationales for urban consolidation focus on its perceived ability to achieve sustainability goals, including decreased automobile dependence, increased social cohesion and greater walkability. Despite this, there are few international examples of urba...

Originally published in Policy Innovation Hub / Machinery of Government - https://medium.com/@federalfuture

Published in The Conversation.

Over the past decade research on urban thermal inequity has grown, with a focus on denser built environments. In this letter we examine thermal inequity associated with climate change impacts and changes to urban form in a comparatively socioeconomically disadvantaged Australian suburb. Local urban densification policies designed to counteract spra...

Published in The Conversation.

Published in The Conversation.

Full citation: Matthews, T. and Dodson, J. 2016. 'Oil vulnerability and climate change: Institutional responses to a potential convergence of transformative stressors' in Dodson, J. Sipe, N. and Nelson, A. (eds) Planning After Petroleum: Preparing Cities for the Age Beyond Oil. London: Routledge. Pp.37-48. Abstract The twenty-first century will be...

Rapid population growth, changing demographic profiles and increased focus on sustainable urban form has led to significant changes in settlement patterns in Australian cities. Growth management strategies are increasingly employed to help cities manage strain on infrastructure, housing and ecosystems. Urban consolidation is one such strategy and h...

Institutional responses to climate change stresses through planning will require new and amended forms of governance. Institutional framing of change imperatives can significantly condition associated governance responses. This paper builds on scholarly conversations concerning the conceptual role of 'storylines' in shaping institutional responses...

Institutional responses to climate change stresses through planning will require new and amended forms of governance. Institutional framing of change imperatives can significantly condition associated governance responses. This paper builds on scholarly conversations concerning the conceptual role of ‘storylines’ in shaping institutional responses...

Heat islands are a significant problem in urban spaces worldwide. The phenomenon occurs when air and surface temperatures in urban areas significantly exceed those experienced in nearby rural areas. There are two main causes of heat islands. The first is the use of highly absorptive construction materials in buildings and infrastructure, which soak...

This paper understands climate change as a transformative stressor that will prompt responses from institutional governance frameworks in Australian cities. A transformative stressor is characterised as a chronic large-scale phenomenon which triggers a process of institutional change whereby institutions seek to reorientate their activities to bett...

This timely and thorough book seeks to provide evidence-based assessments of ways in which spatial planning may develop and deliver new strategies for addressing both the causes and impacts of climate change. The authors state that much of the analysis is informed by experiences and learning from their own involvements with climate change projects....

This timely and thorough book seeks to provide evidence-based assessments of ways in which spatial planning may develop and deliver new strategies for addressing both the causes and impacts of climate change. The authors state that much of the analysis is informed by experiences and learning from their own involvements with climate change projects....

Adaptation is increasingly understood as a necessary response in respect of climate change impacts on urban settlements. Australia is heavily urbanised and climate change is likely to impact severely on its urban environments. Accordingly, climate adaptation must become a key component of urban management. This paper is part of a wider project and...