17 June 2009

Current Thinking Series
Making Sydney's Future Sustainable
Professor Richard Hyde, Professor Peter Phibbs, Associate Professor Nicole Gurran and Tony Gilmour

In an age when the buzzword is 'sustainability', why do we continue to build unsustainable cities and regions? Are there alternatives to car-clogged streets, suburban McMansions and degraded natural environments?

This presentation celebrates the launch of 'Dialogues in urban planning: towards sustainable regions' by Sydney University Press, a book showcasing research by staff and doctoral research candidates at the University of Sydney. The event will feature a panel of well-known Sydney scholars. The 'Q&A' format should encourage a lively debate.
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Purchase Dialogues in Urban Planning Online

New ideas or a case for recycling?
Paul Pholeros, Health Habitat, Adjunct Professor FADP

Current national trends in Indigenous housing and positive roles for local communities & architects.
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Energy efficiency and thermal comfort - a response to climate change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified the building sector as offering the greatest potential for greenhouse gas reductions between now and 2030. That's more potential than the transport sector; the agriculture sector; even the energy sector itself.
The largest end-use of energy (read greenhouse gas emissions) in buildings is air-conditioning and the whole purpose of air conditioning is to provide THERMAL COMFORT. So the time is right for a thorough re-appraisal of exactly what thermal comfort is, and how we can energy-efficiently maintain it in our built environments.
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08 April 2009

Sunset Seminar Series
Planning in New South Wales: Responding to the Global Economic Crisis
The Hon. Kristina Keneally
MP, Minister for Planning, and Minister for Redfern Waterloo

As the global economic crisis begins to take effect in NSW, a key question on the minds of developers, planners and policy makers is what impact this will have on urban and regional development and planning policy.

The Minister for Planning, the Hon. Kristina Keneally, will present an informative, no-nonsense, discussion on the State’s responses, including Part 3A reforms to the planning and assessing regime and the short and long-term impacts this will have in speeding up of approval processes and in stimulating economic activity in NSW.
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31 March 2009

Current Thinking in Planning
Setting the New Planning Agenda
Book Launch with the Authors
Professor Timothy Beatley & Professor Peter Newman

Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning from sustainable communities in Australia reports on th current state of “sustainability practice” in Australia, and the many lessons people can learn from the best Australian programs and initiatives.

Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change
With inefficient transportation systems and poorly designed buildings, many cities consume enormous quantities of fossil fuels and emit high levels of greenhouse gases. But our planet is rapidly running out of carbon based fuels and we seem unable to curb our greenhouse gas emissions. Are the worlds cities headed for inevitable collapse?
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19 March 2009

Current Thinking in Planning
Does Neighbourhood Matter in the Development of Low-Income, Minority Children? - New Evidence from a Natual Experiment in Denver
George Galster

Professor Galster’s presentation will report on research which aimed to quantify how a variety of outcomes (health, education, employment, behavioral and demographic) for low-income, black and Latino children residing in Denver public housing for a substantial period are statistically related to various conditions in the neighborhoods in which they were raised.
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