Conference

7th State of Australian Cities Conference, 9-11 December 2015, Gold Coast, Australia

Owning Institution

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research. SOAC 7 was held in the City of Gold Coast and hosted by Griffith University.

The 164 peer reviewed papers were organised into seven broad themes but all shared, to varying degrees, a common focus on the ways in which high quality academic research can be used in the development and implementation of policy. The conference featured leading national and local politicians and policy makers who shared their views on some of the current challenges facing cities and how these might be overcome in the future.

Papers from all past and subsequent SOAC conferences can be found at the State of Australian Cities Conferences Collection on APO.

Conference paper

The role of international education and skilled migration in creating the knowledge city: the case study of accounting professionals in Melbourne

11 Dec 2015

Kathleen Hurley

7th State of Australian Cities Conference, 9-11 December 2015, Gold Coast, Australia

Accountancy professionals are used as a case study in this paper to examine the causes behind the growth of knowledge workers within the city’s economy and labour market.

Conference paper

Integrating the applied behavioural sciences to improve community engagement processes in Victorian strategic land use planning practice

11 Dec 2015

Suzanne Barker,

Jim Curtis

7th State of Australian Cities Conference, 9-11 December 2015, Gold Coast, Australia

Community engagement processes are an important part of strategic land use planning practice in order to facilitate good governance. This paper draws upon the applied behavioural sciences and examines a number of ways they could be used to improve the efficacy of community engagement practice focusing on the Victorian strategic land use planning context.

Conference paper

The tide is high: evaluating climate change adaptation and disaster resilience at the local level

11 Dec 2015

Elnaz Torabi,

Michael Howes,

Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes

7th State of Australian Cities Conference, 9-11 December 2015, Gold Coast, Australia

This paper reviews the institutional context of the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in addressing urban resilience to climate-related disasters.

Conference paper

The function of individual factors on travel behaviour: comparative studies on Perth and Shanghai

11 Dec 2015

Shaoli Wang

7th State of Australian Cities Conference, 9-11 December 2015, Gold Coast, Australia

The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of the extent that personal travel behaviour is affected by individual factors such as socio-economic characteristics and travel attitudes rather than by external factors such as land use system and the transport system.

Conference paper

Regional innovation and public wi-fi

11 Dec 2015

Chris K. Wilson,

Ian McShane,

Denise Meredyth

7th State of Australian Cities Conference, 9-11 December 2015, Gold Coast, Australia

The paper focuses on the link between regional development, social enterprise and digital infrastructure, through analysis of an initiative in Goulburn NSW, in which local entrepreneurs rigged up a wi-fi network, providing free internet access to the public in the city’s main street.