Throughout Australia, people want our cities to be more affordable, to have more vibrant social and green spaces, and to be better environmentally suited. And yet our sprawling cities typically fail to meet these goals – often because they have been designed for the convenience of real estate developers, and exclude life sustaining processes and community from them. Even though the ways we work and live have shifted, and we’ve made leaps and bounds in technology, transport, architecture, and infrastructure, our blueprint for a city has not changed since the Second World War. Given our ability to create cities that are socially vibrant, economical, and in harmony with the land and climate of Australia, isn’t it about time we reimagined our cities to reflect the lifestyles we want for the future? 

John Carr
John Carr is an urban and legal geographer whose work focuses on the intersections of urban form, law, planning, and human and non-human environments. His research seeks to address how knowledge from across disciplinary boundaries can be mobilised to make human-built environments more environmentally and socially regenerative. Carr is a senior lecturer with the Environment and Society Group at UNSW Sydney, and teaches in the School of Humanities and Languages, Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture. For more than a decade, he practiced law in the areas of civil rights, complex litigation, and construction law before entering academia. 

For more information, visit unsw.to/JohnCarr