IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v45y2008i13p2653-2668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Critical Commentary. Waking from the Dream: An Australian Perspective on Urban Resilience

Author

Listed:
  • Brendan Gleeson

    (Urban Research Program, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Kessels Road, Queensland, 4111, Australia, brendan.gleeson@griffith.edu.au.)

Abstract

Climate change and energy insecurity are grave threats to the stability and sustainability of human society. This paper considers the meaning of this globally manifest, yet regionally differentiated, ecological threat for Australia's urban system. It also considers the twin ecological peril of oil depletion, whose impacts may intensify to great effect the social stresses likely to emerge as climates warm. The paper intervenes in the debate that transfixes contemporary Australian urbanism: the sustainability of the suburban form in which most Australians live. A similar if not identical debate exists in North America and parts of western Europe. These discussions may be overemphasising the environmental significance of urban form and failing to apprehend the deeper socio-cultural forces that drive the (over)consumption of nature. Planning thought and practice need to loosen the grip of physical determinism on their environmental comprehension if they are to comprehend accurately the sources of, and solutions to, ecological threat. New urban scientific evidence suggests that planning's principal role in the fight against warming will be one of adaptation not mitigation. That is to say, there is no simple `spatial fix' for overconsumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Brendan Gleeson, 2008. "Critical Commentary. Waking from the Dream: An Australian Perspective on Urban Resilience," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(13), pages 2653-2668, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:45:y:2008:i:13:p:2653-2668
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098008098198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098008098198
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098008098198?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Gordon & Harry W. Richardson, 2001. "The Sprawl Debate:Let Markets Plan," Working Paper 8638, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    2. Peter Gordon & Harry W. Richardson, 0. "The Sprawl Debate: Let Markets Plan," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 31(3), pages 131-149.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michèle Pezzagno & Barbara M. Frigione & Carla S. S. Ferreira, 2021. "Reading Urban Green Morphology to Enhance Urban Resilience: A Case Study of Six Southern European Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-16, August.
    2. Kevin Keenan, 2018. "Rethinking place in the study of societal responses to terrorism: Insights from Boston, Massachusetts (USA)," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(2), pages 461-480, February.
    3. Stephan Leixnering & Markus Höllerer, 2022. "‘Remaining the same or becoming another?’ Adaptive resilience versus transformative urban change," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1300-1310, May.
    4. Laurence Troy, 2018. "The politics of urban renewal in Sydney’s residential apartment market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(6), pages 1329-1345, May.
    5. Daquan Huang & Yue Lang & Tao Liu, 2021. "The Evolving Structure of Rural Construction Land in Urbanizing China: Case Study of Tai’an Prefecture," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, January.
    6. Iain White & Paul O'Hare, 2014. "From Rhetoric to Reality: Which Resilience, Why Resilience, and Whose Resilience in Spatial Planning?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(5), pages 934-950, October.
    7. Paul O'Hare & Iain White & Angela Connelly, 2016. "Insurance as maladaptation: Resilience and the ‘business as usual’ paradox," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(6), pages 1175-1193, September.
    8. Gordon Waitt & Theresa Harada, 2012. "Driving, Cities and Changing Climates," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(15), pages 3307-3325, November.
    9. Jago Dodson, 2014. "Suburbia under an Energy Transition: A Socio-technical Perspective," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(7), pages 1487-1505, May.
    10. Ziyi Wang & Zengqiao Chen & Cuiping Ma & Ronald Wennersten & Qie Sun, 2022. "Nationwide Evaluation of Urban Energy System Resilience in China Using a Comprehensive Index Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-36, February.
    11. Ulrich Kriese & Roland W. Scholz, 2011. "The Positioning of Sustainability within Residential Property Marketing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(7), pages 1503-1527, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wenjia Zhang & Ming Zhang, 2018. "Incorporating land use and pricing policies for reducing car dependence: Analytical framework and empirical evidence," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(13), pages 3012-3033, October.
    2. Nicolas Raimbault & Adeline Heitz & Laetitia Dablanc, 2018. "Urban planning policies for logistics facilities: a comparison between US metropolitan areas and the Paris region," Post-Print hal-02086893, HAL.
    3. Tiangui Lv & Li Wang & Hualin Xie & Xinmin Zhang & Yanwei Zhang, 2021. "Exploring the Global Research Trends of Land Use Planning Based on a Bibliometric Analysis: Current Status and Future Prospects," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-19, March.
    4. Jonathan Levine & Aseem Inam, 2004. "The Market for Transportation-Land Use Integration: Do Developers Want Smarter Growth than Regulations Allow?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 409-427, November.
    5. Myung‐Jin Jun, 2009. "Economic Impacts Of Seoul'S Job Decentralization: A Metropolitan Input–Output Analysis," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(2), pages 311-327, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:45:y:2008:i:13:p:2653-2668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.