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Understanding housing preferences is critical for successful compact city development. However, there is limited research on understanding preference heterogeneity in dwelling type choices. Using the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, this paper identifies the key housing and built environment characteristics associated with changes in dwelling type choice from detached houses to high-density. A latent class choice model captures the heterogeneity of dwelling type preferences within a traditionally low-density city, Brisbane, Australia. Findings reveal six household classes with distinct dwelling preferences: Class 1 (senior households without children with other family members) and Class 2 (couple families with children) in inner-city areas, Class 3 (high-income young households) and Class 4 (low-income households without children) in middle-city areas, Class 5 (low-income families with children) and Class 6 (middle-income young families without children) in outer-city areas. Residential environments with better access to educational facilities encourage Classes 3 and 6 to change to high-density living. Greater land use diversity encourages Classes 2, 3, and 6 to move towards high-density living. The findings can be used to design and improve high-density housing for targeted population groups across inner-, middle- and outer-city areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the differences in the ways we orientate, adjust and create new trajectories as we walk, wander and wayfind. Drawing on lived experiences of walking together and separately through inner-city walking paths in Brisbane – Meanjin, we offer a conceptual exploration of the relationship of unplanned movement, spontaneity and affective registers of mobility. Discussing specific glimpses and accounts of our walking, and moments where this drifts into 'wandering', we reflect on the episodes of wandering as something more than, or different to, purposeful walking. These are complex processes of kinaesthetic, visual registers, imagination, conjecture and anticipation, responding to sensory cues from wayfinding design. We suggest that wandering creates unanticipated trajectories that orientate and adjust movements differentially in untying itself from direction, simultaneously taking inspiration from the abstracted and often colourful wayfinding and mobilities designs that feature in urban spaces. As a conceptual intervention, these meanderings reflect on research across mobilities, creative methods and geographical research, as a tool for doing research rather than methodological revision. We consider the role of movement in urban landscapes and the encounters we have with wayfinding and mobilities design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an approach to earthworks design and construction for residential, industrial and commercial developments in the eastern states of Australia, mostly for Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. This approach has been implemented successfully over a range of projects and development types, for various ground conditions, over a period of 15 years. The approach has benefited from the Authors' experience with claims and disputes arising from earthworks. It is acknowledged that there are many possible approaches to earthworks projects, and the intention of the paper is to raise awareness of the importance of a unified approach to earthworks design, construction, testing and documentation, auditing and certification consistent with AS3798-2007. The paper argues that whilst the 'earthworks specification' is a major component of the earthworks approach, it is only part of the approach. Far too often a few notes on a civil drawing represent the entire thinking regarding the earthworks component of a project/development. Often drawings and specifications are prepared with little evidence that the works have been designed for particular end use. Included in this paper is an example earthworks specification, and discussion of various clauses in these, in light of usual practice and the Authors' experience with earthworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's concentrated population presents particular challenges for touring music acts. The country's capital cities are few, and the distance between these cities is not dotted with the type of vibrant regional music scene commonly found abroad. Yet due to an array of state and federal arts grants – all aiming to subsidisze music touring – many Australian inner-city acts venture out to these destinations hoping to find conductive performance environments. In this paper, we map the experiences of a number of Melbourne and Brisbane bands – via interviews and case study – as they tour outside of their local/city scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday activities and routines, such as, cooking, cleaning, and shopping, draw attention to the changes, contrasts, and adaptive processes that migrants undertake when settling into new living arrangements and relationships. For those coming from countries with rigid gender hierarchies, such as Nepal, these changes and necessary adaptations to the new socio-cultural practices and more flexible gender roles, often magnify the emotional and relational experiences of migration. This paper explores how female Nepalese students living in Brisbane, Australia experience shifting gender roles and expectations. It expands on the scarce literature on female Nepalese migration, in contrast to the recent growth in females as primary visa holders. Drawing on a series of qualitative interviews and ethnographic reflections, we examine how the more mundane roles and duties of a household are negotiated by these students and their partners. We suggest that attention to the mundane, everyday negotiations of gender between partners and in shared households sheds light on the complexity of migration experiences for Nepalese students living in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research demonstrates how the governance of urban nuisances is often linked to the punitive treatment of marginalised subjects and the neoliberal imperatives that drive this. Yet, whilst the discourse of nuisance disproportionately effects marginalised populations, it is also applied to other urban subjects and problems. Drawing on a qualitative study of nuisance governance in Brisbane, Australia, this paper extends upon the existing literature by investigating how nuisances are governed in the wider community, paying particular attention to the role of punitive practices and neoliberal rationalities in this process. It shows how a broader array of neoliberal rationalities inform nuisance governance than acknowledged in previous research, which has predominantly focused on the political-economic rationality of 'urban entrepreneurialism'. It shows, furthermore, that these rationalities do not merely promote punitive responses to nuisance problems, but rather combine punishment with more traditionally 'liberal' governance practices that seek to facilitate self-governance. I argue that taking account of this broader array of nuisance governance practices enables us to better understand what is specific about the treatment of marginalised urban populations, as well as deepening our understanding of the relationship between neoliberal rationalities and punitive governance practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of Australia's Muslim population over the past three decades has presented a challenge to local governments to find ways of accommodating their needs, particularly providing spaces to build mosques. Yet in many parts of Australia, mosque applications have been opposed by local communities and consequently such applications are usually declined by local councils. Many Muslims believe that Islamophobhia and racism are behind such refusals. This paper examines the role of urban planning policies in determining the location, architectural form, and the use of mosques, and their impact on the local community, through a case study of the Masjid Al Farooq in South-East Queensland. It seeks to understand whether urban planning policy as well as urban planners can become a tool of integrating the community and, if so, how. This case study reveals that there is no provision in urban planning policies specifically for places of worship. Such applications are treated the same as all others even though they have a very different purpose. Places of worship form an integral part of community and can be crucial at a time when political leaders seem to be placing emphasis on family and social cohesion. Marginalising places of worship will continue to disenchant segments of the population and make them feel like “outsiders”. Given the contemporary global political climate, there are no easy solutions. This paper makes policy suggestions that government, planners, and community leaders can embrace so that mosques and those who worship in them are seen as part of the community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]