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Council Meets Community

Tasmanian Climate Action Council member Rob Adams attracted a large audience of close to 140 people to the University of Tasmania to hear him speak on ‘Transforming Cities’ on 24 September 2009.

Rob issued a challenge of realigning existing infrastructure within cities to produce a more sustainable, liveable and economically viable future. He argued that ‘small’ needs to be increasingly valued and investments need to be made towards social capital. He argued that making cities more sustainable implies they also become more liveable.

Rob provided international examples to support his arguments. He used the example of Melbourne to articulate his vision for sustainable/ liveable cities.

Rob highlighted the following initiatives undertaken by the City of Melbourne:

  • bring people back to live downtown
  • take existing stock and transform into liveable spaces (eg Federation Square)
  • ‘steal’ back roads from the car (20 hectares of asphalt have been taken out of the city over the past 20 years)
  • make planning schemes simple
  • employ concept of ‘productive suburbs’, particularly in relation to rooftops engage the community.

Find out more about Rob’s presentation by downloading his slides: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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