The Critical Urban Governance (CUG) Program aims to shape public debate, create new knowledge and provide an inclusive space for discussion and the development of new governance practices to address the challenges facing contemporary cities. 

Our key themes/projects are:

• Policies for a just city 
• Emerging modes of urban governmentality
• Critical urban infrastructure
• Urban renewal and displacement
• Social innovation at the local scale
• Transforming climate governance
• Eco-collaborative housing
• Inclusive urban governance
• Politics of urban greening
• Biodiversity offset policy and decision-making
• Transitions to a low carbon society
• Co-design and biodiversity governance 
• Urban governance and obligations to Treaty
• Decolonisation and urban / built environments
• Sovereignty and dwelling
• An indigenous-led urban research agenda
• Child-friendly cities
• Smart city governance
• Urban and planning theory, methodology and praxis

Researchers working in Critical Urban Governance aim to critically engage with the contemporary challenges confronting urban planning and governance in Australia and beyond. We do that by building capacity in research which we see as an active, engaged and inclusive activity; fostering new conversations, debates and collaborations; communicating our ideas to diverse groups of people by diverse media. 

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge that systems of governance and law have always been present in the country now called Australia. We acknowledge the unceded sovereignty of the Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung / Bunurong speaking peoples on the land where we are located and respectfully acknowledge Ancestors and Elders in all of the places where we conduct our work.

The Critical Urban Governance program seeks to bring critical attention to how cities are governed and for whom. Both the scholarship and practice of urban governance have historically worked to obscure and deny Indigenous sovereignties. As a program, we commit to learning how to practice our scholarship and education on Country in relationship with Indigenous sovereignty.