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Professor Wendy Steele

Wendy is an ARC DECRA Fellow (2013–2015) whose research is focused on the nexus between cities, sustainability, urban governance, urban equity/security and critical infrastructure.

Expert commentary on...

Expert commentary on...

Urban planning, Policy and governance, Urban security and justice (climate, food, water, energy, housing).

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Related Content

Projects

Rethinking Research Impact

2019 (ongoing)

Researchers and research institutions are increasingly required to demonstrate research impact, but what exactly is research impact and how should we approach it, given the complex challenges the world faces?

Critical Urban Governance Climate Change Transformations

Planning for the 21st Century Municipal Markets in Victoria

2020 (ongoing)

The aim of this project is to draw on local and international expertise to develop and disseminate new models and planning guidelines for 21st century municipal markets in Victoria.

Urban Cultures & Technologies

Climate Adaptation Australia

2017–2019

The project investigates the framings and practices of local governments, community groups and NGOs as they seek to create local adaptation strategies.

Critical Urban Governance Climate Change Transformations

Social innovation for local climate adaptability

2015–2017

This research critically investigates tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and NGOs.

Critical Urban Governance

News & Blog

Blog

Ordinary people, extraordinary change: addressing the climate emergency through ‘quiet activism’

25 August 2021

Across the world, people worried about the impacts of climate change are seeking creative and meaningful ways to transform their urban environments. One such approach is known as “quiet activism”.

Climate Change Transformations
News

Reform how our cities are governed to manage urgent urban challenges: report

17 March 2021

Local government collaboration with metropolitan governance in Australian cities must reform to better address urgent urban issues such as climate change action, population growth and urban sprawl, finds new AHURI research.

Planning & Transport in City Regions
News

How can urban and environmental planning shape a post-pandemic future?

04 October 2020

The adversities of COVID-19 have no doubt changed the way we think about our environments. Here, our teachers discuss the role urban, regional and environmental planning has in shaping a post-pandemic future.

Planning & Transport in City Regions ICON Science Critical Urban Governance Climate Change Transformations
Blog

Churches have legal rights in Australia. Why not sacred trees?

07 November 2019

In Australia, corporations such as Coles and Westpac and even some churches operate as legal entities entitled to most of the rights and responsibilities that individuals possess. Why don’t the Djab Wurrung sacred trees have legal standing?

Critical Urban Governance
Blog

Indonesia isn’t the only country planning new cities. Why not Australia?

02 May 2019

The announcement that President Joko Widodo’s government will move Indonesia’s capital to another location, due to the severity of human-induced degradation in Jakarta, highlights a key tension for cities today.

Critical Urban Governance
Blog

Business as usual? The Sustainable Development Goals apply to Australian cities too

19 September 2018

We are still settling Australian cities on unceded Aboriginal lands. With the global agreement on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, development has finally come home to the developed world.

Critical Urban Governance
Blog

What’s critical about critical infrastructure?

03 April 2017

This is the first article in our series Making Cities Work. It considers the problems of providing critical infrastructure and how we might produce the innovations and reforms needed to meet 21st-century needs and challenges.

Critical Urban Governance
News

Global Forum for Urban and Regional Resilience

18 October 2016

Lauren Rickards, co-leader of the Climate Change and Resilience (CCR) research program, and Raven Cretney, PhD student, represented the CUR at a recent workshop at the Global Forum for Urban and Regional Resilience (GFURR) at Virginia Tech, in Arlington, Virginia.

Climate Change Transformations
Blog

Cities in the sky: how do we decide where this urban journey is taking us?

02 October 2016

We shape the city and it shapes us. The idea of “the city” looms large. There are, it seems, no limits to the prospects and possibilities of technology and human entrepreneurship.

Critical Urban Governance
News

How urban planners are creating cities for the future

22 August 2016

Well-planned cities can encourage people to spend more time outside, commute more sustainably and connect with their communities. Good planning is central to making cities liveable and sustainable.

Critical Urban Governance

Publications

Wild infrastructure

Professor Wendy Steele

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

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The Sustainable Development Goals in higher education

Professor Wendy Steele, Professor Lauren Rickards

This book explores the role universities play in fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals

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Online learning and teaching for the SDGs – exploring emerging university strategies

Jayden Holmes , Oli Moraes, Professor Lauren Rickards, Professor Wendy Steele, Dr Mette Hotker, Dr Anthony Richardson

Emerald Insight

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Futures literacy for research impact in universities

Olga Kokshagina, Professor Lauren Rickards, Professor Wendy Steele, Oli Moraes

Futures

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Local government co-ordination: metropolitan governance in twenty-first century Australia

Associate Professor Andrew Butt, Dr Annette Kroen, Professor Wendy Steele, Stefanie Dühr

AHURI

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Planning Wild Cities Human–Nature Relationships in the Urban Age

Professor Wendy Steele

Taylor & Francis Group

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Quiet Activism: Socially Innovative Climate Action

Professor Wendy Steele, Jean Hillier, Diana MacCallum, Donna Houston, Jason Byrne

Department of Geography and Planning

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More-than-human cities: Where the wild things are

Professor Wendy Steele, Ilan Wiesel, Associate Professor Cecily Maller

Geoforum

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Beyond the post-political: Exploring the relational and situated dynamics of consensus and conflict in planning

Crystal Legacy, Jonathan Metzger, Professor Wendy Steele, Enrico Gualini

Planning Theory

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Routledge Handbook of Climate Justice

Professor Wendy Steele, Jean Hillier, Donna Houston, Jason Byrne, Diana MacCallum

Taylor and Francis Group

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Critical Urban Infrastructure

Professor Wendy Steele, Crystal Legacy
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Keywords in planning: what do we mean by ‘community resilience’?

Associate Professor Martin Mulligan, Professor Wendy Steele, Professor Lauren Rickards, Hartmut Fuenfgeld
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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.

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