- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Ian McShane
RMIT University, Centre for Urban Research, Faculty Member
E-participation research has mainly been concerned with the spread of e-participation technologies, but less with why some government organizations choose to use digital tools to consult citizens (e-consultation) whereas others go further... more
E-participation research has mainly been concerned with the spread of e-participation technologies, but less with why some government organizations choose to use digital tools to consult citizens (e-consultation) whereas others go further and include them in the decision-making processes (e-decision making). This article is an in-depth, comparative case-study of the adoption of e-participation platforms in Oslo, Melbourne and Madrid, and develops an alternative explanatory framework using theories of institutional entrepreneurship and change. It shows that conventional adoption theory – focusing on resource slack, socio-economic development, competition and top-down mandates – is not able to account for the differences between these cases, and argues that the degree of e-participation should be understood as an outcome of the type and agenda of change agents, the level of institutional discretion, the strength of institutional defenders, and the resources of the change agents.
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In Inside Story, Ian McShane reviews Natasha Cica\u27s account of the life of wilderness photographer Olegas Truchanas and his role in the campaign to save Lake Pedder. • WHEN I was very young, we lived in the foothills of Mount... more
In Inside Story, Ian McShane reviews Natasha Cica\u27s account of the life of wilderness photographer Olegas Truchanas and his role in the campaign to save Lake Pedder. • WHEN I was very young, we lived in the foothills of Mount Wellington, high above Hobart. One of our neighbours was Olegas Truchanas. We moved away after a few years, but Truchanas’s roots grew deep into the hill. He had arrived in Tasmania in 1949 from Lithuania, following an extraordinary escape from the grip of Russian dominance, and re-established his life by joining a circle of Hobart artists, starting a family and building a house on a bush block in West Hobart with a superb view over the Derwent estuary. He spent the working week in the central Hobart office of the Hydro-Electric Commission, Tasmania’s state within a state. And in his free time he explored Tasmania’s southwest by foot and home-made kayak, often solo, exploring and photographing its wild places. From the mid 1950s, he began presenting public s...
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This paper examines whether recent innovation in market design can address persistent problems of housing choice and affordability in the inner and middle suburbs of Australian cities. Australia's ageing middle suburbs are the result... more
This paper examines whether recent innovation in market design can address persistent problems of housing choice and affordability in the inner and middle suburbs of Australian cities. Australia's ageing middle suburbs are the result of a low density and highly car-dependent garden city greenfield approach to planning that failed to consider possible future resource or environmental constraints on urban development (Newton et al., 2011). Described as 'greyfield' sites in contrast to greenfield (signalling the change from rural to urban land use) and 'brownfield' (being the transformation of former industrial use to mixed use, including housing), intensification of development in such areas is expected to deliver positive social, economic and environmental outcomes (Trubka et al., 2008; Gurran et al., 2006; Newton et al., 2011; Goodman et al., 2010). Yet despite broad policy consensus progress remains elusive (Major Cities Unit, 2010). In this paper we argue that ...
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Investment by Australian local government authorities (LGAs) in public Wi‐Fi (PWF) provision has grown substantially in recent years. PWF represents the first significant venture of LGAs into telecommunications, a field of national... more
Investment by Australian local government authorities (LGAs) in public Wi‐Fi (PWF) provision has grown substantially in recent years. PWF represents the first significant venture of LGAs into telecommunications, a field of national jurisdiction, and thus is a precursor of wider local investment in digital communication technologies, particularly the Internet of Things and other ‘smart city’ infrastructure. However, there has been little published analysis of PWF provision and use in Australia. This knowledge gap limits understanding of the rationales, business models, and uses and impact of investment in these networks and offers little guidance for local authorities and communities contemplating wider ventures in the field of digital networks. This article draws on a national survey of PWF provision by LGAs, together with interview data and critical analysis of policy and institutional settings, to present an overview of local PWF provision in Australia. The analysis highlights some familiar problems associated with LGA infrastructure investment and service delivery, as well as some novel challenges posed for local managers by digital communication networks. Following an empirical mapping of PWF provision in Australia, we explore three significant themes that our research in this field highlights: accountability and transparency, competence in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and evaluation.
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Few government participation initiatives allow real influence on decision making in urban development. Participation mostly remains a method of collecting information with the aim of improving public services. Some research on... more
Few government participation initiatives allow real influence on decision making in urban development. Participation mostly remains a method of collecting information with the aim of improving public services. Some research on participatory initiatives in urban development highlights stories of success, but most are accounts of failure. One significant finding in the literature is that unresolved conflicts in urban regeneration programmes compromise the cooperation between grassroots and governance networks, erode citizens’ trust in city governments and contribute to disengagement, cynicism and protest. In this paper we measure citizens’ trust in local government politicians and civil servants and link it to participation processes in urban development. We investigate how citizens in inner-city districts of Oslo,Melbourne and Madrid participated in urban development processes, how fair they think these processes were and whether development outcomes reflect and respect local community views. Findings from a questionnaire given to local resident organisations in the three cities show that residents trust politicians and civil servants more when they have a sense of efficacy in influencing policy. While digital platforms have widened participatory channels, the findings show that residents combine digital and traditional modes to maximise influence. Results show that engagement in itself raises trust in the government. A very clear finding in all cities is that trust increases when residents believe that public authorities handle urban development correctly and fairly.
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Urban development has, for many critical urban scholars, long been complicit with gentrification. The prolific scholarship on gentrification has also, in recent years, taken a digital turn, analysts exploring the association between... more
Urban development has, for many critical urban scholars, long been complicit with gentrification. The prolific scholarship on gentrification has also, in recent years, taken a digital turn, analysts exploring the association between gentrification and the increasing use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) in urban governance. This chapter extends the book’s discussion on consultative digital platforms as sites of dialogue between citizens and governments, situating these initiatives within the wider investment made by governments and commercial providers in digital urban infrastructure. This investment, supported by imaginaries such as techno-solutionism, democratic participation and ideas of a rational citizen, is shaping the social, economic and spatial dynamics of cities, bringing critical attention to what scholars, following Lefebvre, have called the digital rights to the city. We analyse data from the Melbourne case study of the DEMUDIG project to expl...
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Few government participation initiatives allow real influence on decision making in urban development. Participation mostly remains a method of collecting information with the aim of improving public services. Some research on... more
Few government participation initiatives allow real influence on decision making in urban development. Participation mostly remains a method of collecting information with the aim of improving public services. Some research on participatory initiatives in urban development highlights stories of success, but most are accounts of failure. One
significant finding in the literature is that unresolved conflicts in urban regeneration programmes compromise the cooperation between grassroots and governance networks, erode citizens’ trust in city governments and contribute to disengagement, cynicism and protest. In this paper we measure citizens’ trust in local government politicians and civil servants and link it to participation processes in urban development. We investigate how citizens in inner-city districts of Oslo,Melbourne and Madrid participated in urban development processes, how fair they think these processes were and whether development outcomes reflect and respect local community views. Findings from a questionnaire given to local resident organisations in the three cities show that residents trust politicians and civil servants more when they have a sense of efficacy in influencing policy. While digital platforms have widened participatory channels, the findings show that residents combine digital and traditional modes to maximise influence. Results show that engagement in itself raises trust in the government. A very clear finding in all cities is that trust increases when
residents believe that public authorities handle urban development correctly and fairly.
significant finding in the literature is that unresolved conflicts in urban regeneration programmes compromise the cooperation between grassroots and governance networks, erode citizens’ trust in city governments and contribute to disengagement, cynicism and protest. In this paper we measure citizens’ trust in local government politicians and civil servants and link it to participation processes in urban development. We investigate how citizens in inner-city districts of Oslo,Melbourne and Madrid participated in urban development processes, how fair they think these processes were and whether development outcomes reflect and respect local community views. Findings from a questionnaire given to local resident organisations in the three cities show that residents trust politicians and civil servants more when they have a sense of efficacy in influencing policy. While digital platforms have widened participatory channels, the findings show that residents combine digital and traditional modes to maximise influence. Results show that engagement in itself raises trust in the government. A very clear finding in all cities is that trust increases when
residents believe that public authorities handle urban development correctly and fairly.
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Are local schools the beating heart of our communities? Or are they underutilised public assets, closed out of school hours and off limits to local residents? • A new discussion paper on the extended use of schools released by New South... more
Are local schools the beating heart of our communities? Or are they underutilised public assets, closed out of school hours and off limits to local residents? • A new discussion paper on the extended use of schools released by New South Wales Labor asks these questions and raises a significant national issue. Australia has more than 9,000 schools, located in almost every community. But discussion over the best use of these key public assets struggles for public attention in policy debate focussed on big ticket transport and utility infrastructure. The wider use of school facilities is far from a new issue. The relationship of schools and their surrounding communities has been a central concern of Australian education policy since the inception of public education in the nineteenth century. Making better use of school facilities outside the formal hours of schooling has been debated since at least the 1920s. In recent years, policies encouraging shared community services and educat...
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The paper focuses on the link between regional development, social enterprise and digital infrastructure, through analysis of an initiative in Goulburn NSW, in which local entrepreneurs rigged up a wi-fi network, providing free internet... more
The paper focuses on the link between regional development, social enterprise and digital infrastructure, through analysis of an initiative in Goulburn NSW, in which local entrepreneurs rigged up a wi-fi network, providing free internet access to the public in the city’s main street. Public wi-fi, like open source software, the DIY and hacker movement, can be understood as ‘inverse infrastructure’: an emergent challenge to the modernist conception of infrastructure as centrally-provided large-scale technical systems such as electricity and water utilities (Egyedi et al. 2012). Inverse infrastructures may be enterprise-level responses to state or market failure, such as municipal broadband, or less formal citizen-based activities, such as community wireless networks. Such community-level initiatives are not necessarily demonstration sites of civic affiliation or bespoke provision. They involve competing interests, wavering volunteer commitment to repair and maintenance and the myriad...
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This article analyses expectations and experiences of digital public spaces that facilitate community engagement with urban planning. While viewing digital spaces as part of an expanding repertoire of public spaces and events-physical and... more
This article analyses expectations and experiences of digital public spaces that facilitate community engagement with urban planning. While viewing digital spaces as part of an expanding repertoire of public spaces and events-physical and digital-that signify the participatory turn in municipal governance, we argue that local officials and residents are overly optimistic about the democratic and administrative capacities of the digital sphere. Through a case study from Melbourne, Australia-a city with significant growth pressures-we argue that the experience of new participatory digital platforms falls short of expectations, for both residents and officials. Data show that well-documented problems with established modes of community engagement such as agenda control and 'black boxing' of responses, are replicated in on-line settings. The wariness residents have of administrators and elected officials are overlaid by new concerns of digital distrust and digital exclusion. For officials, using these digital spaces effectively requires time to develop and apply new skills. Our study suggests that digital spaces are not homogenous but are made up of diverse and complex practices and interrelationships. The multiplex relationships making up these digital spaces suggest that strategic and contextual combinations of online and offline engagement may be a path towards inclusive and democratic community engagement. SEARCH All OpenEdition Expectations and realities of digital public spaces: A case study of digital...
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Public-private partnerships (PPP) are the dominant business model for procuring and operating public digital communication networks such as public Wi-Fi and IoT, technologies that play a significant role in providing public internet... more
Public-private partnerships (PPP) are the dominant business model for procuring and operating public digital communication networks such as public Wi-Fi and IoT, technologies that play a significant role in providing public internet access and managing urban systems. The literature on partnerships in public infrastructure provision gives much attention to risk in such arrangements, and is largely sceptical of the capacity of public authorities to transfer risk to the private sector. In the limited critical discussion of PPPs or similar arrangements in the field of communications infrastructure, technological capture or lock-in of city governments investing in digital communications networks is hypothesised as a risk factor. In this paper I draw on field research to investigate this hypothesis by analysing risk factors associated with PPP models in the provision of municipal-level public Wi-Fi. Focussing on Australian examples, I argue that the limited expertise and resources of local government authorities (LGAs), along with the regulatory complexity of telecommunications, weigh against direct LGA provision of public Wi-Fi and in favour of partnership arrangements. However, I highlight two concerns associated with PPP models of public Wi-Fi provision: 1) the lack of transparency and accountability relating to digital infrastructure procurement and service evaluation imposed by commercial-in-confidence claims, and 2) the limited attention of LGAs to questions of data access when contracting private providers, subsequently limiting their capacity to obtain and use network metadata for public good purposes. Drawing on the work of Mark H Moore, I frame these concerns as strategic management challenges. Moore's analysis of these challenges through his strategic triangle model assists in optimising the public value of PPP arrangements in the domain of digital infrastructure. While I focus on PWF networks, the discussion has wider relevance for e-governance.
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This article discusses community hubs (CH) — multi-purpose institutions that host social, educational and health services, while building social connectedness and community capacity. Major events such as climate change, wildfires and the... more
This article discusses community hubs (CH) — multi-purpose institutions that host social, educational and health services, while building social connectedness and community capacity. Major events such as climate change, wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic are placing new demands on CHs to be emergency refuges, information centres, community kitchens and more. Such events highlight the critical nature of social infrastructure to both disaster responses and long-term community building and resilience. Such events, though, expose new seams of infrastructural and spatial injustice and place strain on insecure institutional arrangements. Infrastructure policy has typically focussed on large-scale systems and networks in defining and resourcing critical infrastructure. We examine some conceptual and policy challenges in rethinking CHs as anchor institutions for addressing vulnerability, building community resilience, and fostering adaptive responses to enable more socially and environmentally just development.
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Around two-thirds of Australia’s community cultural and recreation facilities were built in the years of growth following the Second World War. Now ageing and in need of renewal, many of these facilities face change or closure as... more
Around two-thirds of Australia’s community cultural and recreation facilities were built in the years of growth following the Second World War. Now ageing and in need of renewal, many of these facilities face change or closure as community needs and building codes change, market principles influence public policy, and local governments struggle with funding shortfalls. State and local government responses to the community infrastructure “crisis” (Troy 1999) have been mainly concerned with technical, financial and service outcomes. Although celebrated episodes of community resistance to facility closures (such as the Fitzroy Pool in Melbourne) suggest treacherous waters for local government officials, there has been limited recognition of community facilities as cultural artefacts or focal points of community life. This paper explores the cultural value of community facilities, and the challenges presented to local museums and cultural workers as infrastructure policy – still seen as...
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PROBLEM Cost of delivering medium density apartments impedes supply of new and more affordable housing in established suburbs EXISTING FOCUS - Planning controls - Construction costs, esp labour - Regulation eg sustainability
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Problem/Purpose: This article canvasses the repurposing of under-utilised assets owned by Not-for-Profit (NFP) organisations for affordable housing provision. Design/Methodology/Approach: Exploratory interviews were undertaken with five... more
Problem/Purpose: This article canvasses the repurposing of under-utilised assets owned by Not-for-Profit (NFP) organisations for affordable housing provision. Design/Methodology/Approach: Exploratory interviews were undertaken with five diverse NFP (non-housing) organisations. Findings: The research indicates that NFPs who are not principally engaged in housing provision, but hold surplus or under-utilised land and property assets, may be willing partners in affordable housing provision. However a range of institutional and structural barriers would need to be overcome for housing developments to occur on under-utilised NFP land holdings. Research limitations/Implications: The small scale of the study limits generalisation from the research findings. However, the findings point to an opportunity for innovation in housing land supply that warrants larger scale research. Takeaway for practice: That a source of well-located land is potentially available for future affordable housing pr...
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Purpose This paper aims to analyse whether the speed of Wi-Fi in hotels influences customer satisfaction with hotels and the implications of this for the provision of Wi-Fi by commercial and governmental bodies seeking to boost tourism.... more
Purpose This paper aims to analyse whether the speed of Wi-Fi in hotels influences customer satisfaction with hotels and the implications of this for the provision of Wi-Fi by commercial and governmental bodies seeking to boost tourism. Design/methodology/approach Regression analysis on data from Australian hotels (191 entries) and 111 responses to a national survey of local government authorities on public Wi-Fi (PWF) provision were combined with a literature review and content analysis of online reviews by hotel customers. Findings If Wi-Fi quality rises by 1%, customer satisfaction with the hotel increases by 0.376/100 units. In the areas where hotel Wi-Fi is of better quality, PWF provided by the local government is also of better quality; the reverse statement is also true. Practical implications Tourists value continuous access to Wi-Fi, whether provided by commercial or public bodies. It is imperative for hotels and local governments seeking to boost tourist activity to inves...
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Monuments, memorials and plaques contribute significantly to the historical legibility and emotion of public space. There is a large critical literature on public commemoration as a social practice, but little attention is paid to the... more
Monuments, memorials and plaques contribute significantly to the historical legibility and emotion of public space. There is a large critical literature on public commemoration as a social practice, but little attention is paid to the public management
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Getting In. Immigration Museum, Melbourne. Permanent exhibition. Entry free with entry to Museum. National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries. Canberra, National Library, December 2005‐February 2006; thereafter to all states,... more
Getting In. Immigration Museum, Melbourne. Permanent exhibition. Entry free with entry to Museum. National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries. Canberra, National Library, December 2005‐February 2006; thereafter to all states, beginning with the State Library of Victoria 10 March‐7 May. Catalogue: National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries. Canberra: National Library, 2005. Pp. 176. $34.95 paper. Captivating and Curious. National Museum of Australia, 14 December 2005–20 March 2006. Catalogue: Captivating and Curious. Canberra: National Museum. Pp. 128. $29.95 paper.
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There is increasing interest in making more effective use of schools as community hubs, both in Australia and internationally. Investment in shared facilities aims to engage parents and local communities in schooling, encourage civic... more
There is increasing interest in making more effective use of schools as community hubs, both in Australia and internationally. Investment in shared facilities aims to engage parents and local communities in schooling, encourage civic participation, co-ordinate educational and community services and overcome disadvantages of location or service provision. Parent and community partnership with schools is an important priority within current educational policy, at both state and Commonwealth levels. It is a priority that can be supported from different parts of the political spectrum, fitting liberal conceptions of parental choice and private investment as well as more communitarian conceptions of local engagement, civic renewal and participatory design. This paper provides historical background, policy context and educational rationales for the rise of the community hub concept. It discusses how schools as community hubs have provided early childhood services, through both state fundi...
This article analyses expectations and experiences of digital public spaces that facilitate community engagement with urban planning. While viewing digital spaces as part of an expanding repertoire of public spaces and events-physical and... more
This article analyses expectations and experiences of digital public spaces that facilitate community engagement with urban planning. While viewing digital spaces as part of an expanding repertoire of public spaces and events-physical and digital-that signify the participatory turn in municipal governance, we argue that local officials and residents are overly optimistic about the democratic and administrative capacities of the digital sphere. Through a case study from Melbourne, Australia-a city with significant growth pressures-we argue that the experience of new participatory digital platforms falls short of expectations, for both residents and officials. Data show that well-documented problems with established modes of community engagement such as agenda control and 'black boxing' of responses, are replicated in on-line settings. The wariness residents have of administrators and elected officials are overlaid by new concerns of digital distrust and digital exclusion. For officials, using these digital spaces effectively requires time to develop and apply new skills. Our study suggests that digital spaces are not homogenous but are made up of diverse and complex practices and interrelationships. The multiplex relationships making up these digital spaces suggest that strategic and contextual combinations of online and offline engagement may be a path towards inclusive and democratic community engagement. SEARCH All OpenEdition Expectations and realities of digital public spaces: A case study of digital...
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Abstract This chapter focusses on the City of Adelaide to analyze smart city developments in Australia. A midsized city that experienced declining economic fortunes and modest population growth in the late-20th century, Adelaide sought to... more
Abstract This chapter focusses on the City of Adelaide to analyze smart city developments in Australia. A midsized city that experienced declining economic fortunes and modest population growth in the late-20th century, Adelaide sought to transform its economy through “smart” infrastructure investment and partnership deals. The Adelaide case study illuminates the technological, economic, and governance contexts in which smart city policy is formulated and operationalized in Australia. While the state government of South Australia has long shared Adelaide’s vision—the city is a dominant economic player in this highly urbanized state—smart urbanism in Australia has unfolded in a setting where national governments have rarely taken an interest in urban policy. Adelaide is also an intriguing example of corporate storytelling, in constructing a narrative of its smart city credentials, designed to attract public and private investment, and build on a historical record of innovation and progressive governance for which the city and state of South Australia are known. The mobilization of Adelaide’s past to anchor and articulate its future, the chapter argues, demonstrates the importance of identifying continuities rather than ruptures when analyzing the technological transformation of cities.
This paper examines the rise and fall of the Victorian education department's learning management system Ultranet. The Ultranet was conceived as a web-based portal that was designed to integrate and deliver on a range of policy... more
This paper examines the rise and fall of the Victorian education department's learning management system Ultranet. The Ultranet was conceived as a web-based portal that was designed to integrate and deliver on a range of policy objectives in the areas of student management, school networking and communication, and teaching and learning. Heavily promoted by the Victorian educational bureaucracy and the government, the Ultranet, which operated between 2010 and 2013, proved a costly failure and became the subject of an inquiry by Victoria's anti-corruption commission. This paper looks beyond the inquiry's focus on the conduct of senior departmental officials involved in Ultranet's procurement to examine the policy, technological and pedagogical contexts that framed the project. We argue that the project had its roots in pre-digital educational policy settings of devolution and entrepreneurship, which supported a transformative agenda focused on digital information and c...
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This paper examines the rise and fall of the Victorian education department's learning management system Ultranet. The Ultranet was conceived as a web-based portal that was designed to integrate and deliver on a range of policy objectives... more
This paper examines the rise and fall of the Victorian education department's learning management system Ultranet. The Ultranet was conceived as a web-based portal that was designed to integrate and deliver on a range of policy objectives in the areas of student management, school networking and communication, and teaching and learning. Heavily promoted by the Victorian educational bureaucracy and the government, the Ultranet, which operated between 2010 and 2013, proved a costly failure and became the subject of an inquiry by Victoria's anti-corruption commission. This paper looks beyond the inquiry's focus on the conduct of senior departmental officials involved in Ultranet's procurement to examine the policy, technological and pedagogical contexts that framed the project. We argue that the project had its roots in pre-digital educational policy settings of devolution and entrepreneurship, which supported a transformative agenda focused on digital information and communication technologies. While the Ultranet software had fatal design and usability flaws, we broaden the scope of analysis to argue that the project rested on problematic assumptions about the digital literacy and connectivity of parents and teachers, and the viability of a technology-based response to risk and privacy embodied in a 'closed' network, that compromised the venture from its inception.
