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Good morning, everyone. And welcome.
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My name is Andrew B I'm from geography within Flinders University.
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It's my great pleasure this morning to be your chair and introduce our
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speaker professor Ruth Fincher.
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Ruth will be speaking for approximately 30 minutes today,
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and then we'll have 15 minutes for discussion questions and
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other comments.
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So it's my great pleasure to now pass over to our speaker professor Ruth Fincher
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of the Department of Geography, University of Melbourne.
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[Inaudible].
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Thank you, Andrew. And it's a great pleasure to be, to be here.
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So lovely to see some rain and good to have a fellow geographer chairing the
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session.
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As I start my presentation on this topic I'd like
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to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where we are now,
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the count of people and pay respects to their elders past and present.
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So diversity in the city. What are our limits?
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Diversity is a slippery idea. I'm someone who studies,
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how a range of social groups in the city experience their lives, however,
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unequally, and use their built environments.
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As part of that experience in, in the work I've done,
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I've emphasized the need for any planning or policy that encourages our
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acceptance of diversity to recognize that not all diversity is just and
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equally desirable. For example,
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we could say that income inequality is an expression of diversity in the
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population. And so the greater distance between the incomes of rich and poor,
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the more diversity we have, but many of us of course,
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would claim that we should not make that particular interpretation of diversity.
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And we shouldn't have policy settings that facilitate ever widening differences
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in income that that would offend our notions of fairness.
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Also not all notions of diversity or not all diversity's rather
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appreciated equally by everybody. If this isn't very obvious point.
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So if you imagine shop owners on busy city streets,
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they don't always see that the loitering of young people in their vicinity or
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their activities like skateboarding are as acceptable as the well-behaved
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consumption practices of cafe sitters,
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who are also loiterers when you come to think of it and, and shoppers.
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So I guess I'm just asking you to notice,
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I start this talk that diversity is a slippery idea. As I say it,
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it sounds very positive, but when you look into it,
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it's obvious that you need to ask further questions and to specify it further
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today,
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I'll be mentioning a number of different kinds of diversity of social diversity
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and asking the general question,
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what are our limits in allowing them their expression in the city,
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I'll be drawing on some of my own recent work and on the work of lots colleagues
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to make the arguments that though we in Australia are well-schooled in the
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discourses of things like multiculturalism,
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that value and acknowledged diversity.
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There is some evidence in our cities that we,
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some of us are not very good in fact at accommodating or
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encouraging and sometimes even tolerating some differences and that
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sometimes visible difference has become tied up with fear notions
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of risk or disorder. And you'll hear me saying as,
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as a general point through my talk that I see interaction between social
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groups as a good thing. I think in fact that it is the essence of urbanity,
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and I think it should be a social norm for us in designing our urban
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policies and practices.
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So I'm going to start with a story from my own recent research,
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which is about a university students in central Melbourne now,
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central Melbourne as I'm sure most of you know,
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is the site of two major universities are MIT and the university of Melbourne,
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and each of them has about 45,000 students.
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And for each of those universities,
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about 30% of their student body comes from overseas,
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usually from the countries of Southeast Asia, south Asia,
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and also from the people's Republic of China in the central city municipality of
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Melbourne, there are 81,000 people in the resident population.
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And about 40,000 of those are students,
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the universities and the city of Melbourne are really interested in the question
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of cross-cultural interaction between these students from overseas and local
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students and people in the resident population,
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both in order to foster cosmopolitanism,
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the broad awareness of difference in the student body and on the part of the
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city. Also,
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there's an interest in encouraging these students to come back later on in their
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lives for the possible economic benefits that that might give rise to.
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So in a big project over the last four years,
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I've been involved with a team of researchers from architecture and urban
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planning, asking where the students from overseas,
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living in the area around the universities feel they belong there.
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This area is,
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is one to which students are channeled by universities themselves when they
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recommend where students should find housing. And it's an area that,
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that is recommended often by overseas agents that the students consult before
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they leave.
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And the students often end up in high-rise housing around the universities,
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built by developers over the last decade in the light of this new market of
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students that's particularly been growing. And you'll see on the slide,
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a photograph of some of this housing in Swanson street.
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So we're interested to see if students from overseas are interacting to the
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degree.
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They wish with local students who are also living away from home and therefore
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likely to be socializing in the same sort of inner, suburban and central areas.
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We were in the role that students use of public spaces played as they
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establish themselves as part of the or community or in social groups.
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We were influenced by the results of questionnaires,
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administered to students as they leave the universities in which students from
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overseas often say they regret not making Australian friends.
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And they save things very often.
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Like I've never seen the inside of an Australian house.
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So what we found in this study was a tale of two separate social worlds.
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One of students from overseas, and one of so-called local students,
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they have separate friendship groups, which in particular,
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the women's students from overseas are disappointed and anxious about.
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They live in different types of housing and in different inner city locations.
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And they use different public spaces for socializing in,
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they belong to separate and ethnically identified student clubs,
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the private and public spaces students use contribute to their separation from
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other parts of their local communities.
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And to a lack of cross cultural belonging,
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even if they make friends and feel they belong in their own separate places and
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friendships and,
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and sort of groups of familiars that there's no evidence or very little evidence
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of cross-cultural interaction. Most,
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most students enjoy the interactions in their groups of familiars,
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but some also want to make new connections beyond those.
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So here's the story or a quote, not really the full story,
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but a quote from one student from overseas and what she told us she had to
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do in order to make local friends.
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And I read it to you because you can see what very hard work it was on her part.
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She had a strategy. She wanted to make local friends.
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And she had thought about being an, and she went about making local friends,
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quite systematically. This young woman was age 20. Now,
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once she got to Melbourne, she joined lots. And I mean,
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lots of university clubs. She joined a local city church,
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which focuses on international people in its congregation at the university.
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She joined debating African drumming, the choir,
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amnesty international group fitness and swimming because she said,
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I've always found that's the best way not to look like you're bored or that
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you've got nothing to do. And you said, in addition,
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she volunteered for the city of Melbourne at its information desk at Federation
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square.
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So she's consciously set out to participate in a lot of activities to take
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risks and put herself in social situations with a range of people.
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She says of the fact that she now has friends from overseas and from Australia
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quote, I would definitely think that in my case,
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it's because of the clubs I've joined.
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I haven't always been fluent in English and it's the people you meet the
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activities. That's had a big effect on the way I react to things.
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I can't be shy anymore. And in clubs,
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I would still have that little sense of lack of fit,
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but then I'd think there's a reason why I'm here.
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And if I have this interest and this person has this interest,
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then there must be something common to us. And we have to bond on quote.
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Now there are a number of things that could be done to improve.
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The likelihood that students from overseas in this context could meet up with
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students from Australia and indeed to make it more likely that students from
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Australia could have interactions with those from a set of Asian countries.
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The set from which our overseas students generally come,
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not all of the students from overseas who come here will have the strategies and
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the personal capacity to do what the young woman who I've just described to you
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has set out to do.
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We could put in place more integrated housing arrangements and classroom
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activities as part of our efforts to facilitate a better interaction cross
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culturally.
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But one of the most difficult things to alter we found will be the attitudes of
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local students to their counterparts from overseas and predominantly from Asia,
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an attitude that was described to us by overseas students as neutral.
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That is one of disinterest.
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So here the account of one 18 year old young woman from overseas,
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she said to us in conversation without interviewing,
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I think maybe they local students think it's their country,
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so they don't have to interact.
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They don't need anyone else to get into their group. First. I thought like,
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I really want to make some local friends.
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It's nice to have friends within the same country because they have more
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experience in the country better than any of us. Right.
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But I haven't got that chance yet. And the interviewer said,
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why do you think that is? And the student said, I don't know exactly.
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I think maybe they local students think like we're Asians and we have our
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separate culture. And the interviewer said,
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so you're saying they're not being negative,
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but they're not being positive either. They're just neutral.
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And the student said, yes, they're just neutral.
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So what this tells us is it will,
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it could be very hard to create cosmopolitan cross-cultural interaction
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from just throwing together in classrooms or indeed in an overall part of the
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city, like the inner suburbs, different groups of students,
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if one's ambition that is that they'll get along and get to know each other a
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bit,
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as well as get a so-called education in the classroom as if that was separate
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from the outside world.
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This also suggests to us that how we react to visible difference,
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visibly express diversity in some settings is,
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is not perhaps what we might think we do for local students are telling us that
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they see concentrated difference here too much diversity for them.
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And so they form their friendship groups outside it. One 20 year old,
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22 year old woman from Melbourne said, quote,
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I'm not against having international friends. Maybe they stick to themselves,
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they've got their own international groups worked out.
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I feel really racist and judgemental saying stuff like maybe they tend to come
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over here and then stick to people they know who speak their language because
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they feel safe doing that. And that's sort of the, in their comfort zone.
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I think the majority of people don't want to step outside their comfort zone.
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I'm quite so there's not real fear being expressed here by local young
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people, just disinterest.
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I know that I'm not talking from this study about hate crimes or violently
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expressed racism,
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but rather about neutrality and the exclusion that attends it.
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One might see this as fairly inconsequential in an otherwise accepting urban
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society.
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But I think what it signals is that in some circumstances we do resist diversity
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and its implications in our spaces of work and friendship,
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even on thinking leap, it's outside our comfort zone, we can't be bothered,
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engaging with it.
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Let me now go on to talk about some contexts in which we might see some
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reactions against different sense cities drawing here on the worker colleagues.
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Here we go.
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So the next one comments then about gentrification master planning and the
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housing habits of the middle class.
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So if post-World war two in major Australian cities was about the spread of
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the suburbs and the growth in availability of the car.
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Then perhaps in the last couple of decades, the spread of the suburbs,
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which is certainly going on a pace in those cities with major population growth.
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This is perhaps this has been accompanied by the appearance of some new
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middle-class housing preferences, gentrification,
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the revamping of old inner city housing,
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so that it's higher quality housing than it ever was associated with the
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replacement of lower income tenants and owners with higher income ones is still
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a subject of debate and excited the interest amongst researchers in urban
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studies, even though it's been a topic, exciting their interest since the 1980s,
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more recently in the Australian context research,
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especially about Sydney has been revealing the rapid growth of master-planned
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and sometimes gated communities for the middle class within the suburbs,
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but closed off from the suburbs and especially their lower income occupants.
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In addition, a third trend,
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there is the move across our country to have public housing estates revitalized
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with many of them.
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Now on the way to including privately owned housing units alongside publicly
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owned housing units, which are occupied by tenants of the state,
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each of these phenomena associated with housing and with the juxtaposition of
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richer and poorer people in the city more closely or less closely can be the
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subject of interesting commentary about the way diversity is being approached in
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practice.
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So let me just consider each of them very briefly in turn gentrification is the
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reinvestment of money and middle-class lifestyles into inner city housing in
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areas that previously were much poor in quality and in different approaches to
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revitalizing the inner city that are taken in different places around the world.
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For example, in some places there's a restoration of heritage buildings,
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other places they're all cleared and new buildings are built and so on,
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in different approaches to revitalizing the inner city and to drawing in more
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wealthy consumers as residents and visitors.
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One important issue is who wins and who loses who's excluded.
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And who's included in the new forms of development and whether the activities
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and presence of lower income people can be preserved in situ
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that rarely happens with gentrification.
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And very often now the most accessible parts of the metropolitan area become the
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homes of people with resources,
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whilst people without resources are pushed outwards to the relatively unserviced
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urban periphery. The issue I want to raise here and,
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and maybe we'll return to later is that of mix and scale.
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There's no argument from me that things should be kept exactly the same as they
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were in some, you know, revered past, but,
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but rather an argument for diversity to be considered as something that should
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occur within a neighborhood or even a street. And as I've mentioned earlier,
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that it should be a social norm. When we think about planning at that scale,
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I'm arguing that diversity should not only be seen at the scale of a
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metropolitan area overall as a whole,
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in which you might have some rich and some poor neighborhoods,
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rather it should mean that in their daily lives,
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there's some likelihood of people have different lives and prospects interacting
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much as occurs for many of us in our workplaces and makes them interesting
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places in neighborhoods and streets having this kind of
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possible interaction will often require a serious governmental commitment to
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affordable housing being preserved amongst the gentrifying housing stock,
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to which otherwise only the wealthy have access.
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So this raises an interesting question then about the revitalization of
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low-income housing estates.
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Thanks often public housing estates the Australian urbanist, Kathy artisan,
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a long time resident academic in Adelaide has written at length on this issue
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critiquing the fact that the introduction of privately owned and higher cost
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housing units to where he is previously occupied uniformly by public housing
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means that overall there'll be fewer publicly owned and affordable housing units
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at a time. Of course, as we see in the media just today,
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when public housing is in great demand and waiting lists and lists of the
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homeless ever longer. Now,
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if we are to argue that gentrification should be punctuated by the presence of
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affordable housing,
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then is it not right also to argue that public housing estates,
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those large blocks of low-income state-owned housing should be punctuated
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equally with higher income housing units or higher cost housing units.
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And I suppose that it is except one would want to emphasize as Kathy artisan
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does that this should not result in an overall loss of public housing units in
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accessible locations. Furthermore, one would want, I think,
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to unsettle the view that often seems to surround very fuzzily
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the introduction of middle income housing to low-income estates that it's for
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the good of low income people to be exposed to middle income people who are
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clearly more successful members of society and should be emulated.
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And those of you who know mark peels extraordinary work of a decade or so ago
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about the development in south Australia of Elizabeth will have seen his
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wonderful discussion of that philosophy.
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So I think rather one would want to take the view that it's in everyone's
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interests to know how people of different circumstances live. Now,
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there is of course no guarantee at all,
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and possibly not even a likelihood that people who are very different who find
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themselves living close by will become friends and anything more than casual
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nodding acquaintances. This is the finding of much research already.
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It belies the expectation for example,
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of some recent British policies for cities over there. That what,
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what has been called a multicultural intimacy should result from people of
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different cultural backgrounds, being neighbors,
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and it supports the view of others.
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We searching urban encounter that purposeful activity in groups with common
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interests is the thing that forms friendships across difference in what could be
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regarded as the good city marches that successfully strategizing
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20 year old overseas student,
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who was remarking now a relatively new form of exclusionary clustering of
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the wealthy more disdainful of living closely with diversity then is
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gentrification is the master plan estate.
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And sometimes this is even a gated community.
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Geographers in Sydney have documented the emergence of this phenomenon over the
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past decade, particularly in the Western suburbs of Sydney.
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And there are interesting analyses appearing of whether or not local councils
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give the residents of these communities,
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reduced council rates for extra levies on residents that pays for community
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facilities and roads and infrastructure. In these places.
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There are claims from researchers that the reason people opt to live in these
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closed places,
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a fear of disorder and a desire to control their environment,
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which they see governments and other authorities as failing to do. Now,
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those like me who regard cross difference interaction, as, as I've said,
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the essence of urbanity will oppose the increase in numbers of such as states.
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Seeing them as the ultimate in cross class segregation of a kind we've not
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seen much before in Australian cities important urban writers,
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such as Brendan Gleason also criticize them for closing off resources from the
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public realm. Of course, some local councils,
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especially those who don't give rebates to residents on local council rates find
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these estates attractive because of the council expenditure they save.
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So the residential preferences of the Australian middle class aided and abetted
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by developers of course make for interesting thinking about diversity in the
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city and the limits to our tolerance of it.
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Gentrification has excluded lower income residents in countless cities around
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the world.
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Urban policy analysts express concerns that the so-called revitalization of
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public housing estates will exclude public housing tenants from the locations.
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Often the accessible locations,
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they've long called home master plans for the wealth master plan to states for
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the wealthy turn, their backs utterly on those of lesser resources.
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These turns can limit the possibilities of diversity in the city being known by
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residents in their daily lives.
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And certainly the appearance of master plan to states demonstrates clearly the
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anxieties of some,
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about different ways of living amongst their neighbors live distant neighbors,
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Rowan Atkinson,
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the British urban analyst now in Tasmania has proposed
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in his work on British cities that a culture of fear there is
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driving the middle-class and wealthy into residential practices of segregation
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that actively disadvantaged the poor, the middle class and wealthy.
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He he's found see homogeneity as safe and thus actively
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avoid the diversity of cross difference interaction,
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which has long been part of city life. And developers.
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Atkinson is found pander to this fear at Tencent actually observes in British
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cities,
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the growing in visibility of rich and poor to each other because they live
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increasingly in separate enclaves.
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And he worries that policymakers there find this situation relatively easy to
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maintain.
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And so a social blend at the neighborhood scale will not now be possible
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to diversity in public space.
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Now public space is supposed to be where anything goes,
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the place of cosmopolitan expression in the city.
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It's where diversity should be most valued. One would think,
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and in the big events of a city's life,
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people do come together from all over the city to congregate and celebrate in
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the presence of security guards. It's true, but even so they are together.
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There are indications from some evidence about cities. However,
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that public space is becoming increasingly stressed at times,
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especially in those central cities,
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which have implemented the 24 hour city policy. And in which late night,
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alcohol consumption is a growing civic problem.
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One could think that this problem and the need to reduce it is in fact,
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a product of allowing too much diversity to flourish in the entertainment
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market. But in fact, the opposite could be true.
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That too little effort has been put in to ensuring that the central city streets
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and entertainment premises are of appropriate scale and mix such that a variety
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of groups are attracted to them and their surrounds urban public
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spaces and increasingly blurred notion.
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In any case for it's often actually private space,
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that's accessible to the pain public rather than freely available public space.
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Think about shopping malls,
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which groups of young men or anyone trying to take a photograph will often find
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out readily enough are under close surveillance by security guards,
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order and security are priorities in these commercial premises.
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The consumer actively purchasing things is the desired visitor.
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Other forms of use are not preferred.
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And some of the students we interviewed in the study I talked about at the
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beginning,
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indeed found these spaces very safe and reassuring in these
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spaces. As with the master plan communities audit is sought.
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Fear is the enemy of urban diversity.
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The visible presence of the other or the different is seem to be risky.
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And so the middle income consumer becomes the best recognized citizen.
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In this context,
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my colleague Kurt Iverson has written of a famous case in Perth in the 1990s
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in which urban public spaces in the central city were felt by the city
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council to be compromised by the influx of young people from the Northern
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suburbs on a new train light,
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which in fact had been built to link those very Northern suburbs to the city.
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As he describes it,
401
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refurbishment of the central city's public spaces was undertaken in the early
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1990s by local and state governments.
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But despite planners claiming a rich and diverse environment resulting from this
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remaking, some groups of young people,
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particularly as I say from the Northern suburbs were unwelcome.
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So I quote Kurt Iverson for you. He said, quote,
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under pressure from politicians, counselors and retailers,
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police use their powers under child welfare legislation to remove young people,
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not accompanied by their families from the central area, the JAG team,
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which stood for juvenile aid group mounted operations in 1994
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under code names,
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such as operations sweep and operation family values and
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militaristic language there in their attempt to make the streets of the city
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quote safe for families. Also during operation family values,
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young women were detained for being in areas where Aborigines were thought to
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congregate.
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Diversity for planners was El Al fresco dining shoppers and workers and tourists
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into mingling, jazz bands and farmer's markets planners.
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Soy has predictable controllable and quiet.
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00:25:32.330 --> 00:25:35.000
So those planning for diversity could design it.
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Imagine what it looked like in their own minds said Kurt Iverson.
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But when groups of people came using the public spaces in their own ways that
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did not comply with the planning vision, this was not appreciated.
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So is there then sometimes in our planning and design of urban public spaces,
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a relatively narrow aesthetic and ethic,
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and a narrow expectation of who the public is that fails sometimes to
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capture the differences of groups within them population and what they might
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want of their built environment,
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to my final comments on the institutionalization of people
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with mental illnesses or an intellectual disability who then live in
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that community.
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And I've just got a quote here of a statement from the Victorian premier about a
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year ago, about the final redevelopment of the site of one,
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a huge institution in Cuba.
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So thinking about people whose days include spending time,
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just being there in urban public spaces can bring us to the group of people we
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might've thought of in the past couple of decades,
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as deinstitutionalized people released from custodial institutions were
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often, they were placed because of intellectual disability or mental illness.
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00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:48.473
These days,
441
00:26:48.510 --> 00:26:53.100
most large scale institutions have closed to be replaced by state run day
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programs and community residential housing in selected areas of
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cities. They will often still, however, be concentrations of community,
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residential units or facilities for people requiring support services.
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People using these services may become visible.
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Outsiders are in a suburban residential area or a shopping center.
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00:27:12.811 --> 00:27:17.040
Those public spaces, a decade ago, a PhD student of mine,
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Melissa permissible examined the extent to which local neighborhood houses in
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queue in Melbourne site of this institution,
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the premiers talking about we're able to integrate in their activities,
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a range of groups, of people with different characteristics.
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Some of those people were recent immigrants to the area from different
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countries. Some were lawns long-standing immigrants to the area.
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Some were people undertaking retraining in hopes of improving their job
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readiness.
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Some were people with intellectual disabilities who lived in local residential
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care on the site of this former institution for those with intellectual
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disability.
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And what she found this student of mine was the cross different social
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interaction occurred more readily between all groups than it did between any
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group and the people with intellectual disability. Okay,
462
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:08.060
thanks Andrew. In the same way, established Melbourne suburb of queue,
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where once stood a very large custodial institution and we're now expensive.
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Housing is being developed on the past grounds of that very institution.
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There are now emerging the occasional complaints from new residents about the
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loitering of people with intellectual disabilities around the new residential
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area. For, as I've said,
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a series of community residential units have been retained in the new suburban
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housing development.
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As you'll see there in the Premier's comments on the slide and some ex residents
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of the institutional living, they're still now in the last couple of decades,
472
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some of those residents of the institution at that time did indeed walk around
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the local streets and shots in the daytime.
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And they're continuing to do that now that they're residents of the new units in
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the past,
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they were known about by shop owners and local residents and the institution
477
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from which they came,
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which was really very prominent in the suburb was understood as a very
479
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large presence there. So once the Mises is now happening is that new residents,
480
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occupations, occupants,
481
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and purchases of the expensive new housing are surprised at the presence of
482
00:29:11.151 --> 00:29:12.320
occupants of the community,
483
00:29:12.321 --> 00:29:15.290
residential units in the public spaces of the suburb,
484
00:29:15.320 --> 00:29:19.730
presumably developers of the new housing did not advertise this fact to them
485
00:29:21.290 --> 00:29:25.820
in some countries in the wake of public disquiet over the deinstitutionalization
486
00:29:25.821 --> 00:29:29.570
of those with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses and their more
487
00:29:29.571 --> 00:29:31.790
visible public presence in cities.
488
00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:37.220
Grant policy statements have been made proposing confinement as a viable
489
00:29:37.221 --> 00:29:40.460
option. Again, this time to preserve public safety.
490
00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:44.230
So back the institution for some people gray, a moon,
491
00:29:44.260 --> 00:29:48.580
a British geographer has written compellingly on this question in that national
492
00:29:48.581 --> 00:29:51.250
context, observing through the 1990s,
493
00:29:51.251 --> 00:29:55.960
that mental health policy in the UK was reflect reflecting public concern
494
00:29:56.170 --> 00:29:59.740
about possible violent offenses by people with mental illnesses.
495
00:30:00.460 --> 00:30:04.390
He argued that confinement of people was being presented in you as a policy
496
00:30:04.391 --> 00:30:09.370
option a and a strategic response so-called to the so-called failure of
497
00:30:09.371 --> 00:30:13.390
community care policy strategies. And he opens one of his papers,
498
00:30:13.391 --> 00:30:16.930
this British geographer with the following quote from the UK department of
499
00:30:16.931 --> 00:30:18.490
health in 1998,
500
00:30:18.790 --> 00:30:23.530
quote care in the community has failed because while it improved the treatment
501
00:30:23.531 --> 00:30:25.330
of many people who were mentally ill,
502
00:30:25.540 --> 00:30:29.710
it left far too many walking the streets often at risk to themselves and a
503
00:30:29.711 --> 00:30:31.270
nuisance to others unquote.
504
00:30:31.780 --> 00:30:36.460
So this view of the UK department of health of course raises the question of on
505
00:30:36.461 --> 00:30:40.900
whom it is that the risks of community care policy, that policy of community,
506
00:30:40.901 --> 00:30:44.980
residential living and treatment in day programs for people who in previous
507
00:30:44.981 --> 00:30:45.960
times would have been in,
508
00:30:45.961 --> 00:30:50.530
in custodial institutions on whom it isn't that the risk of these programs
509
00:30:50.531 --> 00:30:53.410
falls, is that the recipients of those forms of care,
510
00:30:53.650 --> 00:30:57.370
or is it the members of the public who have to be aware of that form of care
511
00:30:57.371 --> 00:31:00.730
occurring by having people, having its recipients,
512
00:31:00.760 --> 00:31:03.760
walking the streets or in the public spaces of the city?
513
00:31:04.390 --> 00:31:08.770
So I think the interesting feature of this British policy discussion
514
00:31:09.310 --> 00:31:11.140
of a decade ago is the attention.
515
00:31:11.141 --> 00:31:16.000
It pays to the concerns of the public who see mental illness in their public
516
00:31:16.001 --> 00:31:19.090
spaces has never before and find it discomforting.
517
00:31:20.220 --> 00:31:22.410
So in conclusion, I've,
518
00:31:22.411 --> 00:31:27.000
I've touched on a few forms of diversity that are expressed amongst the
519
00:31:27.001 --> 00:31:30.840
population in our cities. I've touched on differences of ethnicity,
520
00:31:30.990 --> 00:31:33.120
cultural background, and immigrant status,
521
00:31:33.330 --> 00:31:37.260
differences of income as expressed in housing choices and attitudes to the
522
00:31:37.261 --> 00:31:41.280
design of public spaces and differences of intellectual ability and mental
523
00:31:41.281 --> 00:31:42.900
health. There are of course,
524
00:31:42.901 --> 00:31:47.010
many other forms of diversity in cities that we could draw out, for example,
525
00:31:47.011 --> 00:31:51.210
the distinctions between higher and lower density suburbs and the debates
526
00:31:51.211 --> 00:31:52.650
between their proponents.
527
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:56.670
So what then do we conclude from this review and commentary of mine?
528
00:31:57.420 --> 00:32:00.150
Not that I have not presented our view,
529
00:32:00.151 --> 00:32:03.420
that there are more forms of diversity now than there were in the past,
530
00:32:03.421 --> 00:32:07.890
or that we're less willing to embrace diversity in our daily lives now than we
531
00:32:07.891 --> 00:32:08.724
were in the past.
532
00:32:08.820 --> 00:32:12.840
But I have tried to claim that analysts are starting to think a bit more about
533
00:32:12.841 --> 00:32:15.150
these questions of diversity than in the past.
534
00:32:16.110 --> 00:32:18.390
What I do think it is important to note,
535
00:32:18.391 --> 00:32:23.190
as we think about our limits in accepting diversity in the city is the way these
536
00:32:23.191 --> 00:32:27.240
limits do seem sometimes to be associated with anxiety, fear,
537
00:32:27.241 --> 00:32:31.290
and perceptions of risk increasing with the presence of the unfamiliar,
538
00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:36.030
which is paradoxical because we are mostly the service in our cities here
539
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:40.700
wealthier than we've ever been more familiar with in all its manifestations
540
00:32:40.820 --> 00:32:43.370
because of our knowledge of the rest of the world and the way that that
541
00:32:43.371 --> 00:32:47.090
knowledge is beamed into our lives, through the media, with great efficiency,
542
00:32:47.330 --> 00:32:50.390
we are full participants in globalization,
543
00:32:50.870 --> 00:32:55.070
and yet there is fear and anxiety present in some of our reactions to the
544
00:32:55.071 --> 00:32:56.930
presence of diversity in the city.
545
00:32:57.380 --> 00:33:00.800
Perhaps we can only conclude that the limit to our living with diversity better
546
00:33:00.801 --> 00:33:02.540
in the city is our fear of it.
547
00:33:02.930 --> 00:33:06.830
But then there's the case of the local students that I discussed at the start of
548
00:33:06.831 --> 00:33:11.750
my remarks for whom neutrality towards students from different backgrounds is
549
00:33:11.751 --> 00:33:15.980
more characteristic than fear. Many just aren't interested in engaging.
550
00:33:17.150 --> 00:33:21.860
So normalizing diversity so that it seems more and more natural to
551
00:33:21.861 --> 00:33:26.630
engage with it. And it is not feared will be a long-term societal project,
552
00:33:26.900 --> 00:33:29.360
but very much worth pursuing. Thank you.
553
00:33:41.290 --> 00:33:41.860
[Inaudible].
554
00:33:41.860 --> 00:33:46.600
Now it's my pleasure to open up the floor for questions or comments to Ruth
555
00:33:46.630 --> 00:33:49.960
perfectly questions. I would think he's a little bit dark,
556
00:33:50.050 --> 00:33:52.740
so might actually hand up a long way for me to see.
557
00:33:52.750 --> 00:33:55.720
So who would like to start off the questions gentlemen over there and the
558
00:33:56.080 --> 00:33:56.913
gentlemen
559
00:34:13.630 --> 00:34:14.463
[inaudible]?
560
00:34:14.710 --> 00:34:17.950
Well, I mean, that's a big, a big question and an interesting one.
561
00:34:18.290 --> 00:34:23.290
I think there's probably two ways I'd want to respond to
562
00:34:23.291 --> 00:34:25.270
that. One is that I,
563
00:34:25.530 --> 00:34:30.190
I think it's really important in our planning and community development
564
00:34:30.191 --> 00:34:34.000
policies, our social planning policies that, that, you know,
565
00:34:34.020 --> 00:34:37.300
that are the sort of the ways in which we approach changing cities,
566
00:34:37.780 --> 00:34:41.470
that we do look at questions of the nature of the population,
567
00:34:41.471 --> 00:34:45.190
not to see the population as, as a number, you know, not,
568
00:34:45.220 --> 00:34:47.890
not just look at the growth of the city, as you know, I figure,
569
00:34:47.900 --> 00:34:49.690
I forget what the number was in your new plan.
570
00:34:49.691 --> 00:34:54.400
That's just been released on Monday some 500,000 new people in
571
00:34:54.401 --> 00:34:58.210
Adelaide or something by in 50 years or some such w I think it's really
572
00:34:58.211 --> 00:35:03.160
important that we think about the characteristics of the population that live
573
00:35:03.161 --> 00:35:06.790
in different parts of the city. So in, in the, so that's the first thing.
574
00:35:06.791 --> 00:35:10.600
So for example, in the study I talked about in, in the city of Melbourne,
575
00:35:11.260 --> 00:35:16.120
it was really news to a lot of policymakers that half the population of the city
576
00:35:16.121 --> 00:35:19.510
of Melbourne, the central municipalities students, half the population.
577
00:35:19.511 --> 00:35:23.860
So really then in thinking about planning for the population,
578
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:27.490
cities are about people. That's what they are by definition. Really.
579
00:35:27.491 --> 00:35:30.830
We should be thinking about the nature of the population we have there and,
580
00:35:30.831 --> 00:35:32.800
and maybe designing some of our,
581
00:35:33.160 --> 00:35:37.890
our work to accommodate and welcome them without out others.
582
00:35:37.891 --> 00:35:39.330
Of course. So that's the first thing.
583
00:35:39.331 --> 00:35:43.470
I think there's a need to think about the actual nature of the population we
584
00:35:43.471 --> 00:35:47.100
deal with, which does vary in some ways in different parts of the city.
585
00:35:47.790 --> 00:35:49.830
And I think the second thing I would say,
586
00:35:49.831 --> 00:35:53.820
and this will be a really obvious point is that national
587
00:35:54.090 --> 00:35:57.720
discourses, like multiculturalism are really important,
588
00:35:58.020 --> 00:36:01.020
even if there's a massive critique of them, which there always is.
589
00:36:01.290 --> 00:36:05.520
They are really important as national statements of intention.
590
00:36:06.460 --> 00:36:10.020
It's been a very sad thing in my view that over the last decade,
591
00:36:10.680 --> 00:36:15.390
there's been a lot of cynicism expressed federally about multiculturalism as a,
592
00:36:16.080 --> 00:36:19.110
you know, as a statement of national intention for this country.
593
00:36:19.111 --> 00:36:22.860
And I'm waiting to see the new federal government beef that up again,
594
00:36:23.010 --> 00:36:24.540
that's been a bit solid so far,
595
00:36:24.541 --> 00:36:27.150
but so I guess that's the other thing I would say,
596
00:36:27.151 --> 00:36:31.950
I think there is to normalize our acceptance and welcoming of
597
00:36:31.951 --> 00:36:33.540
good forms of diversity.
598
00:36:34.200 --> 00:36:37.050
I think those national policy statements are really very important.
599
00:36:46.730 --> 00:36:51.680
[Inaudible] Question is in that context. So
600
00:37:03.200 --> 00:37:07.880
they experienced moving into what
601
00:37:09.500 --> 00:37:14.360
is segregated parts of cities in South Africa.
602
00:37:14.720 --> 00:37:18.890
And I wonder if in similar fields
603
00:37:19.910 --> 00:37:24.800
inside Africa commented on the success of
604
00:37:26.780 --> 00:37:29.420
[inaudible] and how that compares
605
00:37:35.420 --> 00:37:36.770
[inaudible] in South Africa
606
00:37:44.990 --> 00:37:47.960
told us lack of.
607
00:37:51.500 --> 00:37:52.333
Work.
608
00:37:54.140 --> 00:37:56.140
There, there is indeed work being done by,
609
00:37:56.200 --> 00:37:59.290
by geographers there and urban planners and so on.
610
00:38:00.460 --> 00:38:03.790
I don't think I'm going to be able to give you a summary of that. I mean, it's,
611
00:38:03.880 --> 00:38:06.970
it's the most extraordinary shift as you say,
612
00:38:06.971 --> 00:38:11.860
and whether we could really compare it with our own situation here
613
00:38:11.861 --> 00:38:16.540
or indeed in the UK, I'm not sure because in a sense,
614
00:38:16.660 --> 00:38:19.210
if it was, it was a racist,
615
00:38:19.300 --> 00:38:24.070
a legally racist society and spaces were things that were used
616
00:38:24.071 --> 00:38:26.860
very much to separate people. So we've never,
617
00:38:27.160 --> 00:38:29.960
we've never had that situation in Australia or in,
618
00:38:29.961 --> 00:38:33.460
in British cities or most other cities. So it is a,
619
00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:36.250
it is a shift out of a different path than,
620
00:38:36.280 --> 00:38:40.720
than legal past in cities that, than one that we've experienced here.
621
00:38:41.260 --> 00:38:44.050
But I, as far as I'm aware,
622
00:38:45.160 --> 00:38:48.250
there certainly is work going on about that in South Africa,
623
00:38:48.251 --> 00:38:50.770
there are some extraordinary revelations,
624
00:38:50.771 --> 00:38:55.240
there are some critiques of the way in which administration of local government
625
00:38:55.241 --> 00:38:59.200
is, is having still some reference to, you know,
626
00:38:59.230 --> 00:39:02.380
ways of proceeding in the past. But overall, I think you, you, right,
627
00:39:02.381 --> 00:39:05.050
that it is a extraordinary story on an evolving one.
628
00:39:05.080 --> 00:39:07.510
So I probably can't comment at all on it,
629
00:39:07.511 --> 00:39:09.730
but that's probably what I'd say to your question.
630
00:39:09.731 --> 00:39:12.670
It's the most interesting case. Yeah.
631
00:39:18.120 --> 00:39:22.500
Do you have any examples you can describe really good Catholics in Casper
632
00:39:22.501 --> 00:39:24.540
experiences and the second part
633
00:39:27.600 --> 00:39:31.110
what's called the third space, potential libraries, museums, galleries.
634
00:39:33.310 --> 00:39:36.090
I should refer you to my book in the program.
635
00:39:37.050 --> 00:39:40.890
And also to the website of the study about students that I've just referred to,
636
00:39:40.891 --> 00:39:43.840
which I should have put on my slides, but I didn't. Yeah. In,
637
00:39:43.841 --> 00:39:46.850
in the study about students, which is the most recent one I've,
638
00:39:46.851 --> 00:39:48.630
I've been involved in empirically
639
00:39:50.190 --> 00:39:53.280
the examples we found about where,
640
00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:55.500
as you say with libraries about spaces,
641
00:39:55.680 --> 00:39:59.640
cause we're looking at public spaces and private spaces and the forms of those
642
00:39:59.641 --> 00:40:04.620
that help to give rise to cross-cultural or cross difference interaction.
643
00:40:05.550 --> 00:40:10.140
And so the, what we found, despite a lot of mechanisms of separating,
644
00:40:10.141 --> 00:40:14.070
like the way that students were allocated into separate high-rise housing areas,
645
00:40:14.400 --> 00:40:18.180
the things that were really brought them together were, I guess, two,
646
00:40:18.330 --> 00:40:22.230
one were arts organizations. So of all organizations, I mean,
647
00:40:22.231 --> 00:40:24.870
I mentioned in passing the student clubs,
648
00:40:24.871 --> 00:40:29.340
we had things at my university like the Indonesian
649
00:40:29.370 --> 00:40:34.260
students club and the students club for studies of Indonesia and in the
650
00:40:34.261 --> 00:40:38.670
first with students of Indonesian citizenship and in the second where
651
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:42.600
Australian students who were studying Indonesian, I mean, you would think that,
652
00:40:42.780 --> 00:40:44.520
that they would actually have something in common, but,
653
00:40:44.940 --> 00:40:48.960
but in arts organizations, in the choir, in the theater groups,
654
00:40:49.530 --> 00:40:53.730
there were re there was real evidence of coming together and it's really hard
655
00:40:53.731 --> 00:40:58.200
slog. So in the theater group, for example, there'll be things like, you know,
656
00:40:58.201 --> 00:40:59.460
they had a bit of money still,
657
00:40:59.461 --> 00:41:02.910
even though there isn't much money for student activities in universities
658
00:41:02.911 --> 00:41:05.560
anymore, they had a bit of money. So they would say to the,
659
00:41:05.561 --> 00:41:07.290
the Chinese theater group, okay,
660
00:41:07.440 --> 00:41:09.750
we're going to give you money for your next production.
661
00:41:10.020 --> 00:41:12.630
If you go and watch how the, you know,
662
00:41:12.631 --> 00:41:16.380
there's something else theater group is doing their production because they have
663
00:41:16.381 --> 00:41:20.430
really good ideas about directing this kind of dance or this kind of music, or,
664
00:41:20.730 --> 00:41:23.370
and you might learn from that. So there's a real effort.
665
00:41:23.371 --> 00:41:26.250
And in things like the choir, choir's there,
666
00:41:26.251 --> 00:41:30.630
doesn't people come together in music and that's it. So, you know,
667
00:41:30.631 --> 00:41:33.350
arts organizations, they are the good examples. The other,
668
00:41:33.380 --> 00:41:37.580
you mentioned third spaces in public spaces for
669
00:41:37.581 --> 00:41:42.020
students. One of the things we found in the city was that certain,
670
00:41:42.021 --> 00:41:44.030
relatively temporary spaces,
671
00:41:44.031 --> 00:41:47.990
temporary uses were very attractive to students and they were, they were cheap.
672
00:41:47.990 --> 00:41:51.980
So there were bars in the city, you know, Melbourne's a great city of bars.
673
00:41:51.981 --> 00:41:54.350
And there were there's this bar called section eight,
674
00:41:54.380 --> 00:41:57.620
which is a sort of on an empty block of land with containers and lamps and
675
00:41:57.621 --> 00:41:57.831
stuff.
676
00:41:57.831 --> 00:42:01.670
And that was packed all the time with people from every different background you
677
00:42:01.671 --> 00:42:06.200
could think of. So there's there were numerous of those sorts of sites where
678
00:42:07.400 --> 00:42:11.030
I guess they appeal to young people of certain predilections,
679
00:42:11.031 --> 00:42:12.590
those kinds of temporary spaces.
680
00:42:12.591 --> 00:42:15.590
And they were very much capable of drawing together. So we,
681
00:42:15.920 --> 00:42:19.370
we drew from our study, not just of that example and the arts example.
682
00:42:19.371 --> 00:42:22.970
I mentioned that we did draw the view that certain kinds of
683
00:42:24.050 --> 00:42:28.250
of, of interests tended to draw people together across cultures. Now,
684
00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:32.660
the broader question and that that's out of the study in the book of mine that
685
00:42:32.661 --> 00:42:35.360
came out last year, which is in your mentioned in your program.
686
00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:39.410
I think the thing that we've argued there is that
687
00:42:40.940 --> 00:42:41.571
three,
688
00:42:41.571 --> 00:42:45.500
three norms need to characterize planning activity for diversity in cities,
689
00:42:45.501 --> 00:42:48.200
once redistribution, once recognition of difference,
690
00:42:48.290 --> 00:42:51.230
and one is encounter and in, in the work on encounter,
691
00:42:51.500 --> 00:42:55.580
you'll see very great discussion of places like public libraries,
692
00:42:55.581 --> 00:42:58.010
which I just think are the signal, you know,
693
00:42:58.040 --> 00:43:02.570
wonderful spaces of our cities all sorts of work on temporary
694
00:43:02.571 --> 00:43:05.960
spaces in cities and the ways they can be used by children. And so-and-so.
695
00:43:06.020 --> 00:43:08.330
So there are, we do know about this. I mean, we know,
696
00:43:08.360 --> 00:43:13.220
know about ways of bringing together people in encounter and often those public
697
00:43:13.490 --> 00:43:15.560
lobby spaces, those third spaces are the ways to go.
698
00:43:15.830 --> 00:43:18.320
We have to plan them in and not get rid of them.
699
00:43:18.321 --> 00:43:22.040
It's a kind of really a hands-off planning sort of letting them be,
700
00:43:22.160 --> 00:43:24.800
but nevertheless, making sure they're there. Yep.
701
00:43:25.340 --> 00:43:29.610
Yeah. [inaudible] Places, schools in
702
00:43:31.370 --> 00:43:34.870
in context of what you're talking about and perhaps the way
703
00:43:36.700 --> 00:43:41.080
schools separated on the license and social class and the whole Brian
704
00:43:42.670 --> 00:43:43.660
from that assistant,
705
00:43:43.800 --> 00:43:48.790
he is nice to kids contact with public system or Catholic system. Yeah.
706
00:43:49.330 --> 00:43:52.570
Yeah. It's an, it's an interesting one, isn't it? And you know, there is a,
707
00:43:52.580 --> 00:43:56.080
there is a big discourse discourse about parental choice and that,
708
00:43:56.140 --> 00:44:01.060
and that exists as well as our knowledge about encounter and my view
709
00:44:01.061 --> 00:44:02.500
of encounter, which would be that it,
710
00:44:02.530 --> 00:44:04.750
that it should occur across class differences.
711
00:44:05.050 --> 00:44:09.160
There are forms of encounter that occur across a number of differences.
712
00:44:09.161 --> 00:44:13.930
And I guess one would have to say that cross class encounter or cross income
713
00:44:13.931 --> 00:44:16.300
group encounter. Isn't the only one. I mean, there's, there's,
714
00:44:16.780 --> 00:44:17.950
there's encountered, you know,
715
00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:22.660
across gender groups and religious groups and ethnic groups.
716
00:44:22.661 --> 00:44:27.340
And so on that. So I don't, I don't think, I mean, I've, of course I would,
717
00:44:27.400 --> 00:44:30.970
I support the notion of, of publicly funded schooling that,
718
00:44:31.080 --> 00:44:35.010
that can bring people together across as many of those diversity's as we can
719
00:44:35.011 --> 00:44:38.760
manage. And especially the notion of universal service provision,
720
00:44:38.761 --> 00:44:41.920
which I think is a very seventies notion and we don't have it in war, but of,
721
00:44:42.080 --> 00:44:42.081
of,
722
00:44:42.081 --> 00:44:45.450
of having public schools of such excellence that everyone will want to go there.
723
00:44:46.170 --> 00:44:51.120
But I guess the argument could be made that diversity exists in
724
00:44:51.121 --> 00:44:54.780
many facets. And so schools of any kind will, you know,
725
00:44:54.840 --> 00:44:58.680
provide diversity of some kind or other, however, we might see it as limited,
726
00:44:58.681 --> 00:45:02.730
but certainly I would in my own normative thinking prefer the,
727
00:45:03.540 --> 00:45:05.340
the earlier version. Okay.
728
00:45:14.870 --> 00:45:18.140
I just wanted to ask you about your experience with living books.
729
00:45:22.730 --> 00:45:25.100
Now tell, I don't know what living books is. So you explained that
730
00:45:31.220 --> 00:45:32.330
we can go in and take out.
731
00:45:38.390 --> 00:45:41.940
Different cultures, different countries, and you can take it.
732
00:45:49.230 --> 00:45:53.030
And because it's the two of you, and you can.
733
00:45:55.390 --> 00:45:56.360
Ask those questions,
734
00:45:59.990 --> 00:46:02.450
how interesting it wouldn't have problems with being overdue, would you.
735
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:10.273
[Inaudible]?
736
00:46:23.240 --> 00:46:24.260
Well, I mean, I mean,
737
00:46:24.261 --> 00:46:28.130
many overseas students get permanent resident status and stay here. And I,
738
00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:30.650
I don't have at the top of my head, the,
739
00:46:30.770 --> 00:46:35.150
the figures on what proportion that is and within which national groups and from
740
00:46:35.151 --> 00:46:39.950
which country studies and so on. But I mean, that is a, that is a reality.
741
00:46:40.280 --> 00:46:41.630
I don't think there is.
742
00:46:42.530 --> 00:46:47.510
I don't think we have knowledge yet of the lifelong visiting and
743
00:46:47.511 --> 00:46:51.470
circularity of, of, of interest in, in our country,
744
00:46:51.471 --> 00:46:52.670
from people who studied here.
745
00:46:52.671 --> 00:46:55.970
Certainly you will have seen earlier in perhaps last week,
746
00:46:55.971 --> 00:46:59.930
it was quite a lot of discussion about how Australia needs to investigate in a
747
00:46:59.931 --> 00:47:04.550
Colombo plan style of, of engagement with overseas countries.
748
00:47:04.850 --> 00:47:08.000
And th and that has been seen. And we see that in university,
749
00:47:08.020 --> 00:47:08.930
through our alumni,
750
00:47:09.140 --> 00:47:13.160
what an extraordinary successful intervention that was in the fifties and
751
00:47:13.161 --> 00:47:17.840
sixties that created tremendous Goodwill for this country and a tremendous
752
00:47:17.841 --> 00:47:20.000
interest amongst the professional leaders in,
753
00:47:20.320 --> 00:47:24.800
in many of the countries in our region about Australia. So whether,
754
00:47:25.370 --> 00:47:29.590
whether we'll see that same outcome with, with the current group students,
755
00:47:29.591 --> 00:47:33.790
I don't know. I mean, the, yeah, well through alumni associations,
756
00:47:33.791 --> 00:47:35.770
we do keep in contact, but yeah,
757
00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:40.740
I don't think there's a systematic database it's a bit soon yet. Okay.
758
00:47:40.800 --> 00:47:41.850
Thank you very much.
759
00:47:41.970 --> 00:47:45.840
I would just mention that reflows book is called diversity in the city
760
00:47:46.230 --> 00:47:49.080
redistribution recognition and encounter, and I'm sure
761
00:48:03.600 --> 00:48:03.600
[inaudible].