David Wadley

Environmental correlates of children's active transportation: a systematic literature review

This systematic review investigated the environmental (physical, economic, socio-cultural and political) correlates of active transportation (AT) among young people aged 5-18 years to better inform the promotion of active living. Greater distance, increasing household income and increasing car ownership are consistently associated with lower rates of AT among children. Having a non-white ethnic background has a convincing positive association with AT. Having recreation facilities and walk or bike paths present are possibly associated with higher rates of AT. Further research requires longitudinal and intervention studies, utilizing multi-level design methodologies and objective measures of environmental attributes.

Coming to Terms with Power Lines

Though infrastructure planning and provision often unsettle homeowners and communities, facilitating research has been sporadic. Via a qualitative design, this article studies homeowners’ perceptions of high-voltage overhead transmission lines (HVOTLs) with respect of design, cost differentials, health effects, safety issues, visual and noise impacts, environmental damage and interference with property rights. The results support inductive modelling which situates and theorizes the risk associated with power line placement. Apart from informing power and planning agencies, the project acts as a foundation for later quantitative work undertaken to enlarge explanation of residents’ reactions to HVOTL proposals.

The impact of transmission lines on property values: coming to terms with stigma

The impact of power transmission lines on property values remains insufficiently explored and inconclusively theorised. This paper provides a platform for examining what appears to be a general phenomenon of price depreciation of land abutting power lines. A large scale international literature review is organised in terms of a thematic model as a prelude to a precis of key papers discussing the power line/property value nexus. Broadening the account, attention turns to the issue of stigma which has different manifestations from its normal context involving contaminated lands. In order to advance theoretical understanding, a speculative model is provided of the stigma apparently attaching to power lines and attendant installations.

The Garden of Peace

Managerialism and the neoliberal lifestyle are dulling our ability to think for, or beyond, ourselves. Recourse to the Garden of Peace enables us to rediscover our intellectual capacities. Yet, in that sanctuary, we also encounter the meta-issues of the era. Several “big questions” in geography proposed by Cutter, Golledge, and Graf (2002) direct attention to three domains of risk related to Western economic, political, and social capital under neoliberalism. They are terrorism, the limits of liberalism, and the future of labor. With backdrops of democracy, globalization, and cosmopolitanism, this article explores their development and interrelations, working through the various options to presage future neoliberal geographies and forms of governance by 2050. The scenario judged most likely, however, exemplifies the contradictions and challenges confronting the West in the next half-century.

Exploring the influence of housing design and occupant environmental attitudes on energy and water usage

Sustainable housing is intended to achieve a lower impact on the environment; however, to what extent occupants and their behaviour are a determinant in realising this goal is unclear. In this article occupant attitudes towards the environment are used as an indicator of behaviour while resource usage is used as an indicator for the environment. A study of occupants of sustainable and conventional housing is used to examine this question. The results show that the former use 75% less energy compared with those of conventional houses of the same age, in the same climate zone. More positive attitudes to environmental conservation correlated with lower energy use, but were not found to be a statistically significant predictor of energy use when analysed with other predictor variables. Hence, we argue that sustainable housing characteristics and associated technologies have a much higher weighting relative to occupant attitudinal factors. The data also suggest that the sustainable design of a detached house is associated with approximately double the reduction in energy consumption, compared with the influence of pro-environmental attitudes. Hence, sustainable attributes in the design of housing is a significant indicator in determining the resource usage of housing in this study. The implications of these results have an important part to play in the debate on influence of behavioural factors compared with technological factors in the drive to higher energy efficiency

Residents Speak Out: Re-Appraising Home Ownership, Property Rights and Place Attachment in a Risk Society

Abstract Allied to notions of late modernity, Ulrich Beck’s “risk society” has found relevance in light of recent technological and global economic crises. By means of focus group research undertaken in Queensland, Australia, this article explores the relation of such concepts and dislocations to home ownership, property rights and place attachment, asking to what extent home ownership can be seen as a depository and remedy for the consequences of Beckian uncertainty. The findings are that, whereas the Maslovian attributes of safety, security and belongingness continue to be the root of contemporary home ownership, its meaning is elaborated when higher-order concepts such as lifestyle, identity, social capital and trust, and ontological security are entered into the analysis. Moreover, the traditional use value of a home is now intertwined with exchange value, though the latter is interpreted not proactively but more in a defensive sense.

Exploring a quality of life, self-determined

Built capital combines with social, personal and natural capital to contextualize peoples quality of life. Although this last concept has strongly tested academic reasoning, it is often presented simply and as a fait accompli in strategic planning documents. This article questions these pragmatic ‘top-down’ scripts by engaging the self-determination theory of motivation. It argues the transience of hedonic or material reward and posits a much higher plane of eudemonic fulfilment. The key to self-determination and, thus, an agreeable quality of life lies in an individuals acquisition of competence, autonomy and relatedness. From this bridgehead and via a macro-level analysis, the article identifies contemporary economic, environmental and social challenges to the achievement of quality of life, ones that are likely to need individual resourcefulness and resilience to overcome. The account concludes that, instead of proffering cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all formulae, authorities may consider ways of helping individuals help themselves to a better quality of life based on a precept that life is, in part, what you make it and does not rely on material wealth alone. In this way, it could be possible to substitute other forms for material capital to improve environmental and social sustainability.

If planning is about anything, what is it about?

The discipline and practice of regional and town planning is searching uneasily for new directions attendant upon conceptual and empirical developments since the early 1970s. This paper traces the current disquiet, explores contemporary viewpoints and then outlines a prospective focus in terms of processes of wealth creation. It is argued that orientation to this goal would realign planning with other mainstream disciplines such as economics and provide greater clarity to the endeavours of theoreticians and practitioners. The implications of such a move are explored in terms of an approach to the real world of the marketplace.

Push from the Bush: Revitalisation Strategies for smaller rural towns

Generally, Australians consider that small towns are declining and there is not much that can be done about it. This paper argues that only certain sorts of towns (largely inland) are declining and that a lot can be done about it, provided there is the will. A small town in South-Western Queensland is used as a case study over a five year period and key issues are identified which can assist small towns to help themselves revitalise.

Satisfaction and positive resettlement: evidence from Yallourn, Latrobe Valley, Australia

Abstract Resettlement of entire communities is among the more difficult tasks in planning. The problems encountered during the 1960s were such that now any initiative involving relocation requires careful justification and may be vigorously disputed by interest groups. However, emerging resource limitations increase the likelihood of the forced removal of communities located adjacent to reserves hitherto considered submarginal. This paper concerns an Australian town which is being demolished to allow expansion of an open-cut coal mine. Despite conflicts preceding resettlement, the outcome so far has been surprisingly positive. The case offers insights to those dealing with urban redevelopment and population shifts in the future.