Rod McCrea

An experimental test of voluntary strategies to promote urban water demand management

In light of the current and future threats to global water security the current research focuses on trialing interventions to promote urban water conservation. We report an experimental study designed to test the long-term impact of three different interventions on household water consumption in South East Queensland. Participants from 221 households were recruited and completed an initial survey, and their houses were fitted with smart water meters which measured total water usage at 5 s intervals. Households were allocated into one of four conditions: a control group and three interventions groups (water saving information alone, information plus a descriptive norm manipulation, and information plus tailored end-user feedback). The study is the first to use smart water metering technology as a tool for behaviour change as well as a way to test the effectiveness of demand management interventions. Growth curve modelling revealed that compared to the control, the three intervention groups all showed reduced levels of household consumption (an average reduction of 11.3 L per person per day) over the course of the interventions, and for some months afterwards. All interventions led to significant water savings, but long-term household usage data showed that in all cases, the reduction in water use resulting from the interventions eventually dissipated, with water consumption returning to pre-intervention levels after approximately 12 months. Implications for water demand management programs are discussed.

A Push – Pull Framework for Modelling the Relocation of Retirees to a Retirement Village: The Australian Experience

Although most older people prefer to age in place, nonetheless many do relocate, with a small proportion moving to retirement villages, which provide a purpose designed and built residential and lifestyle environment. Using factor analyses, path analyses, and a push – pull framework, the authors model the decision process of retirees in Australia in order to identify relationships between push – pull factors and predictor variables, using data from a national survey of retirement village residents. The push factors relate to change in lifestyle, home maintenance, social isolation, and health and mobility, whereas the pull factors relate to built environment and affordability, the locational attributes of villages, and the desire to maintain an existing lifestyle. The survey data also identify village attributes considered desirable or undesirable, or important or unimportant. Overall, resident satisfaction with moving is high.

Fear of crime in Brisbane Individual, social and neighbourhood factors in perspective

Numerous theories apply to fear of crime and each are associated with different kinds of variables. Most studies use only one theory, though this study examines the relative importance of different kinds of variables across a number of theories. The study uses data from a survey of residents in Brisbane, Australia to examine the relative importance of individual attributes, neighbourhood disorder, social processes and neighbourhood structure in predicting fear of crime. Individual attributes and neighbourhood disorder were found to be important predictors of fear of crime, while social processes and neighbourhood structure were found to be far less important. The theoretical implications are that the vulnerability hypothesis and the incivilities thesis are most appropriate for investigating fear of crime, though social disorganization theory does provide conceptual support for the incivilities thesis. Although social processes are less important in predicting fear of crime than neighbourhood incivilities, they are still integrally related to fear of crime: they explain how incivilities arise, they buffer against fear of crime, and they are affected by fear of crime.

Policy networks, stakeholder interactions and climate adaptation in the region of South East Queensland, Australia

The strategic use of science in regional policy-making forums often assumes collaborative interactions between stakeholders. However, other types of stakeholder interactions are possible. This paper uses the ecology of games to frame an investigation into stakeholder participation in the policy networks for regional climate change planning for South East Queensland, Australia. We tracked organisational participation in policy forums between 2008 and 2012. We then used a novel bipartite network theoretical approach to identify participation by different types of organisations across shared multiple forums, which we argue prefaces: cooperation, collaboration, support or advocacy. Network analysis was then combined with semi-structured interviews to access how scientific information was utilised across the regional network. Our results suggest that stakeholder interactions were predominately used to advocate for organisational agendas. Advocacy artificially narrows the scope of possible policy options and represents a biased, selective use of information. While advocacy is an important part of policy process, as a counter balance, explicit efforts are needed to recurrently expand the scope of policy options.

Impacts of Urban Consolidation on Urban Liveability: Comparing an Inner and Outer Suburb in Brisbane, Australia

Abstract Urban consolidation involving increasing densification around existing nodes of urban infrastructure is a strategy pursued by all levels of government for addressing rapid population growth in urban regions. This has both positive and negative impacts on the everyday lives of residents (or their urban liveability as perceived by them), even though urban consolidation is commonly resisted by residents. This paper aims to better understand impacts of urban consolidation on liveability by comparing similarities and differences in impacts between two Brisbane suburbs: an outer fringe suburb (Wynnum) and an inner city suburb (West End). Wynnum residents generally expressed less resistance to urban consolidation, with some residents willing to trade additional densification for additional amenities. Two issues concerning residents in both suburbs were aesthetics of high-rise development and traffic congestion. Building heights more than a few storeys above surrounding buildings were commonly seen as detracting from urban liveability, though buildings up to 30 stories were accepted by some if close to the Commercial Business District. Traffic congestion was seen as a problem in both suburbs reflecting widespread car dependency. Other impacts differed between suburbs, reflecting their different values and ways of living. For example, most West End residents were concerned about losing social diversity with declining housing affordability while many Wynnum residents were concerned about gaining more public or social housing and disadvantaged residents. The impacts of urban consolidation on liveability differ between suburbs, and local neighbourhood plans should be sensitive to local notions of urban liveability because residents often stay after urban consolidation, even if they perceive negative impacts on their liveability. These interviews reinforce liveability as primary focus for urban planning, and thus urban consolidation at the expense of liveability is a poor outcome for both local residents and urban planning.

Reducing work-to-life interference in the public service: The importance of participative management as mediated by other work attributes

Research suggests an association between participative management and lower work-to-life interference. We extend these findings to the public sector and examine possible pathways which link them, hypothesizing that participative management reduces work-to-life interference through its impact on other work attributes. Using a survey of public sector employees in Queensland, Australia and structural equation modelling, the results show that participatory management consistently reduces work-to-life interference via a number of pathways: by increasing flexibility of work hours, increasing meaningful work, reducing workload, and reducing work uncertainty. Although females with dependents work fewer hours on average, they are still more likely to have higher work-to-life interference. Overall, however, the main way participative management can reduce work-to-life interference is by reducing workloads. Participative management is normally employed to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness; however, it can also reduce work-to-life interferences for its employees and thus assist an organization in meeting its social responsibility obligations.

The Evolution of Integrative Approaches to the Analysis of Quality of Urban Life

The focus in the chapter is on modeling relationships between attributes of urban environments and peoples’ subjective evaluations of QOL/QOUL at different levels of scale. This integrative approach has gained increasing attention in research on QOUL and has been greatly enhanced through the use of GIS technology. Much of the research has aimed at testing linkages between satisfaction with urban living and objective characteristics of the urban environment. That requires increasingly sophisticated research designs to understand the complex relationships between then objective conditions and situations and the subjective evaluation or assessment of the urban environment in which people live.

Subjective Measurement of Quality of Life Using Primary Data Collection and the Analysis of Survey Data

The subjective analysis of quality of life (QOL) was first systematized in the 1960s through the use of large-scale sample survey designs in which extensive data were collected on peoples’ evaluations of QOL domains. Domains typically included financial well-being, health, job, family and friends, leisure and place. Place domains were community, neighborhood and housing. More recently, sophisticated model frameworks have emerged in which QOUL is conceptualized as a composite of housing, neighborhood and community satisfaction together with regional satisfaction and their interrelationships. The chapter reviews the evolution of approaches to measuring, analyzing and modeling subjective QOL and QOUL and their theoretical bases, concluding with a reference to recent agent modeling approaches.

Explaining sociospatial patterns in South East Queensland, Australia: social homophily versus structural homophily

Model simulations of residential segregation have shown that even modest levels of social homophily (or wishing to live near residents with similar social characteristics) gives rise to distinct spatial patterns of residential segregation. However, this proposition has been contested where social homophily is modest. This paper contrasts two explanations for urban sociospatial patterns (socioeconomic and demographic spatial patterns) in a region where social homophily is modest-South East Queensland (SEQ). The research question is whether sociospatial patterns are better explained by social homophily or by structural homophily. In other words, are they better explained by residents wishing to live in neighborhoods with similar people (social homophily), or by residents with similar social characteristics finding similar neighborhood physical attributes important, and thus moving to neighborhoods with similar people (structural homophily). SEQ residents were asked how important various reasons were in choosing their neighborhood. The survey data were linked to neighborhood social characteristics from census data with the aid of geographic information systems. Six neighborhood social characteristics in SEQ were investigated. Social homophily explained a small, though statistically significant, level of spatial variation in socioeconomic and ethnic (non-Western) environments. However, it did not explain any variation in the other four neighborhood social characteristics which related to household structure: that is, younger nonnuclear household environments; nuclear family environments; and older nonnuclear household environments, or disadvantaged environments. Moreover, structural homophily explained much more variation than did social homophily in all six neighborhood social characteristics. In regions such as SEQ, spatial patterns can largely be explained by structural homophily. Thus, modest levels of social homophily are not necessarily important in explaining sociospatial patterning.

Early Gentrification and the Public Realm: A Case Study of West End in Brisbane, Australia

West End is an inner-city neighbourhood in Brisbane, Australia, about to experience profound change. In the next two decades the population of West End is planned to increase fourfold as the result of local and state government urban consolidation policies, with little planning for services and amenity to cater for this increase. Interviews with 50 residents of West End are used to describe the nature and qualities of a strong existing public realm in West End, intimately tied to place and closely associated with West End’s early gentrification status. It is argued that early gentrification, because of the change it brings, has been consistent with the maintenance and protection of this public realm. As West End is the last neighbourhood of its type in the city (and one of the last in the country), it is also argued that in the absence of any state-led policies to foster diversity, for the benefit of the wider metropolis, these neighbourhoods are worth protecting from the parochialising effects of insensitive developer-led ‘second-wave’ gentrification.