Abstract
Cities and towns are places for human survival and well-being. They are also places where the greatest sustainability challenges of the century are expected to emerge. In Australia, urban development is largely the responsibility of accredited planners who are inclined to prioritize bureaucratic and political requirements over local scientific knowledge in decision-making. Sustainable development (SD) emphasizes local scientific knowledge because it draws attention to the social and environmental fabric of communities that is known to support economic performance. One of the first steps in any urban SD initiative is to ‘take stock’ (profile) the town’s ecologic, social, economic and political capital and comprehensive urban sustainability profiling can support effective planning decision-making and SD. This paper reports on research underlying an urban sustainability profile for the town of Malanda in Far North Queensland, Australia. The research was conducted by a team of students from James Cook University as part of their sustainability studies. The research required collection of primary and secondary data (qualitative and quantitative) and a credible and useful urban profile emerged. The research process also provided an effective problem-oriented, place-based learning (POPBL) experience for the students.
Submitted for publication in the book titled “Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education (Volume 4)” to be published in 2016 by Springer Publishing as part of their World Sustainability Series.
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Macgregor, C.J. (2017). Urban Sustainability Profiling: A Case Study from Far North Queensland, Australia. In: Leal Filho, W., Azeiteiro, U., Alves, F., Molthan-Hill, P. (eds) Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47877-7_31
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