Abstract
Urban governance plays an important role in making cities sustainable and inclusive. This chapter provides an account of urban governance in Brisbane City Council (BCC), which is the largest city council in Australia. It focuses on two key roles of BCC: (i) its management role for the provision of urban services, and (ii) its democratic governance role for social inclusion and community engagement. BCC provides a range of services for diverse group of local communities including parks, sporting facilities, libraries, art and cultural amenities. The city has improved its services through e-governance by developing online planning tools for information on urban planning. The strategic plan of BCC aims to be holistic and inclusive with focus on sustainability and inclusiveness. In terms of democratic governance, there are challenges to community engagement partly due to the large size of the council and the top-down nature of engagement. To ensure good governance, the City of Brisbane Act 2010 requires the council to be transparent, accountable, and inclusive, and to deliver sustainable services. As this chapter will show, some of the goals of Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda (NUA) seem to already be a part of urban governance in Brisbane. Nevertheless, we argue that Brisbane still faces major governance challenges, which include the intervening role of politics in urban governance, the development of megaprojects, a growing dependence on the private sector for providing services, the increasing privatization of the public realm and the lack of well organised civil society in the city.
Keywords
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ABC News (2017) Archaeologists keep close eye on Brisbane’s heritage-listed Harris Terrace as casino construction begins, 16 Jan 2017. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-16/queen-street-casino-heritage-buildings-being-protected/8185900. Accessed August 7, 2017
Arnstein S (1969) A ladder of citizen participation. J Am Plan Assoc 35(4):216–224
Brackertz N (2013) Political actor or policy instrument? Governance challenges in Australian Local Government. Commonw J Local Gov (12) (2013)
Brisbane City Council (2011) Brisbane access and inclusion plan 2012–2017. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/20141806_-_access_and_inclusion_plan_2012-2017_full_document.pdf. Accessed 2 Jan 2017
Brisbane City Council (2013) Brisbane vision 2031 https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/Brisbane_Vision_2031_full_document.pdf. Accessed 2 Jan 2017
Brisbane City Council (2015) Brisbane city council corporate sustainability policy. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/about-council/governance-strategy/vision-strategy/sustainability-policy-case-studies. Accessed 2 Jan 2017
Brisbane City Council (2016a) Brisbane city council corporate plan 2016–17 to 2020–21. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/20160620-_corporate_plan_2016-17_to_2020-21.pdf. Accessed 2 Jan 2017
Brisbane City Council (2016b) Council annual plan and budget 2016–17. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/about-council/council-information-rates/news-publications/council-annual-plan-budget-2016-17. Accessed 2 Jan 2017
Brisbane City Council (2017a) Planning and building online tools. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/planning-building/planning-guidelines-tools/planning-building-online-tools. Accessed 15 May 2018
Brisbane City Council (2017b) Housing and homelessness. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/community-safety/community-support/housing-homelessness. Accessed 15 May 2018
Brisbane Times (2016) Greens councillor ignores Star’s legal threats over Queens Wharf video, 13 April 2016. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/greens-councillor-ignores-stars-legal-threats-over-queens-wharf-video-20160413-go5hyl.html. Accessed 7 Aug 2017
Brisbane Times (2009) King george square redevelopment gets thumbs down, 11 Oct 2009. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/king-george-square-redevelopment-gets-thumbs-down-20091010-grt3.html. Accessed 7 Aug 2017
Bovaird T, Loffler E (2003) Evaluating the quality of public governance: indicators, models and methodologies. Int Rev Admin Sci 69:313–328
Burton P (2014) From white shoes to bold future: the neoliberalisation of local government in an Australian city? Urban Stud 51(15):3233–3249
Byrne J, Osborne N (2016) Urban hacktivism: getting creative about involving citizens in city planning. The Conversation, 15 July 2016
Cheema GS (ed) (2013) Democratic local governance: reforms and Innovations in Asia. United Nations University Press, Tokyo
Cheema GS, Popovski V (eds) (2010a) Engaging civic society: emerging trends in democratic governance. United Nations University Press, Tokyo
Cheema GS, Popovski V (eds) (2010b) Building trust in government: innovations in governance reform in Asia. United Nations University Press, Tokyo
Crowley CM (1998) ‘Globalisation’ and ecological modernity: challenges for local environmental governance in Australia. Local Environment 3(1):91–97. ISSN 1354-9839
Dodson J, Sipe N, Baker D (2010) Transportation and the wheels of growth. In: Gleeson B, Steel W (eds) A climate for growth: planning South-East Queensland, 1st edn. University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, pp 185–202
Dodson J (2016) Ideas for Australia: City v 4.0, a new model of urban growth and governance for Australia. The Conversation, 20 April 2016
Financial Review (2015) Architects slam Queen’s Wharf casino site: warn of ‘irreparable’ damage to Brisbane. Financial Review, 5 Aug 2015. http://www.afr.com/real-estate/commercial/architects-slam-queens-wharf-casino-site-warn-of-irreparable-damage-to-brisbane-20150805-gis5l9. Accessed 7 Aug 2017
Flyvbjerg B, Bruzelius N, Rothengatter W (2003) Megaprojects and risk: an anatomy of ambition. Cambridge University Press, London
Forester J (1999) The deliberative practitioner: encouraging participatory planning process. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Forster C (2007) Australian cities: continuity and change, 3rd edn. Oxford University Press, Melbourne
Gleeson B, Low L (2000) Australian urban planning: new challenges, new agendas. Allen & Unwin, Sydney
Gleeson B, Dodson J, Spiller M (2010) Metropolitan governance for the Australian city; the case for reform. Urban Research Program, Issues Paper, 12, March 2010
Gurran N (2011) Australian urban land use planning, 2nd edn. Sydney University Press, Sydney
Hartwich OM (2009) Beyond symbolism: finding a place for local government in Australia’s constitution, issue analysis, no 104. Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney
Healey P (1998) Collaborative planning in a stakeholder society. Town Plan Rev 69:1–21
Innes JE, Booher DE (2004) Reframing public participation: strategies for the 21st century. Plan Theory Pract 5:419–436
Kersting N, Caulfield J, Andrew R, Nickson A, Olowu D, Wollmann H (2009) Good local governance. Local government reform in global perspective. An introduction, Local Governance Reform in Global Perspective, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 9–34
Knapp C (2017) Experimenting with anarchistic approaches to collaborative planning: the planning free school of Chattanooga. J Urban Affairs 39(5):635–657
Minnery J (2007) Stars and their supporting coast: state, market and community as actors in urban governance. Urban Policy Res 25(3):325–345
Minnery J (2014) Off the Shelf or Tailor-made? Sources of ideas for the creation of greater Brisbane in 1924. Int J Reg Local Hist 9(2):107–122
Murphy P (2012) The metropolis. In: Thompson S, Maginn PJ (eds) Planning Australia, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, pp 155–179
Musso J, Weare C, Hale M (2000) Designing web technologies for local governance reform: good management or good democracy. Polit Commun 17(1):1–19
Newman M (1998) Planning, governing, and the image of the city. J Plan Edu Res 18:61–71
Pierre J (2011) The politics of urban governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Priemus H, Flyvbjerg B, van Wee B (2008) Decision making on mega projects: cost benefit analysis, planning and innovation. Edward Elgar Publishing Inc, Massachusetts
Queens Wharf Development. https://queenswharfbrisbane.com.au/. Accessed 7 Aug 2017
Queens Wharf Brisbane. http://www.cotteeparker.com.au/project/queens-wharf/. Accessed 7 Aug 2017
Stewart K (2006) Designing good urban governance indicators: the importance of citizen participation and its evaluation in Greater Vancouver. Cities 23(3):196–204
Tomlinson R (2016) Metropolitan governance is the missing link in Australia’s reform agenda. The Conversation, 4 April 2016
United Nations Habitat III (2016) The New Urban Agenda, The United National Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), Quito 17–20 Oct 2016. https://www2.habitat3.org/bitcache/99d99fbd0824de50214e99f864459d8081a9be00?vid=591155&disposition=inline&op=view. Accessed 2 Jan 2007
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bajracharya, B., Khan, S. (2020). Urban Governance in Australia: A Case Study of Brisbane City. In: Dahiya, B., Das, A. (eds) New Urban Agenda in Asia-Pacific. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6709-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6709-0_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-6708-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-6709-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)