Australia is famously one of the most urbanised countries in the world, with our cities producing the bulk of GDP and jobs. Today our cities are on the front line of responding to climate change, and are projected to significantly increase in size. How cities cope with the challenges we face over the next decades will be decisive, and effective governance arrangements will be a key characteristic of those which succeed.

Duncan MacLennan is a leading academic on cities on three continents. This seminar will consider what we might be able to learn from the experience of cities overseas, including questions such as:

• How do we have the discussion about what we want our cities to be like?
• Looking around the world, what models of governance appear more likely to lead to successful cities?
• How useful is it to consider these models in the Australian context?

Registration closes Friday 27 December 2009

About the Speaker

Professor Duncan Maclennan is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of St Andrews. He is an international expert on the development of cities, the renewal of neighbourhoods and the economics of housing. After a long career at the University of Glasgow, where he directed the Centre for Housing and Urban Research (1982-96), the ESRC Cities Programme (1996-99) and the Centre for Public Policy on Regions (2004-04), he worked in senior government and academic posts in both Australia and Canada.

After moving to Canada in 2005 he held a joint appointment as Professor of Urban Economic Policy at the University of Ottawa and as Chief Economist at the Federal Department for Infrastructure. Duncan has advised governments on housing and urban policy in the UK, Poland, France, Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. From 1999 to 2003 he was Special Adviser to the First Minister of Scotland. He has also served as Principal Consultant to the OECD. In 1997 he was awarded a CBE in recognition of his contribution to housing and renewal policies in the UK and is also an honorary member of both the UK Royal Town Planning Institute and the Charted Institute of Housing.