Reshaping the built environment in Melbourne, Australia

Embedding health outcomes in city design

We explored several of these city-wide initiatives, including transport design hubs, health foundations, innovation hubs, new housing developments, academic research institutes and internationally backed city-wide renewal projects. Each initiative is taking on a different systemic lever, sector or environment to counteract imbalances across the city and ensure that, wherever possible, it evolves to allow all residents to access its positive aspects.

Much of the city-wide initiatives focused on the development and impact of changes to the built environment, in contrast to neighbourhood initiatives we saw elsewhere which took people’s interaction with place as a starting point. We observed that changes in infrastructure, for example housing, transport and urban forestry, provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research and planning to embed and measure health outcomes in future city development.

In a constantly evolving city, putting health as a core outcome of success is possible. For example, Melbourne’s 20-minute neighbourhood is a good example of how expanding cities can accommodate the needs of residents by actively considering the health objectives of changes to the built environment. However, the challenge is how best this can be done while managing and meeting the needs of its current populations.

As can be observed in many cities, displacement and disenfranchisement of established communities as a city expands and evolves can create a tension in terms of resource allocation and in perceptions of whose voice is or is not heard. There is a growing tension and debate on whether city-wide initiatives that attract high earners into declining urban neighbourhoods with improved built environment is indeed regeneration or gentrification. While there is no clear evidence on whether gentrification is positive or negative for existing residents and communities, gentrification of previously underinvested urban neighbourhoods can undoubtedly amplify feelings of disenfranchisement and social segregation.

Initiative explored: Fishermans Bend

Fishermans Bend is an urban renewal project covering approximately 480 hectares connecting the city’s central business district to the bay. By 2050, it’s planned that it will be home to approximately 80,000 residents and provide employment for up to 80,000 people. The vision is to create liveable and vibrant neighbourhoods that are world-leading examples of urban renewal. Working to a framework with robust evaluation, the project is focused on creating parks, schools, roads, transport and community facilities and services to ensure liveability as the precinct grows over the next 30 years. The framework is supported by a suite of evidence-based research reports, strategies and plans and its development benefited from more than 12 months of engagement with community and other stakeholders.

Initiative explored: Resilient Melbourne, the Rockefeller Foundation and City of Melbourne

Melbourne is made up of 32 local government authorities (councils), comprising hundreds of diverse local neighbourhoods, each with its own character, cultural mix and set of advantages and disadvantage. The city is growing, and by 2051 is expected to be home to approximately 7.7 million people. The shared administration means city-wide challenges cannot be dealt with independently. Resilient Melbourne offers a rare opportunity to tackle these challenges in new collaborative ways. Melbourne’s first resilience strategy was endorsed by the City of Melbourne’s Future Melbourne Committee in 2016.

It is the first resilience strategy produced by any Australian city and is the first metropolitan plan that has been led by local government in Melbourne’s 180 year history. Developed with the support of 100 Resilient Cities – pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation – the strategy sets out a series of distinct, yet connected, actions that will help make Melbourne a viable, liveable and prosperous city, long into the future. The city has put in place another of initiatives as part of the strategy, including the development of a metropolitan urban forest, and early research suggests the strategy has led to increased knowledge exchange across sectors and urban innovation.