The penultimate episode of Season 2 is led by Tony Matthews (@drtonymatthews). Naomi Edwards, the Australian Young Landcare Champion joins Tony for this episode, which focuses on water as one of the foundations of any city.

Cities must have some sort of reliable, safe and direct water supply. But cities are not independent entities – they draw on water from surrounding regions and need a ready supply. Unfortunately, water supplies are under stress in many cities because of population growth and environmental damage. 

Tony and Naomi discuss the unique relationship between cities and water. They look at challenges and opportunities for sustainable urban water management. Building this, they outline how cities in the 21st century can plan for more secure and sustainable water futures – imperative made more urgent by climate change and population growth.

Urban Squeeze_S2.E13_Cities and Water

For the final episode of the Urban Squeeze, we welcome Tony Matthews (@drtonymatthews) and Jason Byrne (@CityByrne) back to the studio together, to prognosticate the future of Australia’s cities. Together they take a close look at the state of Australian cities: the good, the bad, and the ugly. To round out the arc of the Urban Squeeze, they ask what exactly is the state of Australian cities?

Just thirty years ago, few commentators would have dared to imagine the frenetic pace of urban growth in Australia’s cities, and how urban landscapes would soon be profoundly reshaped. Back when Mick Dundee was making a splash in New York, who could have forseen the revival of light rail in Australian cities? Who would have throught that what were then stagnating urban cores would be filled with towering apartment buildings, and who could have predicted the explosive growth in regional cities? But in each of these cases, the seeds for these changes were germinating decades ago.

Tony and Jason consider the past, the present and the future of what has become the ‘Urban Country’, exploring successes and failures in urban planning and design. Stepping into a time machine, they consider where Australian cities might be headed. While they offer many interesting theories and ideas, their future-casting missed the many awards the Urban Squeeze was about to go and win after this season wrapped!

Urban Squeeze_S2.E14_The State of Australian Cities

In this appearance on 2SER Sydney, Tony Matthews talks about how renewable energy rollout is happening quickly in many cities. He discusses how effective guidance on the retrofitting and redesign of built environment energy systems must occur across scales, from rooftops to wider electricity grids. Reliable institutional and policy guidelines are also needed to improve investment certainty and limit negative outcomes. Renewables also need to be planning for strategically and integrated into existing buildings and technologies. This is no small task and generates challenges and opportunities. Tony considers these and other issues in this lively segment.

Why the pace of renewable energy shift leaves cities struggling to keep up

Is Brisbane on track to become Australia’s next world city? Tony Matthews adds to a discussion of this tricky question on ABC Brisbane with Craig Zonka and Rebecca Levingston. Things discussed include what heritage to preserve when managing urban development, planning infrastructure to match growth and figuring out what the right density for cities to create the best urban lifestyles.

Brisbane, Australia: The Growth of a New World City

Tony Matthews joins ABC Brisbane to explain how the humble drinking fountain was nothing less than a revolutionary urban development. They first appeared in London in the mid-1800s and then spread worldwide. Driven by a desire to improve public health, drinking fountains dispensing free, clean water changed cities forever. Tony discusses how this happened and the modern reality of drinking fountains, as well as what the future might hold as cities heat up due to climate change.

Drinking Fountains: Much more than meets the eye

Loneliness is a hidden but growing problem in many cities. Urban loneliness threatens the viability of our cities because it damages the social networks they rely on. One response involves creating more ‘third places’ – public or commercial spaces that provide informal opportunities for local people to mix socially on neutral ground. In this appearance on ABC Hobart, Tony Matthews talks about Third Places as an antidote to loneliness and how cities can get smarter about providing them.

What are Third Places and why do we need them?

The Australian Dream is a vision of a detached suburban house surrounded by a substantial backyard. But this vision changed from the 1990s onwards as more suburban housing came to market with much smaller backyards. This change was shaped by planning policies, housing affordability challenges and shifting consumer priorities. Whilst declining backyards may not seem to be a large concern, there are in fact many negative social and environmental consequences. Tony Matthews joins ABC Adelaide to discuss where all the backyards have gone and what that means today and into the future.

Where have all the backyards gone?

Tony Matthews joins Talking Lifestyle Online Radio for a segment on how Third Places can be an antidote to loneliness in cities. Urban loneliness is a hidden but growing problem that threatens the viability of our cities because it damages the social networks they rely on. The response Tony discusses here involves creating more ‘third places’ – public or commercial spaces that provide informal opportunities for local people to mix socially on neutral ground.

Home and Holiday

How 'third places' can prevent loneliness

Tony joins The Wire to talk about the many values of green spaces in cities and the problems encountered when we don’t have a proper economic metric for calculating the value of undeveloped green space. As long as we can’t explicitly show the dollar value of green space left in its natural state, we’ll struggle to ward off development pressures. This conversation takes place against the backdrop of a crazy idea from government to locate a helicopter landing pad in the centre of one of Adelaide’s most iconic green spaces. Mark Parnell, the Parliamentary Leader of the Greens in South Australia also joins this conversation.

The many values of urban green space

Ockham’s Razor is a national soapbox for science – a space for sustained and engaging stories to be told. Ockham’s Razor offered TED-style talks long before TED existed. In his 2019 appearance, entitled, “Why aren’t we living in sustainable cities and will we ever?”, Tony Matthews opens with a very controversial provocation: We will never live in sustainable cities…

Ockham's Razor: Why aren’t we living in sustainable cities and will we ever?

Personal page of @drtonymatthews featuring The Urban Squeeze and other media.
Talker, strategist, futurist, problem solver. 
Cities, climate change, renewable energy, culture, politics, design.
Lecturer in Urban & Regional Planning. 
Brisbane via Cork.

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