Following the successful State of Australian Cities Conference held in December 2003, the Australian Sustainable Cities and Regions Network, has announced that it will convene the 2nd State of Australian Cities conference in Brisbane. The conference will be hosted by the Urban Research Program (URP) at Griffith University. The URP Director, Professor Brendan Gleeson, is Chair of the Conference Organising Committee.

Conference registration details will soon be available. Links, information & updates will be provided at the URP’s website (web address provided below).

Themes
The Conference will focus on the contemporary form and structure of Australian cities. The overarching conference meta-themes will be: The Sustainability and Vulnerability of Urban Australia.

The conference aims to provide a focus for new urban scholarship and will bring together the most prominent academics working in this area in Australia, together with new researchers and others – policy makers and practitioners – who are interested in the Australian city.

The proceedings will be grouped into six key sub-themes, each the focus of one of more conference sessions and each with its own multi-disciplinary Editorial Review Panel:

• The city economy – economic change and labour market outcomes of globalisation, land use pressures, changing employment locations.
• The social city – including population, migration, cultures, immigration, polarisation, equity and disadvantage, housing issues, recreation.
• The environmental city – sustainable development, management and performance, natural resource management, limits to growth, impacts of air, water, climate, energy consumption, natural resource uses, conservation, green space.
• Changing city structures – the emerging morphology of the city – inner suburbs, middle suburbs, the CBD, outer suburbs and the urban-rural fringe, the city region.
• City governance – finance, taxation, provision of urban services, public policy formation, planning, urban government, citizenship, accountability and the democratic process.
• Infrastructure – transport, mobility, accessibility, communications and IT, water supply and sewerage and other urban infrastructure provision.

Paper Proposals Invited Now!
Intending presenters should submit abstracts of not more than two pages. Proposals must address one or more of the six conference sub-themes.

Once an Editorial Review Panel has accepted a proposed paper, with or without suggested revisions, authors will be invited to submit their draft papers for presentation at the conference. A copy of the full paper should be available for the discussant at least one month prior to the conference.

Timetable

• Deadline for submission of Abstracts: 31 May 2005.
• Deadline for submission of draft papers: 30 September 2005.

Presentation

• A template for paper layout and style will be released in May 2005.
• All electronic presentations to be made in accordance with a protocol to be issued in May.
• Papers will have an average length of 5,000 words with a maximum length of 7,500.

Publication
All papers selected as sub-theme papers will be reviewed and refereed for publication – probably electronically – as refereed conference proceedings. Authors will retain copyright for any subsequent publication. Papers selected for publication should be made available to the conference organisers by end of January 2006 should the invited author wish it to be included in the proposed publication.

Organisation
The Conference will run for two and a half days. Sub-theme sessions will run concurrently. All sessions will be chaired by members of the theme selection committees, who will also select rapporteurs for the plenary sessions. A final plenary on the last day will bring together the themes and provide an opportunity for delegates to develop a research agenda.

Costs will be minimised in order to make the Conference as inclusive as possible.

Submissions of Paper Proposals
Registration of interest in presenting a Conference paper should be sent in the first instance to:
Professor Patrick Troy,
Secretary to the National Sponsoring Committee at:
patrick.troy@anu.edu.au
Or by post to: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies
Building 43, Australian National University, ACT. 0200