This week we are at the Liveable Cities Conference in Adelaide.
This year’s theme is 2020 and Beyond –Leadership in healthy and connected global communities and regions. AURIN is uniquely placed to play an active role in conversations, research agendas and policy programs related to this theme.
Liveability is a complex concept that brings together methods, ideas, and research from multiple disciplines and practitioners from a variety of sectors to tackle the question: how do we ensure that our places and spaces promote and support positive outcomes for individuals and communities? These outcomes can be measured across multiple dimensions: health and wellbeing, access to economic and social resources, sustainable use of natural resources, and resilience in the face of increasing natural and social challenges. The outcomes are not clearly delineated from each other, with a complex and still not fully understood system of interactions and pathways of cause and effect operating over multiple spatial scales, both social and geographical.
Liveability is a wicked problem which means by definition we’re not likely to solve it anytime soon. This means the work around trying to understand or fix the problem or even part of the problem is more important than ever, especially with new additional challenges arriving on the scene, such as climate change, ageing populations, food security, and widening inequality.
One of the key requirements for tackling the Liveability challenge is having the data to describe how our cities, towns and communities currently function, the people living in those settlements, and the impacts of the places on the people. As the single largest resource for accessing data around Australia’s places and spaces – and the populations that live there – AURIN is perfectly placed to provide the analytical data requirements to tackle the individual and collective components of liveability, as well as partnership – and leadership – on the broader research and policy agendas that underpins liveability work in Australia. These include providing assistance where required on the Sustainable Development Goals, working with other partners on the National Open Space Working Group, and developing the Water and Energy Supply and Consumption Data Standard.
If you’re at the Liveable Cities conference, come see us at our booth to have a chat about how we can work with you to support your work in this area. Alternatively, drop us an email about the role that AURIN might be able to play to empower your Liveability research or policy work.
Our AURIN Portal Map shows the distribution of Income Inequality and Housing Stress in Australian SA2s, focussed on Adelaide. The scatterplot shows that annual percentage increase in solar installations is higher in SA2s with higher median incomes across Australia. These datasets and many more related to liveability can be explored in the AURIN Data Discovery site