Arts and Social Science

Recent public debates about Australia's children and young people have increasingly acknowledged the direct impact of urban development on their health and well-being. This paper reviews a broad range of trans-disciplinary literature addressing child-friendliness in contemporary Australian cities, drawing particular attention to the fact that even some of the most recognised texts on children and young people in Australia make few references in their analysis to the issue of place and neighbourhood. More specifically, the paper points to two particular research challenges confronting the ongoing study of young people's well-being in urban areas, including a) the need for a more thorough analysis, both conceptual and applied, about how children and young people's well-being is affected by different urban forms and by the social and ecological variations that occur throughout cities; and b) the focus on younger children needs to be complemented by a focus on adolescents and young adults who in turn need to be actively involved in confronting these challenges.

Recent public debates about Australia's children and young people have begun to acknowledge the direct impact of urban development on their health and well-being. This paper reviews a broad range of transdisciplinary literature addressing child-friendliness in contemporary Australian cities, drawing particular attention to the fact that even some of the most recognised texts on children and young people in Australia still make few references in their analysis to the issue of place and neighbourhood. More specifically, the paper points to two particular research challenges confronting the ongoing study of young people's wellbeing in urban areas, including (a) the need for a more thorough analysis, both conceptual and applied, about how children and young people's well-being is affected by different urban forms and by the social and ecological variations that occur throughout cities; and (b) the focus on younger children needs to be complemented by a focus on adolescents and young adults who in turn need to be actively involved in confronting these challenges.

Socio-environmental factors, including the neighbourhoods in which children live and grow, are key determinants of children's developmental outcomes. Thus, it is important to examine and consider the relationships between these factors and the multiple contexts that influence children. Drawing on a broad disciplinary range of existing research, we aimed to develop a conceptual model of neighbourhood effects influencing early childhood development. The neighbourhood effects literature was reviewed with a specific focus on existing models and frameworks. This review was then further expanded through consultation with our cross-disciplinary research collaboration (Kids in Communities Study Collaboration). From this a theoretical model specific to early childhood development was developed. The hypothesised model comprised five interconnected domains: physical, social, service, socioeconomic , and governance. A small trial of indicator measurement was conducted and findings were used to make a series of recommendations regarding measures or indicators which might provide useful and effective for neighbourhood effects research. The proposed model provides a useful and novel conceptual framework for classifying neighbourhood effects research. By synthesising disparate but related areas of research, the resultant five domains provide a useful approach to understanding and measuring child development in the context of community and environment, therefore advancing knowledge in this area. Expanding the current neighbourhood effects paradigm to accommodate broader constructs appears critical in considering the multiple environments that may act as key determinants of children's wellbeing and psychosocial outcomes.

Healthy child development is determined by a combination of physical, social, family, individual, and environmental factors. Thus far, the majority of child development research has focused on the influence of individual, family and school environments, and largely ignored the neighborhood context despite the increasing policy interest. Yet given that neighborhoods are the locations where children spend large periods of time outside of home and school, it is plausible the physical design of neighborhoods (built environment), including access to local amenities, can impact on child development. The relatively few studies exploring this relationship support associations between child development and neighborhood destinations, green spaces, interaction with nature, traffic exposure, and housing density. These studies emphasise the need to more deeply understand how child development outcomes might be influenced by the neighborhood built environment. Pursuing this research space is well...

Healthy childhood development in the early years is critical for later adult health and well-being. Early childhood development (ECD) research has focused primarily on individual, family and school factors, but largely ignored community factors. The Kids in Communities Study (KiCS) will test and investigate community-level influences on child development across Australia. Cross-sectional mixed-methods study exploring community-level effects in 25 Australian local communities; selection based on community socioeconomic status (SES) and ECD using the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), a population measure of child development, to create a local community 'diagonality type', that is, those performing better or worse (off-diagonal), or as expected (on-diagonal) on the AEDC relative to their SES. Data collection includes stakeholder interviews, parent and service provider focus groups, and surveys with general community residents and service providers, mapping of neighbo...

Disadvantaged communities tend to have poorer early childhood development outcomes. Access to safe, secure, and stable housing is a well-known social determinant of health but there is a need to examine key features of neighbourhood housing that reduce early childhood development inequities. The 2012 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), a population-wide measure of early childhood development, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Socio-economic Index for Areas Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage were used to select fourteen disadvantaged local communities in five Australian states and territories based on those performing better (off-diagonal), or as expected (on-diagonal) on the AEDC relative to their socio-economic profile. Between 2015–2017, qualitative and quantitative housing data were collected in the local communities. In total, 87 interviews with stakeholders, 30 focus groups with local service providers and parents, and Australian Census dwelling informa...

The Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Guide was released by the World Health Organization over a decade ago with the aim of creating environments that support healthy ageing. The comprehensive framework includes the domains of outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation, housing, social participation, respect and inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information, and community and health services. A major critique of the age-friendly community movement has argued for a more clearly defined scope of actions, the need to measure or quantify results and increase the connections to policy and funding levers. This paper provides a quantifiable spatial indicators framework to assess local lived environments according to each Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFC) domain. The selection of these AFC spatial indicators can be applied within local neighbourhoods, census tracts, suburbs, municipalities, or cities with minimal resource requirements other than ap...

Knowing where sports talent is produced is fundamental to identifying spatial factors in talent production and to assist with talent identification. This research develops spatial analysis methods-the Talent Tracker-to harness geographical information systems and identify regions that are over-and under-producing sports talent. The approach focuses on the professional Australian Football League (AFL), using data sourced from the AFL itself and other sources, to identify differences in regional 'talent yield' based on junior participation. Data from AFL draft records, informants and secondary sources identified the place of junior talent development for the 1,290 players who were drafted and played at least one game of senior AFL football in the period 1997-2010. AFL National Census data identified junior participation for 94 specified regions for the period 2002-2009. AFL talent was assigned to these regions by using ArcGIS procedures, and the datasets synthesised to produce tables and maps of talent yield by participation for each of the 94 AFL regions. The results demonstrate the power of contemporary spatial analysis to open up new research methods for studies into sports talent production and identification. Clear spatial patterns emerge in talent yield at both the national and metropolitan scales. The results provide numerous avenues for further research to explore determining factors for the spatial patterns identified.

This article explores what appears to be a major shift in the policies and practices of national and international governments–the increased attention to, and use of, citizen engagement strategies as a basis for developing more participatory forms of governance. The article examines recent citizen engagement initiatives of the Queensland state government which have grappled with these complex political, policy and service concerns. The potential innovation and effectiveness of citizen engagement techniques and approaches are examined. The limitations of technical methodologies based on a traditional consultative framework are highlighted. The article analyses the relationship between these citizen engagement practices and more strategic democratic reforms based on notions of participatory governance.

Does transport accessibility influence how many elite sportspersons regions produce? Accessibility and remoteness research has proliferated in the era of geographic information systems (GIS), but seldom within sports research. Studies in Australia and the US reveal that sports talent is more likely to come from communities of less than 500,000, but more than 10,000 people, suggesting spatial accessibility effects. The Talent Tracker project has identified the junior region of origin for the 1,290 players who were drafted and played at least one game of senior Australian Football (AFL) in the period 1997-2010. Junior AFL participation data (13-18 year old males) for the same period is used to determine spatial measures of annual average 'talent yield' (draftees produced per junior participant). The results are matched with Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) data, which provides a measure of spatial accessibility via the road network, for all Statistical Local Areas in Australia. Limitations of the methods include possible areal errors through aggregation in both datasets. Statistical correlation results suggest an association between accessibility/remoteness and talent yield across the SLAs. Mapping outputs highlight particular problems for extremely remote locations. At a finer grain, the results produce a more intriguing picture of where the places are in Australia that have been over-and underproducing AFL players, raising further questions as to how transport may be an influential factor. The findings may help sports bodies better understand the necessary spatial conditions influencing both elite competition recruitment structures and access to elite coaching.

In recent years, a number of liveability and benchmarking indices and studies have been published to assess the relative position of various 'global cities' against each other in various categories. These liveability measures are typically used as a tool to make comparisons between cities with various outcome 'scores' receiving widespread media attention. Results are increasingly publicised by cities that score highly, particularly to secure business and human capital, and by companies to determine remuneration and conditions for expatriates. In Australia, there has been considerable attention devoted to focusing more on the general quality-of-life of a city from the perspective of existing citizens under the guise of 'liveability'. There is growing evidence that such measures are being taken up increasingly by larger urban local governments to track progress in improving elements of liveability in the community. However, to date, there is no established theo...

In Australia, engaged scholarship oriented towards community development objectives has yet to be recognised in funding regimes as being inherently beneficial in terms of scholarly excellence and university rankings. While the civic role of universities is acknowledged by individual universities, higher education management and at the Federal policy level, they are most often framed as funding problems related to ‘community service’ rather than as research opportunities which can raise the university’s profile by providing the basis for excellent research outputs and community enrichment. Community engagement has become a familiar term in the Australian higher education lexicon in recent years but there is still little institutional infrastructure that directly embodies the principles and sentiment of community engagement evident in current Australian universities. In this paper, the inaugural Director and Research Manager of the University of Queensland’s Community Service and Rese...

An individual's, and indeed the nation's, social and economic futures are highly dependent on Early Childhood Development (ECD) outcomes, with poor ECD inhibiting future opportunities. Ecological ECD literature describes family, community and institutions as being key factors in children's wellbeing, with suggestions that community factors may ameliorate impacts of poor ECD. It is therefore important to develop a greater understanding of those modifiable factors that positively, and negatively, affect ECD outcomes so as ECD policy and practice can be designed and implemented effectively. One approach to this analysis is through the identification and analysis of influencing factors identified within off-diagonal communitiesthat is those communities where children have either developed well in consideration of their highlevels of socioeconomic disadvantage, or developed poorly in consideration of their low levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. In this paper we describe a new method for the identification of off-diagonal communities. The method provides clear and transparent approach to community selection, including a range of methods to further interrogate the community selection ensuring a rigorous and considered selection process. This new method, based on Census and Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data, provides the first step in identifying community factors likely to facilitate childhood wellbeing. These findings could inform policy making to reduce inequities by assisting in policy and service delivery design targeted to community needs. 4 113 127 93 62 25 5 220 113 45 28 5 Community 1 Community 2 Community 3 Community 1 Community 4

The Child Friendly by Design (CFbD) Project, conducted by Healthy Cities Illawarra (HCI), in conjunction with Griffith University's Urban Research Program (URP) has involved children, young people and families in the design and redesign of public open spaces in Shellharbour, a fast developing city in the Illawarra region of NSW. Many conventional town planning processes do little to give children and young people a 'voice' on what is important about the places that surround them. The CFbD project has developed engagement tools, created participatory forums and linked closely with local government's planning processes. CFbD has placed children at the 'heart' of the planning and design process and has facilitated links between Council, developers, local business, families and the community sector.

Despite the imperative that youth voices should contribute to shaping their future world, there is limited evidence of youth agency and participation which articulates their unique experience of community in urban planning decision-making. This study uses the lens of social capital to compare perspectives of community between young people aged 15-17 years and adults in a suburban community on the Sunshine Coast, South East Queensland, Australia. The results, derived from both quantitative and qualitative methods, illustrate the different experiences of community between youth and adults and suggest how urban planners and decision-makers can incorporate youth-friendly responses to address issues of power inequality between youth and adult residents and mechanisms to engage adult residents through collaborative governance approaches.

This paper examines some critical issues and opportunities for democracy and public policy posed by the growth of the global progress measurement movement. From the democratic perspective, these include: citizen progress measurement as a form of democratic re‐engagement; the re‐examination of democracy and the development of new indicators to define and measure a ‘healthy’ democracy; and the demonstration of clear linkages between healthy regimes, and broader individual and societal wellbeing. In public policy, the global movement challenges two long dominant assumptions: the primacy of continuous economic growth as the key driver of wellbeing; and the ‘inevitability of progress‘. In their place, it offers a more holistic, integrated and nuanced model that recognises the interdependence of economic, social, cultural, environmental and democratic dimensions for genuine wellbeing, progress and sustainability. The paper reviews work in Australia over the past decade at both local commu...