In PX115 our guest is Liz Mackevicius. Liz is an urban planner who has taken a new role as an organisational coach for those in the built environment industry. She will be leading the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) program ‘Pathway to Lead’. Information about the program, and the link to register for the session is: https://www.planning.org.au/eventsandcpdnew/additional-programs. It’s for consultants across Australia. An accredited organisational coach, Liz has built a reputation of...

In PX114, our interview guest is Anna Lowder, a co-founder and director of Hampstead, a New Urbanist community in Montgomery, Alabama, inspired by her experiences while living in London before returning to Montgomery. Established in 2008, the 416-acre master-planned residential and mixed-use development features homes, townhomes, condos, apartments, restaurants, shops, workspaces and a school, farm, and a lake. Anna helped Hampstead and Montgomery become the first neighborhood and largest...

Episode PX113 of PlanningxChange is all about Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM) aircraft, these are typically electric or hybrid powered, air taxis and the like. They have appeared in various science fiction films such as Blade Runner 2019 and Blade Runner 2049 (nicknamed ‘spinners’). They will soon be appearing above our cities and towns. Clem Newton-Brown our guest is CEO and founder of Skyportz (skyportz.com), the only Australian business developing a network of landing sites for a future air...

In PX112, our interview guest is Jessica Lee, a principal architect at Fender Katsalidis Architects (fkaustralia.com). Jessica discusses the ‘Alba’ project, the conversion of a 1970’s former office building into 150 rooms of age appropriate housing (retirement accommodation and aged care). The site is located within South Melbourne, an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria Australia. The cost of the conversion was $125m (AU). Whilst not being significantly cheaper than a rebuild there...

In PX111, our interview guest is Jesse Suskin, Head of Government Relations & Public Policy at Wing Aviation (https://wing.com). We talk all things drone delivery particularly the experience learnt in Logan Queensland, Australia where there has been extensive delivery operations over a lengthy time period. Wing Aviation is an offshoot of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. Jesse Suskin is the head of government relations and public policy in Australia for Wing, a company that sees...

In PX110, our interview guest is Professor Tim Parkin, we talk all things Roman, particularly their city life. Tim Parkin joined the Classics and Archaeology department at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Before this he had spent over 11 years as Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester (UK). Tim is a New Zealander by birth who was awarded a D.Phil. at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and who, since 1989, has...

In PX109, our interview guest is Professor Douglas (Doug) Tallamy, the author of many nature books and co - founder along with Michelle Alfandari of Homegrown National Park (https://homegrownnationalpark.org). Homegrown National Parks is a grassroots call - to - action to regenerate biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and creating new ecological networks. The group encourages homeowners and landowners to substitute native species for traditional garden approaches to...

In PX108, our interview guest is Dr Stefan Gruenert, the CEO of Odyssey House Victoria. Odyssey House Victoria is a state-wide, specialist treatment organisation dedicated to improving the lives of individuals who experience significant or long-term problems from alcohol and other drug use. Stefan describes the work of Odyssey House and the clients they serve. He talks of the various programs on offer. He describes how the OH facilities work and about the knowledge gained in providing...

In PX107, our interview guest is Kate Hardwick an exceptional planning professional originally from Australia who now works in South East Asia. Kate takes the listener on a fascinating journey describing her professional career. Along the way she offers tips to those starting out and also to those seeking a new direction after a number of years in the job. She talks of recognising and responding to cultural variations and social norms in many different countries. Also in gaining humility...

In PX106, our interview guest is James Vincent who is the CTO at NCS NEXT Australia, a global digital, data and cloud services consultancy (https://www.ncs.co/en-au/next/). James is a senior people leader with 25 years’ commercial IT experience and an established authority in large-scale strategic transformation in enterprise environments and delivering business outcomes through technology. In this episode James shares four smart city technology solutions government could adopt to improve...

In PX105, our interview guest is Torie Brown, Executive Director of the Student Accommodation Council. The Council was formed in 2022 by the Property Council to give a voice to the critically important purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector which provides homes for over 76,500 students per year, a figure that continues to grow.  https://www.propertycouncil.com.au/advocacy/our-divisions/student-accommodation-council Providing vibrant and connected housing options for students...

In PX104, our interview guest is Vanessa Schernickau, the Chief Executive Officer of the Geelong Regional Library Corporation (GRLC). The GRLC provides library and information services to residents and visitors across the Geelong region on behalf of five local government councils. The network consists of a central library, 18 community libraries, three mobile libraries and a website. It provides free, universal access to lifelong learning, reading and discovery.  The Geelong Library began...

In PX103, our interview subject is Tim Jackson, a +40 year veteran of local government in Victoria and South Australia. Tim recently retired for a second time from the paid workforce after completing his four year role as the State Government appointed Administrator at the District of Council of Coober Pedy in South Australia in February. This was the first time an Administrator had been appointed to a South Australian Council in almost forty years. 

Prior to his first retirement, Tim was...

In this episode, PlanningxChange delves into the history of heritage conservation in Australia. James Lesh is an urban historian specialising in heritage conservation. He is interested in the potential for history and heritage to enhance cities, places and society. His latest book is Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth-Century Australia (Routledge, 2022). It synthesises the history of the Australian heritage movement and advocates for innovative modes of heritage practice. James is...

In PX101 our guests are Natalia Weglarz and Peter Johns. Natalia is a planner at the Canberra office of WSP (www.wsp.com). She has been in Canberra for eight years, prior to that she was in Sydney and the UK. Peter Johns has lived in Canberra since the mid 1960's and has worked as a planner in Canberra over several decades. They describe the history of Canberra, the orginal grand plan for the city developed in 1911, how it has evolved and its role as Australia's most planned city. Should...

To celebrate our 100th episode of the PlanningxChange podcast series we re-interview four of our previous guests. We ask them about their experiences with the podcast and what has happened in their professional sphere since their earlier interview. To begin with, Jess has a brief introduction where she explains the origins of PX and the subsequent journey over the past eight years. Our first guest is Chris Abery, one of Australia's leading retail planning analysts. Chris is at the...

In PlanningxChange episode 99 our guest is Alex Fenech, a landscape architect based in Florida. At the time we recorded the interview Alex was a Vice President at EDSA (https://www.edsaplan.com) one of America’s leading landscape and urban design firms. Alex is the past President of ALSA Florida (American Society of Landscape architects) - https://www.aslaflorida.org/AboutFL In a wide ranging interview Alex talks of the many parts of a landscape architect’s role. These include not just...

In PlanningxChange episode 98 our guest is Tim Ellis one of the world’s leading magicians. Details about Tim are found at https://www.timellismagic.com and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Ellis_(magician) What do magic and city planning have in common? The connection to this episode is Tim organising the Melbourne Magic Festival - MMF (https://melbournemagicfestival.com). This is the largest magic festival in the Southern Hemisphere. It typically occurs late June/early July each year....

In PlanningxChange episode 97 our guest is David Beaumont one of Australia's leading landscape and portrait painters. David is based in the historic seaside town of Queenscliff. From there he embarks on various solitary sojourns to the outback to immerse himself in the breadth and depth of the Australian landscape. He is also a frequent observer of the gritty parts of Melbourne where he absorbs the human condition in its rawest expression. We are fortunate to have him on the podcast to talk...

In PlanningxChange episode 96 our guest is Simon Kuestenmacher one of Australia’s leading demographers. Simon is a Director and Co-founder of The Demographics Group based in Melbourne, Australia. Simon holds degrees in geography from leading universities in Berlin and Melbourne and worked for several years as a business consultant with KPMG Australia. In 2017 Simon, with Bernard Salt, co-founded The Demographics Group. The group provides specialist advice on demographic, consumer and...

In PlanningxChange episode 95 our guest is Lucinda Hartley. Her bio reads as follows: ‘Urban designer turned entrepreneur, Lucinda Hartley uses big data to measure the quality of life and wellbeing of neighbourhoods. She is a co-founder of Neighbourlytics, a social analytics platform which has created data for more than 500 neighbourhoods in over 10 countries and is influencing some of world’s most significant urban development decisions. Lucinda was recently named as one of 100 Women of...

In PlanningxChange episode 94 our guest is Laura Gannon an Associate Director at Meridan Urban with almost 20 years of experience in strategic land use planning, bushfire risk and community resilience across both the public and private sectors. Laura specialises in management consulting approaches to the integration of natural hazard risk management into land use planning policy and strategy, with a particular emphasis on bushfire risk and resilience, floodplain risk management and climate...

In PlanningxChange 93 the tables are turned and we are interviewed. PX was a guest at the Ratio Consultant's breakfast speaker series. Colleen Peterson (PX23), the CEO of Ratio presented and asked questions. The interview reveals the formation of PX, the mechanics of how we put interviews together, what we have learnt and how we work together. A bit self indulgent but there you go. We hope you enjoy this. The interview was recorded on the 7th April 2022. Interview produced by Jack Bavage....

In PlanningxChange episode 92 we interview Phil Priest, Group Manager City Development at the Moreland City Council. The following is an extract from the VPELA Journal Revue of October 2021 describing Phil’s career and his recent awarding of the Paul Jerome Award for contributions to the public sector. “When planners think of Moreland Council, they think of Phil Priest. Phil has been a mainstay in planning in the inner city for decades, providing exemplarily service to the public sector and...