Tracing the history of Australian planning research and its influence on practice

Over the past five decades, the research landscape of Australian universities has undergone dramatic transformations, mirroring trends in Australia's built environments. Global rapid urbanization and environmental change have profoundly impacted Australia's cities. As urban populations have swelled, urban landscapes have been transformed in ways that were unimaginable just a couple of decades earlier. These changes have put new issues on the research agenda and heightened the importance of others. Barely on the planner's radar in the 1980s were issues such as climate change; water, food and energy security; waste management; biodiversity conservation; health; affordable housing and environmental justice; but these are important issues today (see Chapters 8, 16, 17, & 21, this volume).