Dr Beau Beza, Senior Lecturer Urban Planning, co-edited and co-wrote three chapters in the recently published book The Public City. The Public City is a tribute to one of the world’s great activist-scholars—the late Paul Mees whose urban ideal counted on a watchful, confident and well-informed citizenry to work collectively in a quest for fair and just cities. As such, The Public City is largely a critique of neo-liberalism and its arguably negative influence on urban prospects. As Mees explained it, neo-liberal urbanism was much more than a political aberration; it was a threat that imposed many costly failures in an age overshadowed by grave ecological challenges.
Eighteen of Australia’s and New Zealand’s leading scholars, including Professor Emeritus Jean Hillier and Professor Brendan Gleeson, have contributed to this collection. It includes one of the last works of the late Professor Sir Peter Hall and a chapter from one of Australia’s leading columnists, Kenneth Davidson. The collective works in this book extend beyond an analysis of urban patterns to provide new ideas for the improvement of civic and institutional purpose, for the positive future of the public city.
The Public City is available through Melbourne University Press (publisher) website.
