Urban Broadcast Collective

In this episode Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Mark Marsden. Mark has had a long and successful career across many sectors of the planning world a particularly unique part is his long association (now publisher)of the Victorian Planning Reports (VPRS). The VPR's and its predecessing versions (AATR's and PABR's) highlighted and summarised decisions of Victorian Planning Tribunal's (and now expanded to Planning Panels Victoria). In this way the VPR's spread best thinking on planning and design issues and provided for greater productivity and better informed decisions and outcomes. We talk to Mark about how the VPR's can cover such a vast number of decisions (there is an editorial committee)and how some decisions are choosen over others to highlight. Also, the role of publishing editorial comments about Tribunal decisions. A very necessary public benefit as Tribunals or like bodies can at times make unreasonable decisions, it takes courage to point this out. A spin off of the VPR service is an A - Z guide to land use issues and the precedents that have been set. We also talk about how interstate learning can improve. Apart from VPR subject matter, Mark outlines his views on the services provided by local government and how it is misunderstood. He also talks of his time as a Senior Panel Member of Planning Panels Victoria and provides guidance on what makes for an effective presentation. We declare that the VPR's has been a sponsor of PX for a number of years. Podcast produced by Complete Podcasting Services. Episode released 30 March 2020. We wish all our listeners the very best in these difficult times caused by Covid - 19.

Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell engage in a free flowing discussion with Peter Seamer and Cameron Alderson. Peter Seamer is in a unique position to write about the future of our cities and has produced one of Australia's most critical analysis of city form in ‘Breaking Point: The Future of Australian Cities’. He was the CEO of the Victorian Planning Authority for ten years, the CEO of Federation Square during its building phase and first few years, and has been the CEO of several cities, including Sydney. He has just started a new forum promoting new thoughts about city development (www.howtobuildacity.com). Cameron Alderson is an insightful, forward thinking property developer (Director at Canopi Homes). He has a long history of promoting innovative housing projects and involvement with VPELA. He has previously featured in PX6 on the PlanningxChange podcast series. Podcast produced by Complete Podcasting Services. Episode released 12 March 2020. PlanningxChange is a proud contributor to the Urban Broadcast Collective.

Rob Adams, Director City Design and Projects, City of Melbourne Professor Rob Adams AM is the Director City Design and Projects at the City of Melbourne and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization. With over 46 years' experience as an architect and urban designer and 35 years at City of Melbourne, Rob has made a significant contribution to the rejuvenation of central Melbourne. He and his team have been the recipients of over 150 local, national and international awards including receipt of the Australian Award for Urban Design and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Award 2014 for its adaptation and resilience projects, on four occasions. Adams has also been awarded the Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year Award in 2008 and the Order of Australia in 2007 for his contribution to architecture and urban design. In 2016, Adams was conferred with a Doctor of Architecture from the University of Melbourne. Some key projects he has worked on include: Postcode 3000, Council House 2 (CH2) – Australia's first 6-star green commercial office building, Birrarung Marr, Swanston Street, Melbourne City Square, Return to Royal Park, the Open Space and Urban Forest Strategies and numerous community buildings including Docklands, Boyd, East Melbourne and Kathleen Syme Libraries. His team is currently involved in two major city-shaping projects, the Queen Victoria Market Renewal and the Melbourne Metro Rail Project. Adam's recent focus has been on how cities could be used to accommodate and mitigate rapid population growth and the onset of climate change. He has published and presented extensively on the subject of 'Transforming Cities for a Sustainable Future’. PlanningxChange is a contributor to the Urban Broadcast Collective. For further information including previously published podcasts please visit www.planningxchange.org. This podcast is offered as PX59. This podcast was released on 2 February 2020.

This episode of This Must Be The Place is part of the Digital Death Trip segment, where we investigate geographically themed ‘tragedies’ selected at random by the custom-coded ‘Digital Death Trip’ bot. The code uses the API to the National Library of Australia’s Trove archive to randomly select a Victorian town, then a random so-called Tragedy from it. It compiles a case file, then Liz follows up with some research about the incident, its place and time. Because Liz collected too much info, this digital death trip podcast is in 3 parts. This is the 3rd and final episode. Listen to 1 & 2 first! Digital Death Trip has picked two random and distant Victorian locations, and two random tragedies: The 1902 East Malvern Tragedy and 1906 Pyramid Hill Tragedy. Both are ‘triple tragedies’, so run in parallel. They also end up connected in ways that start to seem not quite random. On November 14th 1906, in a murder-suicide reported as The Pyramid Hill Tragedy, Constable Oliver John Lang killed himself and his two daughters (Olive and Doreen) at Pyramid Hill, an agricultural town in northern Victoria where Lang had been stationed for 5 years. Noting Constable Lang had repeatedly spoken about shooting himself and his family, an inquest found that “a heavy responsibility lies on those hear such words”, especially threats made by “anyone holding a public position such as that of a constable of police in whose hands are often the property liberty and perhaps the lives of others”. In 1902, in a murder-suicide reported as The East Malvern Tragedy, German merchant Arthur Mueller killed himself, his wife (Cecile) and one of his children (Willy) in a prestigious eastern suburb of Melbourne. Themes include police and law in settler-colonial contexts: the roles of police stationed in rural areas, and the fragile line of law. Also Land Law. Land Acts facilitated ‘closer settlement’ and ‘selections’, later ‘soldier settlement’, as tools of colonial expansion. Through land titles, Pyramid Hill was made into a late 19th century agricultural settlement, and police had a vital role in the system’s administration. Fathers and family law: fathers and grandfathers, and inheritances (good and bad) are key. We discuss custodial law in 19th and 20th century Australia, and the legal principal of “father’s right” through which fathers were always granted custody of their legitimate children. The stories share knowledge and lies: advanced lying skills central to traditional morality and legitimacy, unnoticed patterns, unknowing, and what you can or should do with knowledge. There are echoes through to a recent mystery in Pyramid Hill, the disappearance of heavily pregnant intellectually disabled woman Krystal Fraser in 2009. A final theme is cultural references to ‘ghost towns’ that seem isolated not only in space but in time. Wake in Fright, Twin Peaks, The Shining, 100 years of Solitude, Blazing Saddles. And country song Long Black Veil: “nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody knows but me”. Featuring a wintery visit to the Pyramid Hill op shop, cop shop, abattoir, and cemetery. This is the last instalment of 3. We return to hear a few updates Liz could not help researching further. It includes specially written Taylor Project song Ghost Upon the Hill: “on the hill there is a lookout, I can see that long dark train, even when you close your windows, it comes back again, there’s a ghost upon the hill”. Further post-script: Robert Mueller, youngest son, survived and moved to Germany. He married there in 1925. Also, re: the early ‘cinematograph’ the children went to at the Athenaeum. Most cinemas in early Australia were in inner city theatres. Each reel was about 3 minutes, usually a short documentary display: boxing, footy, horses. The show would have included magicians. Mueller's servants took the children to this new popular entertainment spectacle. And while they were out, Mueller made preparations to kill everyone.

Because Liz collected too much info, this digital death trip podcast (episode of This Must Be The Place) is in 3 parts. This is the 2nd episode of 3. Listen to episode 1 first! This episode of This Must Be The Place is part of the Digital Death Trip segment, where we investigate geographically themed ‘tragedies’ selected at random by the custom-coded ‘Digital Death Trip’ bot. The code uses the API to the National Library of Australia’s Trove archive to randomly select a Victorian town, then a random so-called Tragedy from it. It compiles a case file, then Liz follows up with some research about the incident, its place and time. Digital Death Trip has picked two random and distant Victorian locations, and two random tragedies: The 1902 East Malvern Tragedy and 1906 Pyramid Hill Tragedy. Both are ‘triple tragedies’, so run in parallel. They also end up connected in ways that start to seem not quite random. On November 14th 1906, in a murder-suicide reported as The Pyramid Hill Tragedy, Constable Oliver John Lang killed himself and his two daughters (Olive and Doreen) at Pyramid Hill, an agricultural town in northern Victoria where Lang had been stationed for 5 years. Noting Constable Lang had repeatedly spoken about shooting himself and his family, an inquest found that “a heavy responsibility lies on those hear such words”, especially threats made by “anyone holding a public position such as that of a constable of police in whose hands are often the property liberty and perhaps the lives of others”. In 1902, in a murder-suicide reported as The East Malvern Tragedy, German merchant Arthur Mueller killed himself, his wife (Cecile) and one of his children (Willy) in a prestigious eastern suburb of Melbourne. Themes include police and law in settler-colonial contexts: the roles of police stationed in rural areas, and the fragile line of law. Also Land Law. Land Acts facilitated ‘closer settlement’ and ‘selections’, later ‘soldier settlement’, as tools of colonial expansion. Through land titles, Pyramid Hill was made into a late 19th century agricultural settlement, and police had a vital role in the system’s administration. Fathers and family law: fathers and grandfathers, and inheritances (good and bad) are key. We discuss custodial law in 19th and 20th century Australia, and the legal principal of “father’s right” through which fathers were always granted custody of their legitimate children. Pre: Family Law Act custodial grievances, we hear Lang killed his family partly from a vendetta against his former father in law, Sergeant Frank Jordon (of East Malvern!). The stories share knowledge and lies: advanced lying skills central to traditional morality and legitimacy, unnoticed patterns, unknowing, and what you can or should do with knowledge. Rumours of “certain allegations” were one reason given to explain Lang’s violence, otherwise attributed (as with Mueller) to a fit of mania. Jordon, meanwhile, seemed to know what was coming but be powerless to stop it. There are echoes through to a recent mystery in Pyramid Hill, the disappearance of heavily pregnant intellectually disabled woman Krystal Fraser in 2009. Police suspect Krystal was killed by the father of her unborn child, and that people in Pyramid Hill know what happened but are not coming forward. A final theme is cultural references to ‘ghost towns’ that seem isolated not only in space but in time. Wake in Fright, Twin Peaks, The Shining, 100 years of Solitude, Blazing Saddles. And country song Long Black Veil: “nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody knows but me”. Featuring a wintery visit to the Pyramid Hill op shop, cop shop, abattoir, and cemetery. Factoids of early railways, cinemas, mobility scooters, migrants, TB, police filing systems. And a specially written Taylor Project song, closing with: “on the hill there is a lookout, I can see that long dark train…” This is the 2nd episode of 3, where we return to the 1900s to hear more about Lang, Mueller, and their contexts.

This episode of This Must Be The Place is part of the Digital Death Trip segment, where we investigate geographically themed ‘tragedies’ selected at random by the custom-coded ‘Digital Death Trip’ bot. The code uses the API to the National Library of Australia’s Trove archive to randomly select a Victorian town, then a random so-called Tragedy from it. It compiles a case file, then Liz follows up with some research about the incident, its place and time. In this instalment, Digital Death Trip has picked two random and distant Victorian locations, and two random tragedies: The 1902 East Malvern Tragedy and 1906 Pyramid Hill Tragedy. Both are ‘triple tragedies’, so run in parallel. They also end up connected in ways that start to seem not quite random. On November 14th 1906, in a murder-suicide reported as The Pyramid Hill Tragedy, Constable Oliver John Lang killed himself and his two daughters (Olive and Doreen) at Pyramid Hill, an agricultural town in northern Victoria where Lang had been stationed for 5 years. Noting Constable Lang had repeatedly spoken about shooting himself and his family, an inquest found that “a heavy responsibility lies on those hear such words”, especially threats made by “anyone holding a public position such as that of a constable of police in whose hands are often the property liberty and perhaps the lives of others”. In 1902, in a murder-suicide reported as The East Malvern Tragedy, German merchant Arthur Mueller killed himself, his wife (Cecile) and one of his children (Willy) in a prestigious eastern suburb of Melbourne. Themes include police and law in settler-colonial contexts: the roles of police stationed in rural areas, and the fragile line of law. Also Land Law. Land Acts facilitated ‘closer settlement’ and ‘selections’, later ‘soldier settlement’, as tools of colonial expansion. Through land titles, Pyramid Hill was made into a late 19th century agricultural settlement, and police had a vital role in the system’s administration. Fathers and family law: fathers and grandfathers, and inheritances (good and bad) are key. We discuss custodial law in 19th and 20th century Australia, and the legal principal of “father’s right” through which fathers were always granted custody of their legitimate children. Pre: Family Law Act custodial grievances, we hear Lang killed his family partly from a vendetta against his former father in law, Sergeant Frank Jordon (of East Malvern!). The stories share knowledge and lies: advanced lying skills central to traditional morality and legitimacy, unnoticed patterns, unknowing, and what you can or should do with knowledge. Rumours of “certain allegations” were one reason given to explain Lang’s violence, otherwise attributed (as with Mueller) to a fit of mania. Jordon, meanwhile, seemed to know what was coming but be powerless to stop it. There are echoes through to a recent mystery in Pyramid Hill, the disappearance of heavily pregnant intellectually disabled woman Krystal Fraser in 2009. Police suspect Krystal was killed by the father of her unborn child, and that people in Pyramid Hill know what happened but are not coming forward. A final theme is cultural references to ‘ghost towns’ that seem isolated not only in space but in time. Wake in Fright, Twin Peaks, The Shining, 100 years of Solitude, Blazing Saddles. And country song Long Black Veil: “nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody knows but me”. Featuring a wintery visit to the Pyramid Hill op shop, cop shop, abattoir, and cemetery. Factoids of early railways, cinemas, mobility scooters, migrants, TB, police filing systems. And a specially written Taylor Project song, closing with: “on the hill there is a lookout, I can see that long dark train, even when you close your windows, it comes back again, there’s a ghost upon the hill”. Because Liz collected too much information, this digital death trip podcast – Pyramid Hill and East Malvern - is in 3 parts. This is the 1st episode of 3.

Recent graduates, Heather Sherlock and Diego Espinosa of the 'Planners under the Influence' podcast cross interview Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell of the PlanningxChange podcast. Youth and hope meet 'manufacture hardened' professionals. A lively discussion with many different perspectives on what makes for good cities, the state of university training, the role of developers, influencers and shared podcasting experiences. Sweet bird of youth meets somewhat wiser owls. For more details: www.planningxchange.org. There was a problem with the audio on the original release, error corrected 8 January 2020. Apologies for the gaps in the audio.

In PX57, the interview subject is Val Gnanakone, a Director at Old Mile Grid traffic engineers. Val talks about the changing role and focus of the traffic engineering profession in city development. Traditionally viewed as car and truck focused, Val talks of the widening scope of activities. These including making better city spaces by improving mobility options. In the interview we pose the question, should traffic engineers have a different job decription? The interview discusses a wide range of mobilitiy questions relating to residential, commercial and freight uses. There are no simple answers to the issues raised. Val also considers technological changes and what these will do to city spaces. A thoroughly optimistic interview subject. The interview was released on the 22 November 2019. Podcast produced by Zak Willsallen of Complete Podcasting Services. For more details go to www.planningxchange.org.

The "Living in the Music City: If you've got a spare half a million" event was held at the Toff in Town in Melbourne as part of the 2019 Festival of Urbanism. It was co-sponsored by Monash Urban Planning and Design, along with the Henry Halloran Trust, and the University of Sydney, and by the City of Melbourne as part of their Music Plan 2018-2021. The Festival aims to raise the debate about urban health, and other key topics. “Living in the Music City” combined a panel discussion of policy and research issues around live music in cities, followed by a performance of songs. Both sections examined the past and future of Melbourne’s live music venues in the context of the city’s housing pressures. The name for the Music City event comes from a research project several Monash University academics are involved in, “Interrogating the music city: cultural economy & popular music in Melbourne”. The subtitle – “If you’ve got a spare half a million” - is a reference to the Courtney Barnett 2016 song ‘Depreston’. This episode is the recording of the second half - the musician part. The musicians are: Frank Jones (https://www.frankjones.com.au) Sarah Taylor (of Taylor Project www.taylorproject.com.au) Brett Lee / Pirritu (@pirritumusic, Instagram: @pirritumusic, YouTube: https://youtu.be/7w7kXZV1Pgg) Liz Taylor (senior lecturer in urban planning and design at Monash University, also playing violin on some songs here). Songs: My Brown Yarra (by Frank Jones, performed with others) Ngurrampaa (by/performed by Brett Lee / Pirritu) Buddy could you spare a dime (Sarah Taylor, cover of Yip Harburg song) Greenacres Lane (by/performed by Frank Jones) Secret Shape (by/performed by Brett Lee / Pirritu) Slow Tram Comin' (by/performed by Sarah Taylor) For Barry Dickins (by/performed by Frank Jones) Time I Spoke (by/performed by Brett Lee / Pirritu) Detroit (by/performed by Sarah Taylor) Pine Cone (by/performed by Brett Lee / Pirritu) Suburban Rendezvous (by/performed by Frank Jones) DePreston (by Courtney Barnett, performed by all).

“Living in the Music City: If You’ve got a Spare Half A Million” was held at Melbourne’s Toff in Town on September 2nd as part of the 2019 Festival of Urbanism. The idea of the event is to look at how live music and the night-time economy are shaped by the cost and availability of housing. The first half of the title, the Music City, derives from a three-year research project “Interrogating the music city: cultural economy & popular music in Melbourne”. The second half of the title – “If you’ve got a spare half a million” - is a reference to the Courtney Barnett 2016 song ‘Depreston’. The song’s lyrics refer not only to the spatial dynamics of the cost of housing in Melbourne, but to migration and change in the city generally. (Note: this episode of This Must Be The Place was put together before the Festival of Urbanism event in September 2019). The event will look at housing and music through a combination of academic panel discussion, and live song performances. It includes both panel discussion and music partly because it’s more fun, and partly because it’s always strange to talk about music without including music, as in a 1979 quote best attributable to comedian Martin Mull, that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” (but – why not?), or an older quote, from a 1918 New Republic article, that “writing about music is as illogical as singing about economics”. There might be a bit of the latter, “singing about economics”, because both now and in 1918, singing about economics does happen, and you don’t have to look far for songs with words like “money”, “dollar” or “rent” in them. For this episode I’ve looked back over 2 years of This Must Be The Place podcasts to find some episodes where we’ve talked about aspects of live music and its relationships to place. The episode comprises 7 relevant clips from previous episodes – these are compiled here kind of as re-runs. Or a nicer wording might be that they’re ‘curated’ selections, a ‘best of’ or ‘hits out’ collection, of This Must Be The Place talking music and place. Including: • Interview with Seamus O’Hanlon, Author of “City Life – the new urban Australia” • Musicians, memoirs and maps: a bookish Curtin-side chat with Sarah Taylor and Sam Whiting • Revisiting “Melbourne on Foot” (1980 book): St Kilda walking tour with Prof Graham Davison (also Richmond walking tour) • Dogs in Space to Olives in Toolleen: Small bands, small farms with Charles (‘Chuck’ Meo) and Ceilidh • Visit to Clunes Booktown Festival: Incl. David’s Talk on “Dig: Australian Rock & Pop Music, 1960-85” • Lachlan from the Ocean Party on why hotel hell is actually pretty swell