Cities of Opportunities

Connecting Culture and Innovation

Jason Pomeroy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000056020
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Culture refers to not only the arts but also other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. It similarly refers to the customs, institutions, and achievements of a social group, a people, or a nation. Innovation refers to the action or process of change, alteration, or revolution; a new method of idea creation or product that may bring about change. It is easy to assume that innovation may be juxtaposed to the preservation of culture and time-tested rituals. Yet as human settlements grew; and as streets and squares evolved through the diverse exchanges of people trading, celebrating, rallying and socially interacting, it should come as little surprise that cities and its places would become, and continue to be, centres of culture and innovation that can be inextricably linked. Culture and Innovation in cities can potentially take on different complexions if viewed through the lens of academics and practitioners drawn from different geographies, disciplines, or fields of expertise when addressing particular urban challenges. It is through this complexity of views that this book seeks to provide a broad perspective on culture and innovation in the context of global cities today; and a rich cornucopia of insights from thought leaders within their respective fields to shape the cities of tomorrow.

CHAPTER 1.0
SOCIETY

1.1
WHERE IS THE TRUST? FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE

By PROF. STEPHEN NAYLOR & PROF. SANDRA HARDING

Opposite image. Victoria Bridge at night, Townsville, 2016 © Megan MacKinnon

SYNOPSIS

In an era where the public has greater access to information than ever before, why is it that social capital in many communities is so divided and diminished? Traditionally, people have experienced and generated social capital through direct contact with families and social spaces, including neighbourhoods, communities, clubs and the workplace. Nowadays, many relationships and networks operate at a global level and in cyber-space — enabled through technology and screen-mediated interactions. While there are many benefits to contemporary technologies and innovations, including new forms of sociability, these same developments have also resulted in a loss of sociability; a loss of social capital, social cohesion and trust in institutions. Western democratic societies, including Australia, appear to have become open to the exploitation of change and uncertainty in communities, amplified by propagandists and the manipulation of both mainstream and social media; to sow social discord and create fear and uncertainty, including a loss of trust in scientific research originating from universities. It is the trust in knowledge and research that has guided many governments to look beyond political cycles and plan for inclusive, tolerant societies, receptive to population diversity creating unique social assets. It is in this context that the development of new forms of social spaces, including well-designed public buildings, prospectively hold the regeneration of social capital in pursuit of more economically successful and socially cohesive communities. Regional Australia, including the regional city of Townsville, is negotiating this shift.

1. SOCIAL SPACE AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

The relationship between social spaces and social capital has never been more contested or important to our understanding of how we live. ‘Few would deny understanding the world is, in the most general sense, a simultaneously historic and social project’ (Soja, 1996). The other way of looking at society is to adopt the transformative approach and look toward ‘what was’, ‘what is’ and ‘what might become’.

When considering social space we can describe what we see around us, the people we interact with, the institutions that guide and support us; utilities and infrastructure that provide services to sustain us and the various non-imperatives such as the arts, sports and recreation that may define who and what we are.

In other words, social space constitutes social relations between the sexes, age groups, families and communities, including the relations of production, i.e. the ‘division of labour in its organisation in the form of hierarchical social functions’ (Lefebvre, 1991). The way Lefebvre unfurls this tangled mess of the spatial dialectic is through a concept of spatial practice — ‘this is not a thing amongst other things, rather it subsumes things produced and encompasses their interrelationships in their coexistence and simultaneity’ (ibid). For other scholar’s such as Bourdieu (1984), Coleman (1988) and Putnam (2000), spatial practice has been partially expressed through the lens of social capital. For Bourdieu, social capital held a symbolic purpose, used to empower those in the ruling class through the creation of Habitus that ingrained conventions through learned understandings reinforced by marketing, education and culture (ibid). Coleman acknowledged Bourdieu, but with less focus on power for the elite and rather the interdependence that individuals could apply when using their social capital for themselves as well as others. According to Coleman (1988), the implicit sense of obligation, expectation and trustworthiness was central to social spaces when public good flourished.

Social capital can be enabled by the thoughtful development and use of social spaces. It acts as a lever, both to unify and to extract greater value from the social space even as social capital is co-created or diminished, creating or reinforcing social cohesion. This cohesion may have positive or negative social effects; the latter at the expense of the individual, those groups without power, those who do not form part of the dominant culture (gender, race, and religion, sexuality, elderly, poor, disabled, deviant or displaced) or potentially the natural environment. The context within which contemporary communities are designed, built and operate, particularly in light of the growth of virtual social spaces, can work against the development of social capital.

For Putnam (ibid), social capital is expressed through social cohesion where community is unified by common understandings, relationships, trust and reciprocity. He explored outcomes associated with the loss of social capital in his landmark contribution, Bowling Alone (Putnam, 2000). ‘Loss of sociability’ refers to the well-documented erosion of social cohesion and the sense of connection to community, and has been found in societies in the United States as well as Australia.

2. LOSS OF SOCIABILITY

In our view, the loss of sociability and our loss of civic health are playing out in new and damaging ways, particularly through the false promise of screen-mediated sociability. While technology provides many benefits, including new forms of ‘community’, it is hardly a new idea that social isolation is being amplified by this new form of sociability.

Furthermore, this loss of social capital, expressed as a loss of sociability and social cohesion, is having a devastating effect on trust in institutions, in expert knowledge and in our capacity to chart a better course. Online communities can disrupt the social fabric and it is important to understand how social capital is arranged in these virtual spaces. From the now-antiquated Second Life to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Messenger and the host of other platforms for personal online communication, people seek spaces of comfort and fulfilment, wherever they belong within their Habitus. Globalisation has led to greater competition, complexity in markets and has challenged the rules-based system across the world. Governments are increasingly being challenged to secure and deploy sufficient resources to meet national needs. Resource scarcity and significant growth in social costs, whether related to an ageing population, increasing health costs or a more demanding polity overall, have placed governments under increasing pressure. One reading is that resources are not available to support all those services that governments have traditionally supplied in the manner that they would like to supply them. For instance, greater access to new and effective prescription drugs, greater support for primary, secondary and tertiary education, as well as access to, and deployment of, new technologies that can include artificial intelligence.

Despite the global nature of this phenomenon, it is worthwhile examining the interaction between social spaces and social capital through the prism of the local and the familiar (Image 1 Image 2).

Image 1. Townsville Eats, 2019 © Megan MacKinnon

Image 2. Townsville Eats, 2019 © Megan MacKinnon

3. THE AUSTRALIAN CONTEXT

This particular exploration centres upon experiences largely based in an Australian context and recognises a shift that is emerging within society, as communities become destabilised by dramatic changes in their social relationships and social contracts. This in turn has the potential to create or limit social capital.

Townsville is the largest city in northern Australia (above the Sunshine Coast) with a population of around 187,000 (ABS, 2016) and has a rich history beyond its indigenous roots defined by the Wulgurukaba and Bindal nations (Image 3). The region has a population of around 230,000 with almost 8% of the population identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (ibid). This is almost twice the Queensland average. The British explorer Captain James Cook passed the current location of Townsville during his 1770 voyage, where he named Cape Cleveland and Magnetic Island. In the 1860s, Woodstock Station was established and in 1866 Sydney entrepreneur Robert Towns visited the campsite near Ross Creek, pledging funds to establish a new settlement which was subsequently named after him.

Image 3. Harbour City View, Townsville, 2018 © Megan MacKinnon

Townsville is located just over 1,300km north of the state capital of Brisbane and is home to a diverse population with many subcultures. The city resides in a ‘dry tropics’ environment, with agricultural roots in sugarcane, horticulture and cattle and is the gateway to the mining and resource industry in northern Australia. Townsville houses Australia’s largest military base with over 15,000 defence force personnel and dependants operating out of Lavarack Barracks and the Royal Australian Air Force Base. It is Queensland’s third-largest port, a railhead and freight distribution centre for supplying materials to northern Australia and a significant regional health hub centred on Townsville Hospital and Health Service (THHS) hosting one of the largest emergency departments in Queensland. THHS features a major teaching hospital working in conjunction with James Cook University (the second-oldest university in Queensland), in an impressive health and knowledge precinct that will be known as TropiQ.

Townsville’s tropical location makes it a centre for aquatic recreational activities with the city’s close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef a tourist drawcard. The region is susceptible to cyclones and natural disasters including localised seasonal occurrences such as the 2019 monsoon which caused flood inundation to over 3,000 Townsville homes. Increasingly, economic downturns, fluctuations in the mining industry and the effects of climate change have had a great impac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the organisations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Forewords
• Introduction
• 1.0 Society
• 2.0 Culture
• 3.0 Space
• 4.0 Environment
• 5.0 Technology
• 6.0 Economy
• Conclusion
• Photo credits
• Index