Hairspray the Musical: Cultural politics of the 60s, now, and race
What interests me in this post is the cultural politics of Hairspray. One of its marketing themes is 60s nostalgia. That nostalgia is by necessity a collective re-imagining of what the 60s ‘meant’, whether or not we were around to form our own judgements.
Quick link: The High Cost of Free Parking
American economist Donald Shoup has figured out just how large the societal costs of crazy parking policies – both on-street and off-street – are.
National Urban Policy
It’s got a picture of somebody riding a bicycle in it; it must be a policy document on urban planning. In this case, it’s a discussion paper from the Department of Infrastructure on a “National Urban Policy“. It’s called a [...]
“Great” cities and European irrelevance
From a political perspective, the great success of the monarchists in the republic referendum of the nineties was transforming the issue into one of giving the “politicians” a good kicking. Canny campaigning, but it was made possible by the lousy [...]
Roundtable: post-election politics and what the broad left and progressive movements can do about it.
I have for some time meant to create an open thread for discussion about how the broad left and progressive movements can most effectively intervene in Australian political life after the election. However people’s thinking on that question would obviously [...]
Reality check: Is Sydney actually “full”?
Ever since the Penrith by-election, we’ve been hearing endlessly about Western Sydney as the epicentre of the Australian political nation. The population “debate” proclaims that we need to “pause” as outer suburban areas groan under population pressure and failing infrastructure. [...]
Travellers' tip – how to read a Brisbane Busway information board
The holiday season is almost upon us, and many readers’ holiday plans may well include a visit to my adopted home town of Brisbane. My own plans entail a visit to my original home town of Melbourne, but I digress. [...]
Planning straw men
As a VFL/AFL footballer, he “boasted neither elegance nor athleticism, but Justin Madden was one of the most supremely effective ruckmen of recent times”. As a minister in the Bracks and Brumby Labor governments, he’s arguably made one of the [...]
Blogging otherwise…
I might have mentioned in passing here, and I know I’ve said on Facebook, that I’ve become interested lately in exploring some themes which don’t really seem to fit into the LP space, and also in a more personal form [...]
BrisCulture: Creative Brisbane
A lot of my academic and consultancy work at the moment is focused on online urbanism, distributed knowledge and urban creativity. I’m loath to use the term ‘action research’ loosely, but this form of public sociology is really impossible to [...]
Bridging the gap: What does it mean to be a Queenslander? II
At Pineapple Party Time, I’ve written a sequel to my earlier post on the political difficulties both the LNP and ALP are having in constructing a campaign which can appeal across the “new” and “old” Queensland – a trick Peter [...]
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