This ARC DECRA research project builds knowledge, understanding and practice in planning inclusive communities to improve liveability for people of all ages and disabilities including people with chronic illness and mental health needs. The overarching research question is How can we plan communities in regional areas to be more inclusive for all?
Such a project is needed as people with disabilities and chronic illness continue to experience exclusion by design in everyday spaces, infrastructure and services impacting quality of life and social – spatial justice. In Australia, 18% or 4.4 Million people identify as having a disability, and another 22% of Australians have long-term health conditions (ABS SDAC 2018).
While there is growing international and national demand for planning just communities facilitated through supranational agendas like UN HABITAT III and Sustainable Development Goals, a persistent challenge is that inclusion pertaining to disability has largely been overlooked as a priority area in urban and regional planning. Adding to this challenge, is the limited understanding of doing inclusive community planning at strategic and local levels from policy makers, implementer’s (local government planners and community development officers) and affected citizen’s (people with disabilities) perspectives. To progress inclusion in communities entails addressing multidimensional processes of exclusion experienced at varying levels.
This project seeks to address this challenge by generating a deeper understanding of the concept of planning inclusive communities as a scaled phenomenon and as a strategic approach. This will be achieved through participatory and transformative research approach across two phases:
- Phase 1 participatory research exploring inclusive communities in regional contexts (2020-2021 COVID-19 impacted).
- Phase 2 Transformative research aiming to generate inclusive community planning approach (2022-2023).
Both phases involve working with selected regional communities and multiple stakeholders. This includes people with disabilities, local governments, planning, community development and built environment professions, and other stakeholders.
You can find out more about the project at the Planning Inclusive Communities website.
Chief Investigator
Partners
Funding / Grants
- ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award (2019 – 2023)
