The Statutory fix : foreign property capital, the state and local planning practice in Victoria

Thesis (MUP) -- University of Melbourne, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, 198

Reflections on current developments in contemporary urban geography

The UGRG post-graduate conference held at the University of Reading on 30 November 2002 provided a forum for PhD students from various UK universities to come together to discuss not only their own research but to reflect on current developments in contemporary urban geography in the UK and elsewhere. The format of the day-long meeting was divided into a morning devoted to group discussions of three recent publications (Amin and Thrift 2002; Dear and Flusty 2002; Ethington and Meeker 2002), and an afternoon session wherein each post-graduate presented a poster reflecting how their own research incorporates elements of ‘the urban’. The objective of the day was to engage critically with the readings and to stimulate discussion surrounding current thinking in ‘urban geography’ and the role we as new researchers might play in shaping the sub-discipline. Following this event, a smaller group of students participated in a lively (often heated) internet-based discussion. The collective commentary which follows is the result of this on-line forum and it aims to summarize some of the points raised at the Reading event, and also to review the issues with which the participants of the smaller group were grappling. In general, these focused on the ways in which ‘the urban’ is currently being theorized within geography