Gold Coast Futures Research Team
For over ten years the City of Gold Coast has supported and worked in partnership with urban researchers at Griffith University on a range of research projects exploring planning and growth management in the city. As the sixth largest city in Australia and one of its fastest growing, the Gold Coast epitomises both the challenges and the opportunities of urban growth – preserving the environment and lifestyle that makes the city attractive, while helping to create the jobs and provide the infrastructure to employ and support a growing population.
Our collaborative research with the city has focused on long term strategic visioning through its Bold Future program, on increasing connectivity through an assessment of ‘green bridges’, on the impacts of infrastructure investment on place making though a regular survey of active travel within the Light Rail corridor and on the education and professional development of planners.
New Research Agenda
The City of Gold Coast has recently renewed its commitment to support and work with the Cities Research Institute and we are currently developing a detailed program of collaborative research. This will focus on a number of core areas including:
- Population forecasting, land use and infrastructure planning for the city and the wider South East Queensland metropolitan region;
- Building high quality places within the city to accommodate a growing population, including small lot and ‘tiny’ houses;
- Developing new approaches to engage with the public when planning for a growing city;
- Building a water sensitive city;
- Incorporating new technologies and analytical techniques in delivering urban services.
We are also closely involved, with colleagues from Griffith’s Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, in evaluating the legacy impacts of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Our HDR Students
- Ian McNicol
- Kava Piran
PhD Opportunities
Working in collaboration with Professor Joerg Baumeister, we are in the process of recruiting three new PhD candidates to develop an integrated program of research about Sea Cities. While this program draws on international experience and seeks to build international research collaborations, much of our work will focus on the city of Gold Coast as a living laboratory in which new opportunities for living more harmoniously and productively with the sea can be explored in practice.
If you would like to explore the possibility of conducting PhD research in this field, contact one of the researchers listed above for an initial discussion.