UQ-HAUS:
The University of Queensland Housing and Urban Studies Network (otherwise known as UQ HAUS) brings together over 60 researchers from around UQ to better understand the key issues in contemporary urban and housing policy, practice and research.
Established in 2013, the network is uniquely interdisciplinary, incorporating expertise from the disciplines of architecture, criminology, economics, geography, media studies, planning, sociology and social work. Our work is theoretically informed and pays attention to questions of mobility, inequality, power, governance and change as they relate to urban and housing matters. But our research is also of significant community and policy interest and our researchers are critically engaged in public debates.
Our mission is threefold:
- To foster research excellence among UQ’s housing and urban studies scholars by enhancing collaboration across disciplines; creating an intellectually stimulating environment to foster new ideas; and building the capacity of RHD students and early career researchers.
- To promote UQ’s expertise in urban and housing research in local national and international arenas.
- To provide a vehicle for external engagement and knowledge transfer by fostering stronger linkages with governments, business and communities in order to address global and local housing and urban challenges.
Our research strengths
6. The Cultural Economy of the City
Bands, actors, filmmakers, artists are part of a collective that contributes to the economy of cities. Cities have also always played a privileged role as centers of cultural and economic activity. From their earliest origins, they have exhibited a capacity both to generate culture in the form of art, ideas, styles and attitudes, and to induce high levels of economic innovation and growth. With the rise of theories like the “creative class”, urban researchers are increasingly asking what makes cities attractive to certain socio-professional categories of the population. Another important theme is about where creativity takes place in the city. Are there urban forms or environments that are more conducive to economic innovation or creativity than others? Studies about the cultural economy of the city encompass objects of research such as the music industry, the video game industry or the film industry. In a competitive context, cities try to differentiate, and to create a brand for, themselves based on the types of economic activities they are hosting: economic activities from the cultural economy (film, theatre, entertainment) have a positive connotation in the context of the post-industrial city. The research areas of place-making, urban branding or place-identity are increasingly linked to the cultural economy of the city in a globalized context.
Our research specialist in this field include:
- Dr Sébastien Darchen
- Dr Kelly Greenop
- Hon. Assoc. Prof. Glen Searle
- Dr Naomi Stead
Contact Us
Lynda Cheshire (l.cheshire@uq.edu.au)
Laurel Johnson (l.johnson3@uq.edu.au)
Cameron Parsell (c.parsell@uq.edu.au)
Peter Walters (p.walters@uq.edu.au)
Anthony Kimpton (a.kimpton@uq.edu.au)