Canberra was conceived and planned as a city not like any other for the first 75 years of its conception from the Griffin plan of 1912 with planning guidelines specifically modelled to maintain it as the city in the landscape. Since self-government in 1988, planning has been governed increasingly by the global orthodox canon of increasing urban densification, urban consolidation and high-rise buildings without regard for the significance of the context and setting of the city. Two outcomes are low priority of heritage considerations leading to loss of heritage precincts and downplaying of the historic landscape ethos leading to loss of landscape space and trees and blocking views of the surrounding hills that are quintessential to the setting and ambience of the city. This chapter critically examines how planning action and governance for Canberra need to refocus on the essential elements of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach as rapid change and transformation of the city occur.

Antwerp, Belgium, chose Microsoft Azure-based Be-Mobile technology to build its SlimNaarAntwerp platform, which is providing citizens with a mobility-as-a-service solution to identify an optimum trip, combining different means of transportation—car, train, shared bikes and on foot. The plan is to avoid 20,000 car movements to Antwerp’s city center during rush hours while improving satisfaction.

See how Houston has partnered with Microsoft's CDS IoT Scale team to identify IoT solutions that create a connected foundation for the city. By utilizing technology to build a cohesive connected infrastructure, they are one of the pioneering cities to connect citizens, data and a well-integrated fabric across the city to allow real-time learning and sharing.

Global conversations around financing urban development typically neglect the importance of coordinating the activities of different stakeholders behind a shared vision for their city. In particular, low-income and other marginalized groups must be seen as entrepreneurs and partners in service delivery to enhance the efficacy of resource use and to reduce poverty. This paper explores the creation of non-traditional business models and alliances to invest in informal settlements. It presents examples from India, Kenya, Pakistan, Thailand and Zimbabwe, where local authorities, commercial banks and other formal actors have co-financed and co-delivered urban plans, housing and infrastructure through collaborations with organized groups of the urban poor. These groups make three critical contributions: financial resources, detailed information on the composition of informal settlements, and capabilities for collective decision-making and action. These contributions are underpinned by the financial and social capital developed through collective saving, and enable the delivery of complex urban improvements at scale.

Local government have a pivotal role in city planning. However, meeting the conflicting priorities such as plan for urbanization, promote economic prosperity, ensure environmental sustainability besides creating safe, vibrant and liveable places, create major challenges for local administration. While rapid urbanization continue to displace people from their local places, the frequency of disaster events at the local scale and increasing disaster risks place unique challenges on people and their places. This emphasises the need for local government to understand the local places and invest in planning for cities that improve resilience and enhance human connectivity to their places. Meeting these multidimensional needs in local spaces require embedding local and scientific knowledge, past experiences and community expectation to plan and design cities that also deliver multiple social outcomes. Both place-based approach to city planning and creating disaster resilient cities have gathered momentum, however, they continue to occur in isolation. Maximizing these multiple social, environmental and economic outcomes, emphasize the need to align both resilience principles for sustainable urbanization and place based approach planning concepts to plan for places for people. Drawing from these principles and organizational change theory, a conceptual framework is proposed that provide a new lens for local government to plan for place based resilient cities. This place based approach for resilient cities framework incorporates the thinking for change as a dynamic process across the time scales and by understanding the relationship between people and their place. The model proposed is in an Australian context, yet has significant implication for communities at all levels when planning for places for people.