School of Geography - Theses
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ItemUrban road traffic noise and health( 2000)Some people say they are annoyed by traffic noise. There is rather a lot of evidence to show that where traffic noise is louder, more people say they are annoyed by it. On the basis of this sort of evidence, there is a consensus that road traffic noise causes annoyance. Traffic noise is also suspected of being dangerous to health: of making people ill; so ill they reach for painkillers or even visit a doctor to get medicine prescribed. The fundamental aim of this thesis is to find out whether this is happening in Melbourne. The available evidence contains anomalies: people seem to be healthy where noise is loudest. Even annoyance studies sometimes detect unexplained peaks of annoyance in quieter places; or a plateau of annoyance in high noise. However, the anomalies display a certain consistency. Traffic noise is orthodoxly measured by loudness. Several studies have found a peak of annoyance at around 60 decibels. The consistency of the anomalies suggests that some other physical characteristic of noise may be responsible for the anomalous responses. This thesis sets out to explore the urban soundscape in an attempt to find such a characteristic, and discovers the pattern of alternation of passby noise and background sound: passby patterns. The orthodox loudness measure is essentially a proxy for the daily average sound energy delivered to the ear by traffic. To define patterns requires taking this measure apart - splitting traffic noise into two sounds: the sound of passbys and the background sound. The definition builds up through the use of point source theory, observations in urban and rural environments, experiments with a typical sedan in isolated locations, and experimentation with techniques for the measurement of background sound generated by roads. The tools applied are ears, stopwatch and sound meter. The result is a set of techniques aimed to measure patterns of passby noise in urban environments. Application of these techniques at 102 randomly selected sites spread over 150km2 of urban environments detects passby patterns in Melbourne. By way of an example, the final stage of this investigation embeds pattern measurements within a small, orthodox study of the annoyance and health responses to traffic noise measured by decibels. The results are consistent with regular or rapidly alternating passby patterns being closely associated with annoyance and ill health. In particular, in relation to people who are sensitive to noise, it should no longer be assumed that peak distress at approximately 60dB(A) is anomalous. It may well be due to high levels of patterning of passby noise. The result requires confirmation, to be sure, but the evidence is sufficiently strong to suggest that traffic noise and patterns of passby noise, or something closely associated with them, are probably associated with health problems in Melbourne.
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ItemSecond nature? : the socio-spatial production of disability( 1993)Social inequalities associated with disability are a disturbing feature of contemporary Western societies. The pervasiveness of this structural oppression means that millions of lives are overshadowed by disablement. This study sets out to situate this fact theoretically, historically, and geographically. Broadly speaking, disability is the socially imposed state of exclusion which physically impaired individuals may be forced to endure. Such a view contrasts with popular, or common sense, understandings which see the experience of disablement as `second nature' to impaired people. An important claim of the thesis is that disability is a socio-spatial oppression which social theory must no longer ignore. Further, historical materialism provides the explanatory foundations for a social theory of disability. It is asserted from the outset that the form of historical materialism needed to achieve this task is one which takes the human body and space to be central theoretical considerations. Accordingly, the study uses a spatially-focused historical materialism to analyse the question of disability, and does this through carefully designed empirical case studies of the everyday experience of disablement in different times and places. The study asks the question: How have changes in the socio-spatial organisation of society affected the lived experience of physical impairment? A response is made in the form of a comparative analysis of the lived experience of impairment in feudal England and colonial (nineteenth-century) Melbourne. Five important data sets exist which relate to the experience of impairment in both societies, and these are consulted in the course of the study. The most substantial empirical resource is the set of case records (1850-1900) of the Melbourne Ladies' Benevolent Society, an important philanthropic organisation which operated in colonial Melbourne. The research demonstrates that socio-spatial changes affect the lived experience of impairment by transforming the material structures of everyday life. It is argued that past transformations in the mode of production have had profound social consequences for physically impaired people. In particular, the analysis shows that the socio-spatial organisation of industrial capitalism was an oppressive source of disablement for physically impaired people. The study concludes that a transformation in the present mode of production (capitalism) is a necessary first step towards ending the oppression of disability.
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ItemPlanning in Melbourne 1950-1985: the formation of professional ideologies( 1993)This is a study of Melbourne planners and their professional ideologies. The vehicle for this research is metropolitan strategy planning in Melbourne ranging from 1950 to 1985, performed by a public sector organisation called the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW). The subjects are a group of thirty planners who authored the strategic plans and documents produced during this time period. By linking theoretical and archival material with empirical data this research aims to develop an understanding of what constitutes professional ideologies in planning. Moreover, it examines the interplay between elements of professional ideologies and features of the context of planning, such as the political-economy, political and socio-cultural agendas, and the bureaucratic organisation. This is the first study of its kind in Australia, and it is hoped that it will make a useful contribution to developing a better and more 'grounded' understanding of planners' ideologies, and the relevance and practical usefulness of the various elements which comprise them in the day-to-day world of metropolitan strategy planning. This research has been conducted in an exploratory mode, that is, to understand and account for all the possible influences on professional ideology formation. At the theoretical level, the implications of adopting such an approach are such that both the major sociological traditions which have taken an interest in the professions (Weberian and Marxist), are reviewed. In the first section of this thesis, neo-Weberian perspectives on the professions are evaluated for their possible contribution to understanding the processes through which professional ideologies in planning have been formed and re-formed during the period under study. The central interest of neo-Weberian scholars with respect to the study of the professions, is professionalisation. This denotes the process by which an occupation or an activity establishes, or attempts to establish itself as a profession. The role, methods, and strategies of the Royal Australian Planning Institute in developing and promoting its particular construction of a professional ideology in planning is investigated through the analysis of archival and documentary material. This is followed by a review of neo-Marxist perspectives on the professions, again with the aim of establishing what further contributions they make to our understanding of ideologies in planning. Relationships which are investigated include those between planning and the state, between planning's professional ideologies and the 'dominant' ideology, and between planning and the processes of class formation. One of the most salient propositions of this perspective - that 'functional' relationships exist between planners' ideologies and 'the role of planning', ensconced as it is within the capitalist state - is rendered into an empirical investigation. Explored are possible relationships between planners' ideologies, the strategic plans and policies they developed, and the political and economic context of planning in Melbourne during the period 1950 - 1985. It is argued that although both neo-Weberian and neo-Marxist perspectives have important contributions to make to a study such as this, there is a need to extend the concepts, relationships, and questions they embody at a 'middle level' of theorising. At such a level, it is possible to integrate our understanding of the dominant economic, social, and political processes, with what is known about the individual's (i.e. planner's) experience of these. Planners' ideologies comprise elements such as: planning knowledge, educational socialisation, planners' professional associations, professional values and beliefs, and ethics. Much of the empirical work is directed at examining the role of these elements in the construction of the individual planner's 'world view' about their own planning and about planning in general. An extensive interview and questionnaire process was carried out amongst a group of planners who had worked with the MMBW at various stages during the period 1950 - 1985, and at various levels of the organisational hierarchy. However, importance is also placed on understanding how individual planner's professional ideologies intermesh with or are integrated into other ideological practices and positions. Such relationships can be understood through examining the interplay between the constitutive elements of professional ideologies and the context features of planning. This research describes the political, economic, socio-cultural and organisational circumstances of metropolitan strategy planning in Melbourne 1950-1985. It also describes their role in creating the dissonance which was observed between certain elements of planners' ideologies and the representation of these in their work.