Libby Porter

Professor Libby Porter leads research on the politics of urban land, property rights and dispossession, critical urban governance, and decolonising urban planning.

Libby is a planner and urban geographer working on the role of planning and urban development in dispossession and displacement, and what we might do about it. Her research has examined Indigenous rights in urban and environmental planning; cities and diversity; gentrification and displacement through urban renewal; the impact of mega-events on cities; urban sustainability; and urban informality. Her current work is in the areas of public housing, displacement and critical property studies, urban governance, decolonisation and the urban condition of settler-colonial dynamics of power.

Libby has held academic appointments in the UK and Australia and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to her academic life, she worked in urban planning practice and policy-applied research in both local and State Government in Victoria, and was a member of the Expert Advisory Panel for Melbourne 2030. She has previously been Assistant Editor for Planning Theory and Practice leading the Interface section, and helped co-found Planners Network UK.

She has published a number of books in her areas of expertise including:
• Planning in Indigenous Australia: From imperial foundations to postcolonial futures 2018 (with Sue Jackson and Louise Johnson)
• Planning for Co-existence? Recognizing Indigenous rights through land-use planning in Canada and Australia 2016 (with Janice Barry)
• Unlearning the Colonial Cultures of Planning 2010
• Whose Urban Renaissance? An international comparison of urban regeneration policies 2009 (with Kate Shaw).

Her work has featured in various media outlets, including:
• The Conversation
• Arena
• The Drum: Time to rethink gentrification
• Assemble Papers Unlearning Planning Practice
• Glasgow 2014 legacy 'may not happen', BBC News Scotland, 31 October 2011.

Libby is currently the Director of the Centre for Urban Research. She supervises research students in Honours, Masters and PhD programs and is open to conversations about research supervision on topics aligned to her research interests.