Creating sustainable, liveable and healthy cities

RMIT researchers developed the Australian Urban Observatory, a groundbreaking digital platform that provides detailed insights on urban liveability for developing sustainable, inclusive, and healthy cities.

Key points

RMIT's Australian Urban Observatory (AUO) led by Professor Melanie Davern, addresses the challenges of rapid urban development and population growth through research that informs sustainable and healthy city planning.
The AUO transforms complex urban data into accessible liveability maps, offering detailed insights into public health and the lived environment.
Collaborations with industry partners such as Stockland provide data-driven insights that inform their social impact strategies and urban development projects.

Tackling the challenges of urban development and population growth

The rapid rates of urban development and growing populations present challenges for developing sustainable, liveable and healthy cities.

Across the globe, these increased pressures have highlighted the importance of well-informed and careful urban planning to ensure equitable access to critical services.

Professor Melanie Davern at RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research leads research in public health and urban planning that is directly informing urban policies and development in Australia and overseas.

Professor Melanie Davern, Director of the Australian Urban Observatory

The Australian Urban Observatory

Davern’s team developed the Australian Urban Observatory (AUO), a digital platform that transforms complex urban data into easily understood liveability maps across major cities.

Based on the team’s long-term research focusing on the connections between lived environment and public health, the platform gives users detailed information about their communities and the local factors influencing physical and mental health.

Davern said that the Observatory uses geographic information system (GIS) spatial maps to display public health data across key areas of liveability including walkability, public transport, social infrastructure and services, employment, food, housing and public open space.

Through the Observatory we are creating a new national resource of liveability indicators needed to identify, measure, monitor and target responses to critical social, economic and environmental challenges that are arising with Australia’s rapidly growing population

“Each indicator in the platform has been chosen because it is associated with health outcomes and is connected to government policies,” she said.

The online platform allows for detailed insights, analysis, and comparisons to be made and has been used extensively by government and industry - from policymakers and planners to developers looking to improve their community infrastructure or where to invest.

First launched in 2020 to measure and assess liveability across cities, council areas, suburbs and neighbourhoods in 21 of Australia’s largest cities, the AUO has since grown to become a successful startup.

The current transdisciplinary research team includes computer scientists, data scientists, architects, urban planners, geographers and ecologists.

Strong funding support, industry partnerships and research collaborations across government and industry have ensured a continued program of research that is helping to transform city planning in Australia and overseas.

The team is continuing to develop new liveability indicators while also replicating existing ones to allow for analysis of liveability over time.

Spotlight on successful partnership with Stockland

A partnership between the AUO and Stockland, Australia’s largest diversified property group, has helped inform Stockland’s approach to creating and measuring social impact in its communities.

Key points

Stockland’s Social Impact by Design framework is designed to enable evidence based, impact orientated decision making and the AUO’s research forms part of this evidence base.
Stockland draws upon the AUO’s research and data within its pioneering Social IQ tool enabling social outcomes to be brought alongside commercial feasibility in investment decisions along every stage of the value chain.
These investment decisions support Stockland’s vision to be a leading creator and curator of connected communities.

The research need

Justine Felton, Group Social Sustainability Manager at Stockland said they wanted to investigate how best to enable an approach to social impact that was evidence-based and impact- orientated.

“This was our whole focus from a social sustainability perspective. We needed to take an ‘outside-in’ perspective, to better understand the unmet need within our communities, and what role Stockland could play to address that need.”

Felton noted that key external factors Stockland considered for guiding its social impact strategy included an expanded definition of social impact that aligned to the Business for Societal Impact (B4SI) framework and outcomes aligned to the Australian Government’s National Wellbeing Framework.

“When looking at all the indicators, we recognised the impact that we have on individuals’ and communities’ wellbeing through access to the social infrastructure that we provide, and how important it is to get that right,” said Felton.

AUO’s data has been vital in influencing the design across our masterplanned communities and in the consideration of social outcomes alongside commercial feasibility.

Outcomes and impacts of the partnership

Using the AUO’s empirical data as a basis, Stockland worked with Deloitte to develop a Social Value Model to quantify and communicate its social impact across 18 domains.
The AUO data informed and shaped Stockland’s social infrastructure approach and design within its masterplanned communities.
Insights from the AUO were embedded in Stockland’s Social Needs Analysis and Social IQ Tools that helped Stockland to identify community needs, prioritise interventions, and measure the social value created.
The insights informed Stockland’s Business Unit Roadmaps, with each business area expected to consider and integrate social impact using the tools.

Mutual benefit

The partnership also has ongoing benefit for the Australian Urban Observatory, with Stockland providing letters of recommendation to support future grants such as a successful cycling trail research grant.

Creating sustainable, liveable and healthy cities

RMIT researchers developed the groundbreaking Australian Urban Observatory (AUO) digital platform to provide detailed insights on urban liveability for developing sustainable, inclusive, and healthy cities. Led by Professor Melanie Davern, the AUO transforms complex urban data into accessible liveability maps, offering detailed insights into public health and the lived environment. Collaborations with industry partners such as Stockland provide data-driven insights that inform their social impact strategies and urban development projects.

Snapshot of other AUO projects

Developing new cycling indicators for the AUO

The AUO team is developing new safe cycling indicators for neighbourhoods of Australian cities to understand, inform, and better plan for future city cycling infrastructure.

Funded by the Ian Potter Foundation, this project will also involve collaborating with advocacy groups and media, to raise awareness and drive action for better cycling infrastructure investment nationwide.

Planning for Liveability project

The Tools for Tracking and Improving Liveability (TTIL) project has been developed to help support Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Planning in Victoria. It will involve production and co-design of new monitoring and evaluation tools, working in partnership with Victorian local governments.

Healthy Ageing Discovery project

This research will help to identify the most important liveability features of local neighbourhoods that support healthy ageing and ageing in place. It will provide new understanding about what liveability means for older people and how neighbourhoods could be designed in the future to better support ageing in place. It will also provide new information about moving or staying in the same location and the role of socioeconomic factors and personal preferences in making these decisions.

Further national and international research engagement, output and impact highlights

Davern is an Executive Advisor to the Smart Cities Institute of Japan, and the AUO research program has shaped understanding and measurement of liveability across the country. The liveability indicators have been adopted by the Digital Agency of Japan as part of Prime Minister Kishida’s Digital Garden City Nation Development program; linking digitisation to liveability, city modelling, urban planning and sustainability across the country.
RMIT partnered with the Nikkei Group and Smart City Institute of Japan to host the 2023 Japan-Australia Liveable and Wellbeing Forum. The forum brought together representatives from government and business, including the City of Melbourne and the Victorian Government, and Japanese academics and industry to share insights into liveability, smart city indices and future cities.
Prior to launching the AUO, Davern led a 5-year program of regional liveability research with 15 local governments across VIC, TAS and NSW, culminating in two 10-year evidence-informed public health plans.
The AUO is directly and actively enhancing evidence-informed policy and planning in federal, state and local government departments across Australia, VIC, NSW, SA, and 5 local health districts in NSW, spanning multiple municipalities.
THE AUO team has partnered with Melbourne Water and the South Australian Government’s Green Adelaide for a health and liveability program of research.
Influenced development of two 4-year Victorian Public Health Plans and Victorian Disability Plan.
Worked with the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria to develop AUO teaching and learning resources – supporting secondary students’ understanding of Place and Liveability, Geographies of Interconnections and Geography of Human Wellbeing.

Funding support for AUO tool

The development of the initial AUO tool was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre for Research Excellence in Healthy Liveable Communities, the National Environmental Science Program supported Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub, and the NHMRC funded Australian Prevention Partnership Centre and state partners.

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Key contact

Professor Melanie Davern

School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
College of Social Design and Context

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