Peter Newman (Australian)
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Peter William Geoffrey Newman, born in Perth, Western Australia, August 20, 1945. PhD in Chemistry (1972, University of Western Australia). Post doctoral studies in Environmental Science, Delft University, Dip EST, Environmental Science, 1972. Lives and works in Australia.
Environmental scientist, activist and educator, Peter Newman is perhaps best known internationally for coining the term ‘automobile dependence’ in the second half of the eighties to explain how the kind of cities we are building based on sprawling suburbs was inevitably leading to the growth in automobile use. Led to an international research survey with colleague Jeff Kenworthy of transport practices and structures (original data collected on 33 global cities).
This global research effort took the form of a book, ‘Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook’, which introduced the concept of car dependence - now a feature of planning literature and policy. The two researchers later collaborated on a book ‘Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence’ which was launched in the White House in 1999, as the President’s Council on Sustainable Development was moving toward a more urban focus.
Newman has also served as a local government councilor, and continues to be personally engaged as a sustainability and transport activist. He was closely associated with the redevelopment of Perth's rail system from 1979 to the present, and this system is now seen as a model for how car dependent cities can change towards sustainable transport. Newman has been a government advisor through three secondments to the Western Australian State Government. In the last secondment (2001-2003), he was the Director of Sustainability Policy in the Department of Premier and Cabinet where he managed and wrote the State Sustainability Strategy: the first in the world at the state/province level. In 2004-2005 he was the New South Wales Sustainability Commissioner and in 2006-2007 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
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[edit] Current activities/affiliations:
- Director, Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, 1989-present, Murdoch, Western Australia, 6150
[edit] Memberships
Global
- Member of Advisory Board, Global Research Network on Human Settlements, UN-Habitat.
- Member of Scientific Advisory Committee of the UNESCO SCOPE Ecopolis Project.
The SCOPE-Ecopolis-Project is organized on the base of regional groups. [1]
Australian
- New South Wales Sustainability Commissioner, 2004-2005
West Australian
- Chair, Western Australian Sustainability Roundtable, 2004-2006
- Premier’s Science Council (Member)
- Sustainability Practitioners Association (Founding Committee).
- Environmental Trustee Fairbridge.
- Habitat for Humanity (Inaugural WA Chair).
[edit] Honors, recognition
- Murdoch University 25th Anniversary Special Service Medallion. (2000)
- Centenary Medal by the Australian Government in 2003 for Planning and Sustainability
- Fulbright Scholar (2006)
[edit] Publications
- Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook, Newman P and Kenworthy J, Gower, Aldershot, 1989.
- Winning Back the Cities, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1992, Newman P and Kenworthy J,
- Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence, Island Press, Washington DC, 1999. Newman P and Kenworthy J, ISBN 1-55963-660-2.
- An International Sourcebook of Automobile Dependence in Cities, 1960-1990, Kenworthy J, Laube F and Newman P , University of Colorado Press, Boulder, 1999.
- Back on Track: Rethinking Australia and New Zealand Transport Policy, Laird P, Newman P, Kenworthy J and Bachels M, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2001.
- Hope for the Future: The Western Australian State Sustainability Strategy, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, WA Government, Perth, 2003.
- Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems, Island Press, Washington DC, 2007.
