Suburban Planning and Politics

The majority of the world’s population live in officially defined urban areas and the majority of those people live in suburbs. Thus, the suburbs are the essential laboratories for understanding and solving any number of contemporary challenges and future interventions regarding urbanization. Australia has been regarded as the first suburban nation and is itself the ideal laboratory in which to understand the suburban question or the looming suburban regeneration challenge facing all nations. Applications are invited for a PhD Scholarship available in the Urban Planning Division of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne in the field of suburban planning and politics broadly defined to work under the supervision of Prof. Nicholas Phelps.

Applications open

1 Sep 2018

Applications closed

31 Jan 2019

Application type

Application required
How to apply

Benefit type

General allowance
Fee remission
Full benefit details

Citizenship requirements

Australian / domestic student
International student

Total value

100% fee remission and up to $30,600

Applicable study areas

Architecture, building and planning

Number of scholarships awarded

1

  • Eligibility & selection criteria

    Eligibility

    To be eligible for this scholarship, you must:

    have a disciplinary background in real estate, property or land economy, economics, geography, urban planning, or sociology.

    Selection criteria

    Expression of Interest required in prior to being invited to submit a formal application:

    EOI applications should include: (1) a CV; (2) 4-5 page research proposal with defined research questions, brief literature review, and fully elaborated research methods; (3) academic transcripts with grades. IELTS or TOEFL if applicable. In addition, applicants will be required to be available for a skype interview.

  • Application process

    Lodge your Expression of Interest at

  • Variations of this award

    Applicants with interests in any aspect of suburban planning and politics in Australia are welcome, however applicants proposing to study suburban planning issues elsewhere are welcome to apply and are directed to the specific interests of the supervisor in the following fields:
    »» Suburban growth and/or decline and their planning implications
    »» The place of suburbs and suburban agendas within new forms of metropolitan governance
    »» The rise to metropolitan, state and national status of suburban political leaders
    »» The distinctiveness of planning and politics of ‘ethnoburbs’
    »» Emerging models of suburban regeneration and retrofit
    »» The relationship between suburban planning systems and cultures and enterprise formation or economic development
    »» International policy mobility with respect to aspects of suburban planning
    »» How greenbelts, white space and interstitial space relate to patterns of suburban expansion and development
    »» The role of grassroots political organisations in suburbs

What are the benefits?

$30,600 p.a. for 3.5 years (indexed annually)
Standard fieldwork (up to $3600) and conference support.
The application is open to both domestic (RTP covers fees) and international candidates (fee waiver approved).

The information listed here is subject to change without notice. Where we have listed information about jointly run scholarships programs, please also see our partners' websites. Information describing the number and value of scholarships awarded is indicative.