“Things fall apart- it’s scientific” is a line from the Talking Heads song “Wild Life”. Like most Talking Heads songs, including the one from which the This Must Be The Place podcast takes its name, the lyrics are a bit bookish. “Wild Life” seems to be a reference – one I haven’t actually fact checked – to popular scientific accounts from the mid 20th century, theorising the trajectory of the universe and of life in it. Entropy, or the second rule of thermodynamics, refers to the “general trend of the universe toward death and disorder”. And in 1944’s “What is Life”, Schrodinger put forward th ..read more

As part of Amplify: Story, Resistance, Radio, David Nichols of This Must Be The Place podcast interviews Sabina Andron - a cities scholar specializing in creative and transgressive public cultures, with a specific interest in the semiotics of urban walls and surfaces. Sabina is the author of “Urban Surfaces, Graffiti and the Right to the City”, to be published in 2024. Although graffiti (or “stuff on walls”) is shorthand to describe Sabina’s research, it’s not really a fair description – Sabina’s interest is in documenting and understanding how urban culture articulates itself onto the visible ..read more

As part of Amplify: Story, Resistance, Radio, Liz Taylor of This Must be the Place interviews Paul Long, Professor in Creative and Cultural Industries and a recent arrival from one music city (Birmingham) to another (Melbourne). Birmingham in the UK is known for its connections to diverse genres of music - heavy metal, conscious reggae, grime, bhangra, dance. “Brum” is branded as the birthplace of Black Sabbath and heavy metal, as well as of such ubiquitous bands as UB40, Duran Duran and (previously unbeknownst to Liz) ELO. Birmingham has also been home to a widespread unlicensed radio scene ..read more

As part of Amplify: Story, Resistance, Radio Liz Taylor of This Must be the Place talks with Shane Homan and Seamus O’Hanlon about their book “Music City Melbourne: Urban Culture, History and Policy” - looking back on Melbourne’s music spaces from the 1950s to now. From town hall to stadium to pub, how have the physical spaces of popular music changed alongside a dramatically changing city? What are the ingredients of a music city, and what role does government policy have? Shane argues music cities are “a bit more complex than making sure you have enough live music venues in your city, add so ..read more

The past, potential and perils of swimming in urban rivers. After quite a long dormancy period, in this episode of This Must Be The Place Liz has a follow-up discussion with a researcher she met recently while speaking at an MPavilion event (“Time Travel: Can Inspiration from our past save our holiday future?”). Loretta Bellato is a PhD researcher based in the Swinburne Centre for Urban Transitions, whose work crosses over with some of the topic Liz spoke about at MPavillion – particularly the historical origins of Victoria’s imperilled public swimming pools in river enclosures/river pools. Lo ..read more

In this episode of This Must Be The Place Elizabeth reports from Launceston, Tasmania, from the Urban History Planning History conference. (Listeners should also note a subsequent TMBTP interview with Nick Phelps at the same conference, who offers a different take on how to pronounce ‘Launceston’). As well as hearing from the UTas historic tram that periodically trundles through the expansive campus car park, in this instalment we hear from Alysia Bennett about her conference presentation and ongoing work on ‘right sizing: addressing housing challenges through activating marginal spaces, condi ..read more

Urban Policy and Research – 40th anniversary journal party This episode of This Must Be The Place is a live recording from the party held for the 40th anniversary of the journal Urban Policy and Research, which took place at Melbourne University in early 2023. The episode begins with Liz briefly introducing the journal and its history – including one of the co-founders, Jeremy Reynolds - via an anecdote about Margo Huxley and her paper on chicken by-laws and the TV show “The Good Life”: (“In search of ‘the good life’: Being a political economy of certain local government by-laws within the met ..read more

In this summer instalment of erstwhile podcast This Must Be The Place, Liz Taylor (no, not the actor – who is dead by the way) talks with Brendan Gleeson (no, also not that other actor). Brendan Gleeson is Professor of Urban Policy at the University of Melbourne and has had a decades-long career in publishing urban research. But since 2021 Brendan has for health reasons “stepped off the plate” from heading the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute – he hasn’t read an academic theory text in over a year, and has instead been rescaling his focus to the local and the everyday of life in the Hot ..read more

Because Liz collected too much info, this digital death trip podcast is in 3 parts. This is the 2nd episode of 3. Listen to episode 1 first! This episode of This Must Be The Place is part of the Digital Death Trip segment, where we investigate geographically themed ‘tragedies’ selected at random by the custom-coded ‘Digital Death Trip’ bot. The code uses the API to the National Library of Australia’s Trove archive to randomly select a Victorian town, then a random so-called Tragedy from it. It compiles a case file, then Liz follows up with some research about the incident, its place and time ..read more

In this episode of This Must be The Place Liz opportunistically interviews Associate Professor Jan Scheurer. Jan has been involved in public transport accessibility research for several decades and has a particular interest in comparing the performance of public transport between cities, as well as identifying changes in networks over time. From the basics of better bus network planning, to the more recent hype cycle of trackless trams, here Jan reflects on lessons for public transport and liveability in Australian cities. Jan nearly always travels by PT or bike - and on this occasion he joine ..read more