Professor Carl Grodach

Carl Grodach is Foundation Professor of Urban Planning & Design at Monash University. He was the inaugural Director of Urban Planning and Design from 2017-2022.

Professor Grodach studies community and economic development planning. His primary research interest currently is on urban manufacturing and how land use regulations shape industry development, interaction, and change. He is also studying the socio-economic impacts of reuse and the circular economy (e.g. labor, skills, social inclusion) and engaged in comparative study of craft manufacturing and urban development in Australia, Asia, and North America. He has extensively studied the the creative industries and the ways that planning efforts shape urban development outcomes. This includes studies of the community-level impacts of the arts and creative industries (e.g. gentrification, neighbourhood revitalisation), urban cultural policy evaluation, economic impact studies, and urban design outcomes.

Prof Grodach has published extensively in leading urban studies and planning journals including Cities, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of Urban Affairs, and Urban Studies. He is the author of the book Urban Revitalization: Remaking Cities in a Changing World (Routledge, 2015) and editor of The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy: Global Perspectives (Routledge, 2013). His work has been funded by the Australian Research Council; City of Melbourne/Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning; US National Endowment for the Arts; New York Community Trust, and the Government of Canada.

He recently completed the Australian Research Council project Urban cultural policy and the changing dynamics of cultural production, which identified new directions for urban cultural policy through international comparative research around the emerging nexus between the cultural industries and manufacturing.

Through funding from the ARC, he also worked alongside a team of researchers from five Australian universities to establish iHUB, a nationally networked digital infrastructure platform for built environment research, synthesis, and engagement. The Monash iHub platform supported his role as a lead researcher working on The Melbourne Experiment, a landmark Monash University research initiative studying the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on the city. Working with planning, architecture, and data science colleagues, this work mapped COVID employment vulnerability, tracked neighbourhood sentiment during lockdown through Twitter, and led to the development of the Melbourne Digital City Model, an urban engagement platform integrating multiple, large data sets into an interactive 3D model of the city.

Prof Grodach has taught various undergraduate and graduate-level studio and seminar classes in community development, cultural planning, economic development, strategic planning, urban design, urban theory, and urban revitalisation. He has also worked closely with his students to produce a diverse set of award-winning plans and studies for community organisations and governments in Australia and the US.

Grodach is co-Editor-in-Chief of City, Culture, and Society, an editorial board member of Australian Planner, and committee member on the Australasian Cities Research Network (ACRN), which organises the biannual State of Australasian Cities conference. He served as co-Director of the Festival of Urbanism, 2018-2022.

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