Peter Newman is the Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Peter has written 20 books and over 350 papers on sustainable cities. Peter’s American experience includes a post-doc at Stanford in the 1970s, a sabbatical at Resources for the Future in Washington DC in the 1980s, and then teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s and at the University of Virginia Charlottesville in 2006/7 as part of a Fulbright Senior Scholar. Peter’s book with Jeff Kenworthy ‘Cities and Automobile Dependence (1989) has been described as ‘one of the most influential planning books of all time’ by Reid Ewing Professor of City and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah. The follow-up book 'Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence' was launched in the White House in 1999. He has written seven American books with Island Press that are used as texts emphasizing innovations in Australia and America that are of shared value due to our similar cities.
Peter has worked to deliver his ideas in all levels of government in Australia from being an elected local government councilor, a seconded advisor to three WA premiers, and in 2004/5 he was the NSW Sustainability Commissioner. At the Federal level, he was on the Board of Infrastructure 2010-14 and on the Prime Minister’s Cities Reference Group.
He is the Coordinating Lead Author for the UN’s IPCC on Transport. In 2014 he was awarded an Order of Australia for his contributions to urban design and sustainable transport. In 2018/19 he was the WA Scientist of the Year.
Podcast
US and Australia can create more Detroits or more great places to live and work by working together on Climate Climate.