Sophie Devine
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Urban Planning
Biography
Sophie is an urban planner, infrastructure policy expert and PhD researcher who is passionate about collaborating with diverse stakeholders to find solutions to complex urban and infrastructure challenges in cities. Sophie has over 10 years industry experience in Australia and internationally, having worked on a wide range of urban policies and projects in state and local government agencies, at the UN, in NGOs and in private consulting.
Sophie is a PhD Candidate at the Melbourne Centre for Cities and the Melbourne School of Design. Her research examines how infrastructure planning shapes metropolitan governance. She carries out the PhD on a part time basis while working in practice. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Development Studies and Spanish) and a Master of Urban Planning (International Development and Planning) from the University of Melbourne, which included exchanges in Spain, Argentina, and Chile.
Thesis
Shaping metropolitan futures: A critical examination of metropolitan governance and infrastructure planning in London and Sydney
This research project seeks to examine how infrastructure planning shapes metropolitan governance. Despite the surge of infrastructure delivery in cities over the last 20 years, the relationship with metropolitan governance and infrastructure planning is not clearly understood in research or in practice. To investigate this, the study adopts a critical realist multi-methods approach that combines multiple case study methods and retrospective analysis of the last 20 years to compare the interaction between metropolitan governance and infrastructure planning in the global city-regions of London, United Kingdom (UK), and Sydney, Australia.
The research is designed to generate new knowledge about the opportunities for effective metropolitan governance and infrastructure integration in practice and support policy dialogue. The question of how to best govern city-regions is one of the longest-running debates in urban social science and is a perennial topic of professional and public interest given its significant practical implications on cities and urban life. Effectively planning and delivering urban infrastructure toward integrated outcomes is critical to meeting the needs of diverse populations and the pursuit of objectives toward inclusive, just and climate resilient cities and metropolitan regions, particularly in contexts of densified urban growth.