226I_Bruce Marshall, the Coordinator Economic Development and Smart Cities at Maribyrnong City Council

What is The Future for Cities?

"Councils are the curators of cities."

Are you interested in councils as the curators of cities? What do you think about the requirements of a good place? How can we improve cities with small steps?

Interview with Bruce Marshall, the Coordinator Economic Development & Smart Cities at Maribyrnong City Council. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, smart communities, good spaces, using data strategically, and many more.

Bruce Marshall is the Coordinator Economic Development and Smart Cities at Maribyrnong City Council in Melbourne's Inner West, and is also currently the President of the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA). His team at Maribyrnong delivers a range of business support and economic development programs and he has responsibility for driving the municipality's Smart City program. Over his 14 years working in the Local Government sector Bruce has had a number of roles relating to Economic Development, Investment Attraction, Place Making, Visitor Economy promotion and more recently in Smart Cities. Whilst still relatively new to the Smart Cities space, he is passionate about exploring how Smart City initiatives can play an active role in place making, place activation and improving the convenience and quality of life for residents. Prior to Local Government he ran a small business in the international tourism sector, and previously lived and worked in Japan for nearly 4 years.

Find out more about Bruce through these links:

• Bruce Marshall on LinkedIn;
• Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) website;
• Bruce Marshall at ASCA;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.051 - Interview with Laura Summers about the serendipity of cities;
• No.138 - Interview with Luis Natera about vehicles in the urban context;
• No.156 - Interview with Fanni Melles about smartness being improvement and adaptability;
• No.225R - Positioning place-making as a social process

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠@WTF4Cities⁠ or on the ⁠wtf4cities.com⁠ website where the ⁠shownotes⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠Lesfm ⁠from ⁠Pixabay⁠