Rate My Professor Courtney Babb

Dr. Courtney Babb is a Senior Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning in the School of Design and the Built Environment within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. He earned his PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Curtin University in 2014. His academic career at Curtin began as a Lecturer in 2015 and progressed to Senior Lecturer. Babb's research focuses on institutional design and change in spatial planning, transport institutions and the politics of resisting automobility, transitions to low-energy transport systems, urban mobility, urban governance, planning history and theory, climate adaptation, urban logistics, disaster risk reduction in new housing developments, micromobility in urban logistics, and decarbonising transport. He has contributed to projects examining inner-city parking policy dynamics, multifunctional green-blue-smart infrastructure, crime prevention through environmental design audits, sustainability trade-offs in bushfire policy for wildland-urban interfaces, planning for cycling and walking, placemaking in car-dependent cities, and children's active travel and wellbeing. His work has been featured in Curtin University's 'The Future Of' podcast series on smart cities, discussing urban efficiency, surveillance, data, and institutional work in multi-stakeholder innovation.

Babb has authored or co-authored numerous publications, including the book 'Doing Research in Urban and Regional Planning: Lessons in Practical Methods' (2019), 'Institutional dynamics in inner city parking policy: a history of the Perth Parking Policy' (2024), 'Green, Blue and Smart: Institutional Work in the Creation of a Multifunctional Infrastructural Space' (2024), 'The Wharf Street Smart Park Story: A Guide to Navigating Multi-Stakeholder Innovation in Smart Cities' (2024), 'Planning for cycling in local government: Insights from national surveys in Australia and New Zealand' (2022), 'Exploring and developing crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) audits: an iterative process' (2022), and 'What of a walkable urban future? Towards sustainable institutional design for walking' (2020). His research has garnered over 650 citations on Google Scholar. Babb served as project coordinator for the Bayswater Living Lab, which received awards at the 2019 Planning Institute of Australia WA Awards. He teaches research methods, transport planning, and urban policy.