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About Crystal
Professor Crystal Legacy is Professor of Urban Planning in the Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. She serves as Assistant Dean (Graduate Research) and Co-Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub. Originally from Canada, Legacy moved to Australia in 2005 to complete a cross-disciplinary Masters of Environment at the University of Melbourne. She then earned her PhD in Urban Planning at the university's GAMUT centre under Professor Nick Low, focusing on deliberative democracy in planning through a comparative analysis of Perth and Vancouver. Mentored by Professors Nick Low, Alan March, and Carolyn Whitzman, she co-authored the book Building Inclusive Cities: Women’s Safety and the Right to the City (Routledge, 2013). In 2013, she was appointed Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow at RMIT University and received the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for her project investigating how the 2008 economic crisis affected long-term city planning practices in Melbourne and Toronto. Legacy leads a network supporting young academics transitioning to urban research careers in Australia.
Legacy's academic interests encompass planning theory, transport planning, urban infrastructure, participatory planning, post-political planning, governance in transport policy, deliberative plan-making, mobility justice, affordable housing development, autonomous vehicles, urban mobility futures, community opposition to development, and public participation in planning. Her key publications include 'Is there a crisis of participatory planning?' (Planning Theory, 2017), 'Planning the driverless city' (Transport Reviews, 2019), 'Transforming transport planning in the postpolitical era' (Urban Studies, 2016), 'Planning transport infrastructure: examining the politics of transport planning in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth' (Urban Policy and Research, 2017), 'Critical urban infrastructure' (Urban Policy and Research, 2017), and 'Is there a good governance model for the delivery of contemporary transport policy and practice? An examination of Melbourne and Perth' (Transport Policy, 2012). Recent works address infrastructural gaslighting and the professionalisation of community participation in urban planning. She has delivered seminars on community engagement and infrastructure planning and served as a 2025-26 Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto School of Cities.
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