‘Research Comes Before Policy’: The Origins of UPR. A Conversational Interview with Jeremy Reynolds

Abstract

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Urban Policy and Research, Margo Huxley talks to Jeremy Reynolds, one of a group of like-minded public servants, policy workers and academics who, in the early 1980s, had an idea for starting a journal.

Jeremy came to Australia in the early 1970s from his job with Hackney Borough Council (in the days of the GLC), just as the Whitlam federal Labor government was infamously sacked. He worked for the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, and subsequently through all the permutations of Government Departments with responsibilities for planning and urban and regional policy. He is currently Manager of Demographic Research in the Victorian Government Department of Planning and Community Development.

This interview is an edited and much-condensed version of a wide-ranging conversation conducted by phone between Sheffield and Melbourne in September 2007. We chatted about many, many more people and events than can possibly be included here. But even if—regrettably—they haven't been mentioned, everyone who was ever involved in the early days can feel justifiably proud of helping to get this show on the road. Who would have thought it would still be going 25 years later!