Tony Hall

Biography

In 2004, Tony Hall took early retirement from the position of Professor of Town Planning at Anglia Ruskin University, where he is now Emeritus Professor, and moved to Brisbane, Australia.
He had started out as a transport planner, with experience in local government consultancy and research, but later retrained in urban design.  His 30-year academic career in Britain produced notable publications in the field of design guidance and numerous presentations to international conferences.  He also served for many years on the Councils of both the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Town and Country Planning Association.
Rather unusually, he was also an elected member of Chelmsford City Council.  He led the Council’s planning policy at the political level from 1996 to 2003.  He was instrumental in raising the general standards of design resulting in the award to Chelmsford of Beacon Status for the Quality of the Built Environment in 2003.  His third book, Turning a Town Around, was based on his work at Chelmsford and was published by Blackwell in 2007.
Since 2005 he has been an Adjunct Professor within the Urban Research Program at Griffith University in Brisbane where he has been carrying out research on sustainable patterns of urban form.  He has also undertaken part-time teaching in urban design at both Griffith and Queensland University of Technology.
While at Griffith he has written three books and two chapters in books plus refereed and professional articles and conference papers.  Of particular note is his work on the disappearance of backyards in Australia.  It excited considerable interest in the media, including over 50 local press articles, two television and 33 radio interviews and is described in the new Australian school history textbook Retroactive 10.  His 2010 book on the topic, The Life and Death of the Australian Backyard, won the 2012 Planning Institute of Australia Award for Excellence in Cutting Edge Research.  
His latest book, The Robust City, was published by Routledge in April 2015.

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Town planning, urban design, transport planning

Books