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Geodesign theory and practice may be informed and strengthened by studying contrasts between contemporary perspectives and historical processes. In this paper, we disaggregate contemporary geodesign into three trajectories found in the literature: (1) tightly coupled design and impact simulations, (2) a framework for landscape planning, and (3) an organic process. Augmenting these trajectories with two taxonomies of geodesign elements, we look for evidence of geodesign in a longitudinal descriptive case study. Analysis reveals a story of design and planning unfolding over a long period of time at multiple geographic scales interwoven with persistent conflict. The case revealed evidence of geodesign approaches and elements in historical planning and design. The events studied also led to high-quality outcomes that are diffusing regionally. Results of this investigation yield implications for improved geodesign practice and theory including broadening the discourse around geodesign to include time and conflict and expanding geodesign's theoretical frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's population is projected to triple by 2101, yet the nation lacks coordinated planning based on systematic regional analysis. This paper documents a novel national-scale suitability analysis of Australia which identifies the most appropriate regions for future urban development. The central research question is 'Where should Australian federal and state governments encourage urban development to maximise climatic liveability, protect natural and cultural heritage, capitalise on previous infrastructure investments, and maximise economic productivity?' The results indicate that the south-east and south-west of the country, and Tasmania, are preferred. The federal government is yet to prepare a national settlement strategy and contemplates large scale urban development in areas to which it is not suited. Regional planning decisions not based on comprehensive, evidence-based analysis are likely to incur significant social, economic and environmental costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature suggests that the segregation of infrastructure and urban/regional planning is at the root of contemporary problems facing many of the world's metropolitan areas. More recently, the introduction of new telecommunication infrastructure highlights the invisible borders that exist within critical infrastructure that provide advantages to some areas such as transportation and disadvantages to others. This paper attempts to understand the nature of inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral borders across infrastructure in Australia and the US. It examines the sometimes contradicting market-led vs. government-led models adopted in the two countries to deliver broadband communications and transportation. The findings identify similarities and differences between the two countries, and reiterate that in order to achieve social equity, and enhance the provision of infrastructure to non-profitable areas, government intervention is required. The paper concludes with a call for performance-based policies that go beyond traditional borders in an effort to better address the contemporary wicked planning problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents findings from a national survey of Australian planning experts examining future settlement patterns and locations at the continental scale. Collective judgement supported efforts to achieve population decentralisation and favoured three possible scenarios – Satellite Cities, Boosted Secondary Capital Cities, and East West Megaregions. The findings on preferred settlement pattern scenarios can inform future efforts to develop a national urban policy for Australia. This case study can also serve as a reference point to the over 160 countries worldwide that are developing, implementing, or evaluating national urban policies in support of global urban agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian government is constructing a National Broadband Network (NBN), which at an estimated cost of $43 billion will be Australia's largest ever infrastructure project. The NBN, if its full benefits are to be realized, raises a number of important, but largely unexplored, questions for planning. This paper investigates the implications of the NBN for Australian metropolitan planning focusing on the question of how these plans will exploit the NBN to improve urban outcomes. The paper examines the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane metropolitan areas and analyses the strategies shaping the future of these regions during the rollout and implementation of the NBN. This comparative analysis reveals similarities across these three metropolitan areas in their weak stance towards the NBN. Some key findings include: (1) a segregation of infrastructure planning and metropolitan planning; (2) a lack of consistency between different policies within each metropolitan area and (3) policy gaps regarding the role of telecommunications at the metropolitan level. Considering the number of governments worldwide that are making large investments in high-speed broadband, this paper addresses policy issues that will impact upon metropolitan planning well beyond the borders of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a recent resurgence in Australian spatial planning has been superseded by a resort to infrastructure to address urban problems. The paper uses case studies of the Melbourne and South East Queensland (Brisbane) metropolitan regions to chart the renewal of new spatial planning, after a period of neglect. This paper then shows this spatial planning renewal has given way to a new emphasis on urban infrastructure planning as the primary mode of intervention in these cities. The infrastructure turn raises important questions about the spatial planning and infrastructure of cities within a new era of global strategic challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Australia's multi-level system of governance and considers its implications for urban and regional policy. The paper addresses four main questions about Australian urban governance. In what ways can Australia's federal system of urban governance be contrasted with models in other developed countries? How have shifts in recent decades within Australia's federal system affected urban governance? What have been the main characteristics of change within Australia's state/territory planning systems in recent decades, and to what extent have these affected multi-level governance of space? Finally, what lessons about the strengths and weaknesses of a federal system of urban governance can be drawn from the Australian experience? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive design schemes and specifications have progressively shaped Master-Planned Communities (MPCs). The market largely predetermines these outcomes, with background input from communities. Therefore, this paper endeavours to define the fundamental structures that generate differences between market actors and residents within the North Lakes MPC. This study employs ‘habitus theory’, which is a sociological phenomenon describing the divergence of personal outlooks and expertise. The application of this theory is thus illustrative of the evolution of distinct observations within MPCs. Contemporary studies have under-researched these inherent gaps between communities, authorities, and critics, and these frictions could be exacerbated within restrictive developmental contexts. Epistemic and objectified content analyses collated over many years and sources will uncover the underlying differences between the relevant groups. These analyses will enable the progression of a framework for understanding power relation biases and how reflexivity can enhance current consultative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Master planned estates have grown in number Australia and internationally as a favoured form of development in new and infill estates. This paper explores the use of legal entities known in the state of Victoria as owners' corporations to hold communal assets in private ownership for the exclusive use of those living in master planned estates. The privatization of assets that would normally be held by municipal government has been associated by some with heightened conflict in estates, greater costs for residents and increased separation from the larger community. This paper seeks to investigate the motivations and attitudes of both local government planners and developers in utilizing forms of private collective ownership in residential estates in a major city of Australia, Melbourne. This empirical investigation demonstrates that developers generally utilize these ownership structures in order to provide a different, but not necessarily better, standard of facilities as a means of market differentiation. Planners, on the other hand, are more diffident in their endorsement of privatized community ownership and demonstrate a degree of concern about their changed relationship to residents in such estates. The research suggests that issues relating to this choice of ownership of community assets have not been fully considered by local government, particularly in terms of protecting the long-term interests of residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that there are distinctive characteristics in the spatial strategies constructed for the state capital cities of Australia. To investigate this hypothesis, the paper conducts a review of the major plans produced since the Second World War, and the reasons they take the form they do. It finds that there are strong common features in the plans formulated from the end of the war until the 1980s. After a period of neglect, metropolitan strategies are then made by state governments, all of them ruled by Labor governments, in the 2002-2009 period. While these strategies amplify and extend these distinctive characteristics, more uncertain and dynamic conditions mean that they need frequent revision and connection with infrastructure, transportation and state development plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing urbanization of the world's populations, there is increasing concern about land consumption, particularly, urban expansion onto non-urban land. This paper identifies current approaches leading to this point and argues that these create a tangle requiring a more mature approach if land use is to be managed more effectively, especially at the peri-urban fringe. The effects of managing peri-urban land under current paradigms are demonstrated in case studies of Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. The conclusion uses international examples to suggest that fresh planning approaches that take an integrated view of land-use management in a new paradigm are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of neoliberalism in shaping Australian federal regional development policy over the past three decades. As in other parts of the world, since the 1980s Australian federal governments have tended to favour the role of market forces, as opposed to direct intervention in regional development. By the 1990s, however, the negative social and economic impacts of neoliberal approaches, together with a widespread electoral backlash, contributed to an adjustment in the direction of regional development policy. We argue that this transition is reflective of a wider shift in neoliberal politics, whereby limited government intervention and institution building are increasingly seen as appropriate policy responses. While in part this is linked to the shortcomings of previous policy approaches, it is also apparent that political opportunism is an important element of this shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common feature of land-use planning in Australia is merit-based appeal processes where appeal bodies are granted powers to review, in most cases, local government planning decisions. In some jurisdictions these merit-based appeals are creating tension as local councils believe their role is being usurped by a review body that is neither politically elected nor democratically accountable. In the context of three case studies, this article examines the arguments for and against merit-based appeals. The conclusions of the paper are that while an appeal right of some kind is fundamental, to ensure that planning powers are not exercised inappropriately or arbitrarily, the scope of this right could be reviewed. The article argues that one option to resolve these dilemmas would be to narrow appeal rights to somewhere between judicial review and a merit-based appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Explores the complex of 'storylines' justifying transport infrastructure policy in Australia, within the context of ecological sustainability. Utilization of discourse networks in the study; Study of community fragmentation and integration by examining social cohesion at the neighborhood level; Relationship between planning and populist decision making.

Privatization of public spaces in the contemporary city has increased over the past few decades, but only a few studies have approached this trend from a mobility perspective. Therefore, this article seeks to make a contribution to the field by exploring two Australian examples of private spaces in the city, gated communities and shopping centres, through the ‘mobility’ lenses. The article illustrates how different mobility systems enable and/or restrict public access to private–public spaces, and it points out that proprietary communities create an unequal potential for human movement and access in the city. The main argument in the article is that many mobility systems enable specialization of places that are targeted at a special section of the population. This means that various forms of mobilities (e.g. automobility, virtual mobile communication technologies) not only create new opportunities for urban life, but also serve as one of the most critical components in the production of new exclusion and stratification. In conclusion, the article therefore suggests that future urban research and planning also need to apply the mobility perspective in order to understand the mechanisms between flows of movement and the understanding fixed spaces in the cities, and how different mobility systems play an important role in sustaining the exclusiveness that often characterizes private/public spaces. Likewise, from a mobility perspective, the specific consequences that the proprietary communities have on the surrounding communities seem to be an important further question for research and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues of urban equity have long been linked to urban planning. Yet in practice the quest for the ‘just city’, defined in terms of democracy, diversity, difference and sustainability, has proven to be highly problematic. Drawing on examples from the Australian urban context, we argue that the imperative of climate change adds urgency to the longstanding equity agenda of planning in cities. In our normative quest for the climate-just city we offer a conceptual and analytical framework for integrating the principles of climate justice and equity into urban planning thinking and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enduring population movement led by alternative lifestylers, downshifters, economic migrants, and retirees continues to transform Australia's non-metropolitan coastal landscape. Dubbed 'sea change' in Australia, the movement is an expression of the international phenomenon known as amenity migration. A defining quality of amenity migration is that migrants move for lifestyle, rather than jobs, choosing places with natural amenity, climate, recreation, and affordable housing. This article examines the social and environmental implications of this movement for fragile coastal landscapes in coastal Australia, drawing on population census data (1991-2006) for a sample of 67 affected communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common for urban spatial planning professionalism to be understood primarily as the expertise and skills required of practitioners in their assigned roles, putting aside the importance of the governance mechanisms within which planners work. However, urban spatial planning is located across a range of governance mechanisms, requiring particular understandings of the possibilities and problems of professionalism in this setting. The case of Victoria, Australia, is used to demonstrate how the institutional roles of planners strongly influence the exercise of their professional judgement and action. The concept of 'mediatization' is used to show how particular governance arrangements can result in a fragmented professional knowledge base that erodes planners' ability to act as a meaningful force for collective change. It is argued that planners, when being 'professional', need to consciously acknowledge and take on roles as democratic facilitators of knowledge development via planning processes. This enlarged role would begin with an appraisal of the existing institutional impediments to the process of democratic planning in a given setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research maps some of the debates on community building in the planning of suburban developments. Particular reference is made to Kokoku New Town in Yokohama, Japan, and the Golden Grove Development in Adelaide, Australia. These two developments emerged in the early 1980s and the histories related suggest significant similarities, although they grew out of different regimes of power. Drawing upon Foucault and other governmentality thinkers, this study focuses on the relationships between neoliberalism and suburbanization. The primary concern is the exercise of government (the conduct of conduct) and how this exercise is carried out and maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares central-local relations in Sweden and Australia. Impacts of different governmental arrangements on the equity of provision of public services; Changes and distribution of services and infrastructure in Sweden and Australia.