This paper provides a brief background to what drove renewal projects in the cities of Melbourne and Adelaide and their current status, the changing priorities of government, the shifting commercial environment and current challenges faced by those seeking to plan these new urban spaces.

Inspired by the approach to understanding, critiquing and rebuilding both planning and the urban environment that Jane Jacobs adopted in her Death and life of great American cities (1961), this paper begins with the personal experience of living in a suburban neighbourhood in Melbourne, Victoria

What does sustainability mean in the context of the Victorian State Government's “Planning for Sustainable Growth” plan and what are the assumptions which underpin the plan? This paper will locate Melbourne 2030 within a much longer and pervasive history of antipathy towards the particular suburban form which emerged at the end of the 19th century...