This paper draws insights from Melbourne’s long-term metropolitan planning strategy to explore these equity-efficiency tensions, to describe the normative agendas aligned with strong and participative community, and advance insights into wider implications for the collective and personal resilience of the communities caught between decision makers and planners in high-order agendas.

This paper investigates the background to, debate over, and significance of the new Auckland Council, in the context of contemporary governance of major Australasian cities.