CONTEXT

The twentieth-century Australian Dream of a detached house in the suburbs – while still alluring - is increasingly out of reach. Home ownership among young people is falling sharply, while renters face worrying insecurity. As more people live in fringe suburbs further from city centres, major roads are becoming clogged arteries, and for many people, commuting is becoming a nightmare. The fault lines between rich and poor, young and old, the inner city and outer suburbs, become ever deeper and wider. Indigenous culture continues to survive and thrive in areas isolated from our populous cities, such as central Australia, Arnhem Land, the Kimberley; however, indigenous culture, land rights and aspirations often find little expression in major urban areas.

Australian cities are also beset with environmental problems. Our cities rarely meet their targets for urban densification and, in some cases, are devouring fringing biodiversity. At the same time, they have a stubborn reliance on fossil fuels and are now feeling the impact of the unfolding climate emergency. Years of prolonged drought have produced a series of catastrophic bushfires, beginning with the Canberra fires of 2003, the terrible Black Friday fires of 2009, which came scarily close to Melbourne's suburban edge, and then the epic mega-fires of the 2019-2020 summer.

Moreover, 2019 was Australia's hottest year on record, and extreme temperatures are magnified in our cities due to a lack of cooling greenery, hard surfaces, and the hot air expelled by millions of air conditioners.

These challenges could be compounded by further population growth. While Australia’s population has fallen since the pandemic struck, once international borders eventually reopen, there will likely be a migration surge. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s population will effectively double by the end of the century, reaching over 53 million, an increase stemming largely from overseas migration. It could also be much higher due to a projected tide of people displaced by climate change in the Asian region.

While Australia has so far dodged the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has dramatically reshaped lifestyle, dwelling and transport preferences. For example, in a recent Australian Urban Design Centre (AUDRC) survey, 46% of respondents reported that the pandemic had made them more willing to live in a regional area, 56% were less willing to live in an apartment, and 38% were less willing to travel by public transport.

These shifts (amongst others) have reignited a raft of planning issues, including regional settlement patterns, public and private open space provision, housing design, urban density, and mass transit connectivity. This refocussing is timely because the traditional suburban Australian Dream is running out of steam on many fronts.

Given the swathe of challenges faced, you could be forgiven for feeling paralysed. However, rather than resign ourselves to uncertainty, we believe such challenges demand creative engagement through innovative planning and design.

Given the issues confronting our capital cities, future cities could play a vital role in accommodating population surges this century. Moreover, future cities could allow experimentation in urban form, land use, infrastructure, technology, industries, governance systems and sustainable living. This experimentation in future city ‘laboratories’ could then diffuse design innovation back to Australia’s existing cities.

Wherever the future of Australian urban development lies, it should be clear that business as usual will not avoid the many pitfalls that face us. The Business As (Un)usual Ideas Competition challenges participants to seek innovative and exciting alternatives and imagine a future Australian city.

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Suggested readings

Collectively, these readings provide background information on new city building in Australia and elsewhere and identify some of the existing and emerging urban and regional challenges Australia faces. 

Bolleter, J. (2018). The ghost cities of Australia: A Survey of New City Proposals and Their Lessons for Australia’s 21st Century Development. London: Springer.

Bolleter, J. & Weller, R. (2013). Made in Australia: The Future of Australian Cities. Perth: University of Western Australia Publishing.

Bolleter, J. Edwards, N., Duckworth, A. Cameron, R. Freestone, R. Foster, S. & Hooper, P. (2021). Implications of the Covid‐19 pandemic: canvassing opinion from planning professionals. Planning Practice & Research. doi:10.1080/02697 459.2021.1905991

Calvino, Italo. (1978). Invisible cities. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Flannery, T. (2020). The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of COVID-19. Melbourne Text Publishing.

Gleeson, B. (2006). Waking from the Dream: Towards Urban Resilience in the Face of Sudden Threat. Griffith University Urban Research Program.

Gleeson, B. (2010). Lifeboat cities. Sydney: UNSW Press.

Hamnett, S, & Freestone, R., eds. (2017). Planning Metropolitan Australia: Routledge.

Kelly, J.-F, & Donegan, P. (2015). City limits: why Australian cities are broken and how we can fix them. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Moser, S. (2015). New cities: Old wine in new bottles? Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 31-35.

Peiser, Richard, and Ann Forsyth, eds. (2021). New Towns for the Twenty-First Century: A Guide to Planned Communities Worldwide. University of Pennsylvania Press.