Urban Planning

Trendyville: The Battle for Australia's inner cities by Renate Howe, David Nichols, and Graeme Davison

June-July 2015, no. 372

Frank Bongiorno reviews 'Trendyville' by Renate Howe, David Nichols, and Graeme Davison

In the Melbourne suburb where I spent my childhood, a café was a place where ethnic men played cards and backgammon, puffed on cigarettes, and looked up from time to time to watch through the window the passing parade on the footpath outside. Now, when I return to Northcote, I am often served in hip cafés by boyish men with Ned Kelly beards and stylishly informal ...

Lifeboat Cities by Brendan Gleeson & Transport for Suburbia: by Paul Mees

by Peter Mares •

September 2010, no. 324

Peter Mares reviews 'Lifeboat Cities' by Brendan Gleeson and 'Transport for Suburbia' by Paul Mees

These two books share common assumptions about the nature of our cities and our collective future as homo urbanis. If we are to survive the impending disaster of climate change and build an environmentally durable and socially just future, then we must do so within our existing, sprawling suburban landscapes. Gleeson and Mees know and respect one another’s work – each quotes the other approvingly – but the two authors diverge sharply in tone and intention.

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Designing Australia's Cities: Culture, commerce, and the city beautiful 1900–1930 by Robert Freestone

by Richard Aitken •

November 2007, no. 296

Richard Aitken reviews 'Designing Australia's Cities' by Robert Freestone

The planning history of our cities is one that has received surprisingly little attention. While the catalogue abounds in detailed studies – Adelaide and Canberra between them account for the bulk of this literature – national overviews, much less international contexts, are thin on the ground. In this rarefied atmosphere, Robert Freestone has been a generous contributor. His earlier Model Communities: The Garden City movement in Australia (1989) provided a comprehensive overview of urban planning in the period here under review (1900–30). Designing Australian Cities now provides a complementary overlay.

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The Gentrification of Inner Melbourne: A political geography of inner city housing by William Stewart Logan

by Patrick Mullins •

September 1986, no. 84

Inner city residential areas of large Australian cities have, it is said, been transformed by a marauding band of the professional middle class. These people bought dwellings with ‘potential’, took up residence, and refurbished their houses back to their original state or into some dainty contemporary form. Such has been the demand placed upon this housing that a sharp escalation in house prices has resulted. Increasing costs associated with this rise have forced many old, long-term, working class residents – the traditional inner city occupants – out into distant suburbs. Thus, inner city residential areas are now dominated by the middle class.

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