Dominant modes of decision-making regarding city form and function are not easily disrupted. Assumptions about the cultures of city life, the motives of powerful actors in shaping cities and city futures are embedded in socio-political discourses and may seem largely immutable. However, cities do change, and our expectations of our cities and their form can change rapidly through disruptive processes: material, social, pandemical or environmental. Presently, popular and political discourses in Australasian cities openly describe a need for transformation, for opportunity capture, and for a reconsideration of the norms of city life. Within this context, an apparent energy for new ways of doing things has emerged, with infrastructure investment, settlement geographies, attention to the environment and governance open for discussion. There is a need for critical reflection about how these new elements intertwine with dominant and traditional modes, as well as further enquiring what landscapes, structures and relations are being produced by these emerging sets of hybrid governance practices. The background challenges of social and environmental justice remain, and deserve more prominence, in debates on city governance, spatial distribution of services and benefit to citizens, and the responsibilities that various actors must take on. Questions emerge about the democratic deficit in city shaping investments, even when many ostensibly appear more people-centred. Whether the threads of solidarity apparent in the global and local resistance are sufficient to address institutional failure on climate and on justice in our cities remains unclear. The are many opportunities for scholarly research to reflect on these long-standing challenges, while considering if and how disruptive tendencies are emerging in a time of crisis and opportunity, and if they have longevity.