Almost a decade ago in October 2002, the state government of Victoria introduced Melbourne 2030 – Planning for Sustainable Growth, a new metropolitan planning strategy for Melbourne (Department of Infrastructure, 2002a). The strategy, which was to guide the city’s development for the next 30 years, was to bring about a more sustainable urban form, encourage consolidation and provide for substantial population growth. Melbourne 2030 became the model for a number of other state government planning strategies in metropolitan areas around Australia as they were experiencing similar growth pressures. Central to the strategy was a focus on activity centres, which were identified and categorised hierarchically from the CBD down to an unnamed plethora of neighbourhood centres. They were to be the sites of new growth, specifically the recipients of greater proportions of new housing, as fringe development was to be slowed and outward expansion limited by the imposition of an urban growth boundary. However they had other roles as well. Following international trends Melbourne had experienced the dispersing tendency of retail developments, as new and larger forms or retail stores and malls sought less expensive sites away from city and suburban centres. The activity centres policy aimed to curb this dispersing trend and to cluster future retail and other commercial uses together around public transport nodes. In this the policy was similar to many others around the world which have sought to protect the viability of existing town and suburban centres and provide facilities, jobs and services to residents with a variety of transport modes (McNabb & University of Melbourne Research Team, 2001; Evers, 2002; Goodman & Moloney, 2004; Schwanen et al., 2004; Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2005). The activity centre policy was therefore an essential part of a strategy aimed broadly at supporting a more sustainable urban form. It could be argued, that along with the imposition of an urban growth boundary, it held central importance to the implementation of the strategy as a whole. There have been many critiques since the strategy was launched (Mees, 2003; Goodman & Moloney, 2004; Birrell et al., 2005; Dodson, 2009). Additionally, as time moved on it has become apparent that many aspects of the strategy have been ineffectual and often the cause of considerable community conflict. There is a growing body of empirical evidence to attest to the fact that the strategy as a whole, including the crucial activity centre policy, has been ineffective (Audit Expert Group, 2008; Goodman et al., 2010). It was therefore no surprise that shortly after the election of a new state government in Victoria in November 2010 it announced that the strategy would be abandoned and a new plan drawn up. So although it is only nine years into a 30 year plan, it is timely to evaluate the policies contained in Melbourne 2030 and to examine what they achieved, and the reasons for successes and failures.