New actualities associated with environment, urban morphology, global relationships, overlaid with calls for participation in local democratic processes by community interest groups are driving changes in planning for regional cities. Taking the case of Bendigo, a regional city in Central Victoria, the paper places these new actualities into physical, spatial and temporal contexts. Respectively, these contexts describe a city removed from a major metropolis, but with high-quality transport and communication links; a remnant grand Victorian urban centre surrounded by less distinguished mid-20th Century suburbs, protected forests and farmland; and a low-growth 20th century city seeming to give way to higher growth in the millennium. The democratic-participation overlay is characterised by newly-formulated viewpoints and supporting organisations concerned about natural and built environments, heritage conservation, and population growth.

The paper describes a provincial-town social outlook like many others in Western developed countries, focussing on individual needs, lifestyle preservation, private worth and personal wealth aggregation. Specific regional-city planning challenges in this environment are urban amorphism, water security, sustainable growth, application of new planning policy, and the very local clash between heritage and modernism. Reorientation of the City government, city administration structure and approaches to strategic planning are needed. The City Council is attempting to restructure itself at the same time as embarking on processes designed to reorient interest groups towards goals that address the shape of the city and its place in the world. Building and developing participatory processes with the new actualities foremost is necessary for the city to realise its potential.

•

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research.

This paper was presented at SOAC 2 held in Brisbane from 30 November to 2 December 2005, hosted by the Urban Research Program at the South Bank campus, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University.

The principal intention of the conference was to lead a dialogue between leading researchers on the state of Australian cities and where they might be headed. SOAC 2 was designed to lead to a better understanding of the research needs of Australian cities and to provide those in the public and private sectors with a better appreciation of the current state and capacities of researchers.

Conference papers published from SOAC 2 were subject to a peer review process prior to presentation at the conference, with further editing prior to publication.