Climate change and energy insecurity are real and present threats to the stability and sustainability of Australia.

This short, exploratory paper reviews the concept of urban density from a historical and sociological perspective. It argues the emphasis dedicated to urban density in Australian planning schemes risks diverting energies away from potentially more fruitful avenues for the achievement of sustainability.

Current Australian metropolitan plans all contain sustainability ambitions. This paper discusses the role for urban planning in managing the energy demands of living in Australian cities.

Exploring a rationale for limiting the term ‘sustainability’ to the project of sustaining the planetary ecology, this paper argues that ‘sustainability’ has been stripped of meaning by overuse and misuse in the interests of sustaining nothing but the status quo.

This paper examines the links between household social status and transport disadvantage through a review of concepts for the analysis of transport disadvantage in urban research and policy making.