Using Melbourne as a case study and drawing from an international literature, this paper reviews the purposes of urban growth boundaries and their potential impacts on land prices.

Focusing on Melbourne, this paper documents the coverage of housing affordability issues in a sample of print media, academic journal articles, and planning policy over the period 1989 to 2009, to explore the circumstances under which land use planning became part of housing affordability debate in Australia.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Indigenous Australians live in cities and towns rather than remote areas of the country, yet remain segregated and 'invisible' from the daily lives of non-Indigenous Australians. In 2006, the Australian Indigenous population surpassed half a million. Yet while public and political discourse invariably concentrate on remote Australia, geographically...

Income segregation across Melbourne’s residential communities is widening, and at a pace faster than in some other Australian cities such as Adelaide. Back in 1996 Australian Taxation Office data show that average taxable income in Melbourne’s 10 postcodes with the highest taxable incomes was 2.1 times that in the 10 postcodes with the lowest taxable...

Tony Melhuish, Anthony King and Elizabeth Taylor argue that the Commonwealth rent assistance rules should be modified to recognise regional variations in the rental market and in the impact of the program. Changes to the rules may result in improved regional performance, without any major increases in the overall budget allocation to the program.