This book explores in overview the achievements, failures, and challenges of an assemblage of public policy areas unified by their urban context. It comes at a time when Australia must take seriously the prospects and implications of long-term population growth and development in economic, social, and environmental terms.

The University of New South Wales was, along with the Australian National University, one of the first post-war greenfield campuses. Located in the south-east Sydney suburb of Kensington, a stable long–term vision for site planning was hampered by a constrained site which expanded incrementally. Design concepts were made and remade through City Beautiful, Beaux-Arts and...

The roles of planning and planners were remade in Australia in the 1930s. In Sydney, frustration at governmental inaction on practical progress and recognition that the longstanding Town Planning Association had fallen out of touch with best practice led to moves to establish a technical body. There were comparable stories in other states. In NSW...

In land use, design and development terms the modern university in Australia is a fixture in all urban environments including central business districts, inner city, middle ring, outer suburbs, and regional towns. The predominant spatial pattern in the university expansion era of the late 1950s through the 1970s saw universities develop expansive campuses on large...

We provide here an overview of the operation and outcomes of the competitive design policy to date within the central business district. While stopping short of a comprehensive evaluation, the tracking though of the policy as it has evolved in practice identifies two key operational phases of the policy reflecting a mix of market, political...