This paper is part of a systematic examination by the authors of Sydney’s changing political economy within its largely self-imposed globalisation agenda.

This paper critically engages with these understandings of master-planned estates (MPEs) in the Australian context.

The City Economy sessions in the 2005 State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conference yielded papers that can usefully be grouped under four main strands: theoretically oriented papers; papers focussed on the ‘new economy’; investigations of ‘old chestnut’ issues of the urban economy; and papers focused on the development of tools and techniques to assist...

This paper presents an argument for the need to develop a more sophisticated and much needed understanding of the economic role of Sydney within the contemporary Australian eastern seaboard economy as a prerequisite to the development of appropriate urban and regional physical, economic and social development policies.