For many people, Australia was ‘settled’ soon after European occupation, through the actions of hardy, resourceful and sometime foolhardy ‘settlers’.

The theme of the 2005 State of Australian Cities national conference was the sustainability and vulnerability of Australian cities. Sustainability focuses on the economic, social and environmental realms as they are found in cities. Vulnerability deals with the economic, social and environmental risks facing cities. So where does governance fit into these themes?

This paper summarises recent scientific work on abrupt change, with selected examples of apparent sudden shifts in environmental variables.

This short paper an overview and partial synthesis of the papers presented in the sessions of the SOAC 2003 conference dealing with the theme of Governance, Finance and Accountability. It is intended to contribute to the process of identifying the critical policy and research issues that are a major intended outcome of the conference, along...