Quarrying is a noxious industrial activity necessary for the provision of stone and clay, utilised predominately in building activities as the city grows. In post-industrial Melbourne, the extraction of these materials has left a pock-marked landscape, reflecting the fact that the city was settled upon an opportune juncture of sand-and-clay, basalt, and mudstone fields.

Following the decline of manufacturing at the end of the twentieth century, land and infrastructure speculation continued to drive suburban expansion at the edges of the city of Melbourne. Mass transit technologies allowed suburban sprawl in the 1870s through the construction of light and heavy rail, and again in the 1950s with the mass adoption...

In the 1960s and 1970s the deficiencies in the 1945 Hobart city plan (Cook 1945) were clearly evident in Battery Point and North Hobart. Overly-ambitious transport plans, and over-zoning for industrial/commercial uses threatened houses and depleted the residential neighbourhood (Vincent 1984).

Through Australia’s history, private developers have introduced restrictive covenants to property titles. Typical private covenants stipulate building materials, limit dwelling numbers, and prohibit particular land uses or the sale of alcohol. Covenants, like zoning, have tended to “put the single-family, owner-occupied home at the pinnacle of uses to be protected”, and have functioned as security...

The city of Melbourne is one significantly shaped by the activities of private land developers, who undertook the subdivision, planning, and sale of residential estates which now comprise the bulk of extant suburbs. A number of these estates were highly speculative in nature, reflecting renewed public interest in real estate following each of the two...