Using examples from the peri-urban region around Adelaide, where a number of traditional planning themes coincide with emerging natural resource management concerns, this paper poses some questions about the fundamental nature and limits of this relationship.

Land use on the periphery of urban centres is of critical importance in the sustainability of healthy cities, food security, and natural resource management. The paper argues that it is essential to recognise the “public good” of open space and agriculture in the urban and periurban contexts.

The paper reviews the approach advocated in the Melbourne strategic plan, 'Melbourne 2030', to planning for outer urban development in Melbourne. It analyses governance and current policy, and places the Melbourne 2030 objective of increased outer urban densities in the context of best international practice and historical approaches.

This paper can be characterised as a symptomatic reading of the idea of ‘peri-urban’ and an exploration of the often difficult-to-define transformations it names.

This paper posits important lessons to be learned about how to deal with the crisis of urban sprawl in Australia through current planning and design work occurring in the Netherlands and United States where the debate about urban development is focussed on how to achieve new forms of rural/urban/natural landscapes.