Planning for a Continent of Cities

Some 50 years after Ideas for Australian Cities appeared, we now have another milestone publication that envisions future pathways to the grand challenge of planning more sustainable and resilient cities – the nation’s greatest asset. Planning for a Continent of Cities assembles a unique and thought-provoking set of continental scale settlement scenarios that address the twin challenges of long-term spatial planning and urban governance.

EMERITUS PROFESSOR PETER W. NEWTON, Swinburne Institute of Technology, Centre for Urban Transitions

It is a time of interlocking planetary crises – ecological, social and economic – Bolleter and Freestone ask what this means for one of the world’s most urbanised continents, Australia. In an important contrast to many recent urban books, they consult social opinion as well as the best scientific evidence to draw up an outline for a workable and sustainable future for Australia. It departs from the current ‘Business Council’ program of stacking the metropolitan cities with new population and (always lagging) investment. Mindful of historical policy antecedents, Planning for a Continent of Cities conceives a National Urban Policy that plans for a network of regional cities that can take us through the coming storms of change.

PROFESSOR BRENDAN GLEESON, Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne