Alternative futures for Melbourne's peri-urban regions

Peripheral-urban areas are under unprecedented threat from development globally. Australia has a weak tradition of regional planning with two thirds of the Australian population concentrated in five capital cities and 72 per cent of growth to 2056 is projected to occur there. Only 15 per cent of the Australian population lives in medium sized cities with population from 100,000 to 1 million. Yet regional communities are growing rapidly in Australia. This growth tends to take the form of detached housing on expanding township fringes replicating the problems of capital city outer urban growth. The protection of peri-urban areas offers cities a range of adaptive benefits in a rapidly changing world, helping maintain urban resilience. Using a case study of Melbourne's peri-urban region, this paper explores the capacity for regional growth under different spatial scenarios.. The scenarios include 'business as usual' growth in rural areas and towns, and alternative scenarios involving extensive relocation of potential rural dwelling growth to towns together with six urban intensification options for regional centres. The use of a number of regulatory planning techniques to limit rural dwelling growth is modelled. Urban intensification options all prevent further outward growth. The paper demonstrates the potential of spatial planning techniques to provide large regional land supplies as an alternative to the metropolitan primacy of Australia's cities, and to achieve economic, social and environmental outcomes. Application of rural protection scenarios substantially reduces the supply of small rural lots and provides large land supplies in fringe urban township zones. Application of infill scenarios for Bendigo provides three times the land required by 2041.