Public private partnerships in Melbourne: Using private investment and public accessible open space to transform the CBD

Melbourne is one of Australia's oldest and largest cities. Located on the north side of Port Philip Bay, the inner city is framed by the Yarra River, which provides a natural element the city and its people regularly engage with. Holding a population of nearly five million people and occupying an area of 8,816 km2 . Melbourne's inner city is one of the most densely populated urban environments in the state of Victoria. People from over 140 nations live in this setting and this diversity helps make the City of Melbourne one of Australia's most contemporary and culturally rich cities. It is also Australia's fastest growing city with The Age newspaper reporting (in April, 2011) that 1000 people a week come to live in Melbourne. To put this figure into perspective, that equates to roughly a 145m long trainload of people arriving weekly in Melbourne. Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD) (the heart of the city) is about two km2 in area and was laid out in 1836 in a 100 x 200 gridded street pattern. Pedestrian activity can now be found along many of its laneways and roads but originally no central or common open space was designed to be part of the City's layout. Figure 1 shows the intricate pattern of laneways and gridded road layout that has provided the building blocks to affect change in the city. The CBD is also made up of a number of precincts. Traditionally, there are the financial and parliament areas and notably, there are also three recognised cultural precincts: Greek, Chinese and Italian, which as previously mentioned provide a rich atmosphere for civic life. Unfortunately, and in terms of the CBD's current population, pedestrian capacity has been reached in significant areas of the city (e.g. Swanston St.).