Scenario Planning for Melbourne's Peri-Urban Region

Melbourne's peri-urban region consists of two non-urban belts of land and associated townships around the metropolitan area. The first or inner belt is the Melbourne green belt extending from the metropolitan urban growth boundary to the outer rural boundary of the 17 green belt municipalities. The second or outer belt includes the seven municipalities in the region studied in this report. Scenario Planning for Melbourne's Peri-urban Region is a study of two possible futures for the Melbourne outer peri-urban region. The first option describes the peri-urban landscape and the way it functions as it will appear in 2040 if current development trends and policy settings continue. The second imagines a different future, where the rural landscape is preserved along with key natural resources which make up that landscape, and where population growth is diverted from rural areas and is concentrated in existing medium sized and larger towns. Under the first option - the business-as-usual scenario - unplanned, ad-hoc development will lead to fragmented landscapes as incremental actions by sectoral managers are made in isolation from each other and an overall strategic intent. The natural resources, environmental amenity and rural activities which form the basis of the region's prosperity and attractiveness will be largely lost with important social and economic consequences. The second option requires the intervention of policy makers through the development of alternative policy instruments to prevent this otherwise inevitable future. These two approaches - forecasting and backcasting - form the basis of this study. This report therefore asks two key questions: * What will the peri-urban region look like in 2040 if trends continue as described in the first stage of this study Planning Sustainable Futures for Melbourne's Peri-urban Region (2008), * What is envisioned as an alternative future for the region in 2040 and how can this future be realized?