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A growing body of literature suggests that the segregation of infrastructure and urban/regional planning is at the root of contemporary problems facing many of the world's metropolitan areas. More recently, the introduction of new telecommunication infrastructure highlights the invisible borders that exist within critical infrastructure that provide advantages to some areas such as transportation and disadvantages to others. This paper attempts to understand the nature of inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral borders across infrastructure in Australia and the US. It examines the sometimes contradicting market-led vs. government-led models adopted in the two countries to deliver broadband communications and transportation. The findings identify similarities and differences between the two countries, and reiterate that in order to achieve social equity, and enhance the provision of infrastructure to non-profitable areas, government intervention is required. The paper concludes with a call for performance-based policies that go beyond traditional borders in an effort to better address the contemporary wicked planning problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The introduction of the Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) in 2009 raised questions about the potentials of the telecommunications infrastructure for Australian urban and regional planning. The recent decision by the Australian Federal Government to build the NBN, using a mix of technologies, has intensified the need to investigate the implications of telecommunications at the local level, as Australian local governments then need to respond differently based on the level of access provided in each case. The paper investigates such implications in the three areas of e-governance, socioeconomic development, and spatial planning. Building upon the international literature, and empirical data collected from the Australian local governments, it analyzes a raft of mostly unscrutinized policy initiatives developed, over the last few years, to guide the early rollout. The findings show some policy development regarding the socioeconomic implications of the new infrastructure, limited understanding of e-governance potentials, and lagging policy focus on spatial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use planning within and surrounding privatised Australian capital city airports is a fragmented process as a result of: current legislative and policy frameworks; competing stakeholder priorities and interests; and inadequate coordination and disjointed decision-making. Three Australian case studies are examined to detail the context of airport and regional land use planning. Stakeholder Land Use Forums within each case study have served to inform the procedural dynamics and relationships between airport and regional land use decision-making. This article identifies significant themes and stakeholder perspectives regarding on-airport development and broader urban land use policy and planning. First, it outlines the concept of the “airport city” and examines the model of airport and regional “interfaces.” Then, it details the policy context that differentiates on-airport land use planning from planning within the surrounding region. The article then analyses the results of the Land Use Forums identifying key themes within the shared and reciprocal interfaces of governance, environment, economic development and infrastructure. The article concludes by detailing the implications of this research to broader urban planning and highlights the core issues contributing to the fragmentation of airport and regional land use planning policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Port Adelaide waterfront is symbolic of a distinctive form of entrepreneurial urban governance that emphasises specific forms of capital accumulation. As in waterfront projects elsewhere in Australia and overseas, depicting Port Adelaide as an 'urban problem' has been critical in legitimating the public-private market-based approach to regenerating the waterfront site. This paper outlines how the ascendancy of urban governance in Australian political sensibility is coinciding with and facilitating a particular urban form in waterfront developments. This involves transforming the Port's disused industrial and maritime landscape from a site of production to one of consumption. This urban makeover signifies a radical reconstitution of place identity, economic function and social relations. This paper also investigates the impact on the pre-existing social structure, built form and economic activity base of the location and suggests that the potential for this significant waterfront project is not confined to the re-imagining of the discursive identity of the place but extends to meeting wider institutional metropolitan and regional planning objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a century, town and country planning has been an important field of public endeavour. Now more commonly known as urban and regional or urban and rural planning, its names have recognized its concern for non-built-up as much as built-up areas; i.e. the countryside. Notwithstanding, little effort was expended there until about half way through the century. This has changed. Rural planning has burgeoned, barely reflected, however, within planning history in Australia. This article addresses this by examining how land-use planning for the countryside has evolved in South Australia since the introduction of the modern form of statutory planning in 1967. It traces the evolution of statutory policy and how it has been informed by concepts such as nature conservation, landscape maintenance, environmental protection and ecological sustainability. It underlines the tensions inherent in a system created primarily to deal with the slower changing urban conglomerate of built form when applied to the countryside where the dynamism of the seasons requires an ongoing land management approach. Experiments in policy planning and legislation are examined and it is concluded that, as in urban planning, ideas of innovation and diffusion are valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how demographic (socioeconomic) and land-use (physical and environmental) data can be integrated within a decision support framework to formulate and evaluate land-use planning scenarios. A case-study approach is undertaken with land-use planning scenarios for a rapidly growing coastal area in Australia, the Shire of Hervey Bay. The town and surrounding area require careful planning of the future urban growth between competing land uses. Three potential urban growth scenarios are put forth to address this issue. Scenario A ('continued growth') is based on existing socioeconomic trends. Scenario B ('maximising rates base') is derived using optimisation modelling of land-valuation data. Scenario C ('sustainable development') is derived using a number of social, economic, and environmental factors and assigning weightings of importance to each factor using a multiple criteria analysis approach. The land-use planning scenarios are presented through the use of maps and tables within a geographical information system, which delineate future possible land-use allocations up until 2021. The planning scenarios are evaluated by using a goal-achievement matrix approach. The matrix is constructed with a number of criteria derived from key policy objectives outlined in the regional growth management framework and town planning schemes. The authors of this paper examine the final efficiency scores calculated for each of the three planning scenarios and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the three land-use modelling approaches used to formulate the final scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines how the economic, social and political processes at work since the 1960s in Australia have significantly constrained the state and urban and regional planning. Economic restructuring; Social and political restructuring; Spatial restructuring; Changing role of planning; Metropolitan planning in Perth, Western Australia.