Speculation and Resistance: Constraints on Compact City Policy Implementation in Melbourne

Abstract

Compact city policies such as Melbourne 2030 have been established in Australia for a range of reasons including climate change. It is now clear that the Melbourne 2030 policy has not been effective-with new development mostly on the urban fringe. This policy failure has often been sheeted home to resident and local government resistance to densification. This article suggests this narrative is insufficient to explain this failure at a metropolitan-wide scale and is clearly mistaken in one suburb, where aspects of the planning system appear to thwart the aims of strategic policy by encouraging speculation and producing vacant sites. Brunswick is an inner-city suburb with good opportunities f..