It's All About Growth: Peri-urban Planning in 'The Bush'

The transitional space between urban and rural, the peri-urban, is highly contested. Peri-urban space provides for urban boundary expansion, for lifestyle living as well as natural, social and economic values on which urban and rural populations rely. Managing this space is complicated. For well over a decade there has been debate about how to manage the peri-urban space, with criticism of the traditional rural-urban dichotomy under which planning has operated. Most of the debate in Australia on this topic has focused on metropolitan areas. There has been relatively insignificant discussion about peri-urban planning in non-metropolitan areas. With Governments encouraging decentralization, increasing popularity of 'tree change' and increased mining activity rural and regional populations are also growing, in some cases more quickly than in metropolitan areas. The empirical focus of this paper is on non-metropolitan peri-urban planning. Evidence is provided from local and regional planners and from those representing the development industry that, although planning systems in Australia have moved from command and control to a more flexible and development responsive land management approach, the focus on peri-urban planning is still urban-centric. The paper argues that current approaches to managing peri-urban land in Australia are flawed and actually requires an integrated approach that responds to specific environmental, social and economic issues in each locality. Drawing on local and international examples, the paper outlines suggested approaches for improved planning and management of peri-urban lands in rural and regional areas.