Australia's Metropolitan Imperative

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An Agenda for Governance Reform

Edited by: Richard Tomlinson, Marcus Spiller

eBook - July 2018 - eRetailers

Makes a case for establishing metropolitan governance in Australia.

Since the early 1990s there has been a global trend towards governmental devolution. However, in Australia, alongside deregulation, public–private partnerships and privatisation, there has been increasing centralisation rather than decentralisation of urban governance. Australian state governments are responsible for the planning, management and much of the funding of the cities, but the Commonwealth government has on occasion asserted much the same role. Disjointed policy and funding priorities between levels of government have compromised metropolitan economies, fairness and the environment. + Full description

Australia’s Metropolitan Imperative: An Agenda for Governance Reform makes the case that metropolitan governments would promote the economic competitiveness of Australia’s cities and enable more effective and democratic planning and management. The contributors explore the global metropolitan ‘renaissance’, document the history of metropolitan debate in Australia and demonstrate metropolitan governance failures. They then discuss the merits of establishing metropolitan governments, including economic, fiscal, transport, land use, housing and environmental benefits.

The book will be a useful resource for those engaged in strategic, transport and land use planning, and a core reference for students and academics of urban governance and government.

- Short description

Details

Features

The first comprehensive examination of the need for a fourth sphere of governance in Australia, covering the country’s major city-regions, the metropolitan areas.
Empowers readers to be able to analyse and critique the policy propositions of federal and state governments for Australia’s cities.
Includes comparative international case studies.

1. Introduction: metropolitan governance in the absence of metropolitan government
Richard Tomlinson

Australian Backdrop
2. Hobbled by history? The governmental gap in metropolitan Australia
Graeme Davison and David Dunstan
3. Citizen Unseen: Metropolitan democratic and knowledge deficits
Richard Tomlinson
4. Infrastructure misadventures
Sophie Sturup

International Precedent
5. The metropolitan renaissance and the model(s) of metropolitan government
Daniel Kübler
6. Subsidiarity and metropolitan innovation in the USA
Marcus Spiller and Rhys Murrian
7. Metro mayors, participative democracy and the construction of city-regional governance in England: Manchester’s experience of DevoManc
Iain Deas
8. Metropolitan governance in Toronto and Vancouver
Martin Horak and Andreanne Doyon
9. Auckland – An assessment of New Zealand’s experiment with metropolitan governance
Christine Cheyne

Assessing the Rationale for Metropolitan Government in Australia
10. Economic competitiveness, planning and productivity
Marcus Spiller and Laura Schmahmann
11. A fair go: Metropolitan government and housing
Richard Tomlinson and Marcus Spiller
12. Fiscal decentralisation and autonomy
Vincent Mangioni
13. Australian Cities and the Governance of Climate Change
Peter Newton, Nigel Bertram, John Handmer, Nigel Tapper, Richard Thornton and Penny Whetton
14. Integrated transport and land use planning
Peter Newman
15. Shaping the metropolis
Marcus Spiller

Conclusion
16. Conclusion: the metropolis in the federation
Marcus Spiller
Index
View the full table of contents (PDF, 49kb)

Authors

Richard Tomlinson is Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne. His current research interests are urban governance, knowledge transfer and policy processes. His most comprehensive research has been in Australia, India and South Africa. He has served as a Visiting Professor at Columbia University and at the University of the Witwatersrand, as a Visiting Scholar at MIT and as a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. For many years he was a private consultant in issues related to cities.

Marcus Spiller is Principal and Partner in SGS Economics & Planning Pty Ltd. Alongside his 30 years of consulting in urban economics, he has worked as an academic, adviser to the Minister for Planning in Victoria, and as a senior executive in the Queensland government. He is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and at the University of NSW, an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, a former member of the National Housing Supply Council and a former National President of the Planning Institute of Australia.

Contributors: Nigel Bertram; Christine Cheyne; Graeme Davison; Iain Deas; Andreanne Doyon; David Dunstan; John Handmer; Martin Horak; Daniel Kübler; Vince Mangioni; Rhys Murrian; Peter Newman; Peter Newton; Laura Schmahmann; Sophie Sturup; Nigel Tapper; Richard Thornton; Penny Whetton