Introduction

Cities are the places where many of the problems to which Australian public policy responds are most evident and indeed concentrated: health inequalities, unemployment, housing affordability, congestion, crime and violence and environmental quality. In the sense that where we live has some impact on how we live, cities are important places because most Australians live in cities and have always done so (Davison, 1995). While it is not always easy to define cities with any degree of clarity and consistency over time and between countries, most definitions include some combination of population size and density as well as historical recognition and function (OECD, 2012). The Major Cities Unit (MCU) of the Australian Government's Department of Infrastructure and Transport recognises 18 major cities, each with a population of over 100,000, including the all state and territory capital cities and an increasingly important set of non-capital cities such as the Gold Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong. These major cities now hold three quarters of the nation's private housing stock and the majority of jobs (DITMCU, 2013).

Many of the major policy challenges in Australia have a distinctly urban dimension and attempts to resolve them have impacts throughout the wider urban system. However, while Australian cities are affected by any number of policies, there has not until recently been a national policy about cities in the sense of proposing, for example, a hierarchy of cities in which anticipated growth in its various forms might be channelled towards particular types of city. Indeed, federal governments have typically eschewed any role in the planning of cities and have not often expressed a policy position about the role of cities in the development of the nation. All the major cities of Australia experience some problems of growth management that might be one of attracting, accommodating and locating growth. Most also typically proclaim their ambitions to become world cities, new world cities, more liveable cities, knowledge cities, smart cities, and so on. In other words, while cities themselves prepare plans for the stimulation and management of growth or the promotion of liveability within their boundaries, and similar plans are prepared for some wider metropolitan regions, there has never been a national plan for cities.