The Future of the Fringe: The Crisis in Peri-Urban Planning

by Michael Buxton, Andrew Butt

Overview

Peri-urban landscapes are some of the world’s most vulnerable areas. Although they are often thought of simply as land awaiting development, these landscapes retain important natural resources and make valuable contributions to agriculture, water use, biodiversity conservation, landscape preservation and human well-being. Billions of people use them and enjoy their natural values. Their continuing loss threatens to alter our relationships with nature and have a negative impact on the environment.

The Future of the Fringe first explores the history of peri-urban areas, international peri-urban policy and practice, and related concepts. It analyzes internationally relevant issues such as green belts and urban growth boundaries, regional policy, land supply and price, and the concepts of liveability, attractiveness, well-being and rural amenity. It then examines a range of Australian peri-urban issues, as an extended case study. The book argues for a precautionary approach so that we retain the greatest number of options to adapt during rapid and unprecedented change.

• The first Australian book to examine Australian peri-urban issues in detail.
• Comprehensively reviews the international literature on peripheral urban (‘peri-urban’) landscapes and related issues.
• Analyzes contemporary debates on contentious peri-urban issues, such as the future of green belts and peri-urban agriculture.
• Includes a section on international peri-urban policy and planning practice.
• Presents a strong argument for the preservation of the traditional rural landscapes of peri-urban areas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781486308958
Publisher:	CSIRO Publishing
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Buxton is an Emeritus Professor at RMIT University and is former head of RMIT Planning and Environment. He has published more than 80 refereed papers, books, book chapters and monographs, including Planning Melbourne (CSIRO Publishing, 2016). He has led 20 major research projects, mainly on peri-urban issues and urban form. He formerly held senior positions in local, regional and state governments.

Andrew Butt is an Associate Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning at RMIT University. His experience in planning practice, research and teaching has focused on rural and peri-urban issues, including a PhD on approaches to planning for farmland protection in peri-urban Australia, as well as articles and book chapters exploring socio-economic transitions and planning systems in rural and peri-urban regions.

Table of Contents

Introduction v

Part I Peri-urban concepts, policy and practice 1

1 Understanding the peri-urban 3

City and countryside 3

Concept of the peri-urban landscape 5

Cities, place and scale 8

Spatial scale 9

Temporal scale 10

2 Conceptualising peri-urban regions 11

Towards a peri-urban theory 11

Urban-rural continuum 13

Spatial relationships 14

Production and consumption 16

Counter-urbanisation 20

Structure and function in peri-urban analysis 22

Peri-urban resilience 25

3 Planning and policy for peri-urban protection 27

Constraining the city: green belts and urban edges 27

Emergence of green belts as policy and practice 28

UK green belt policy 31

Land use and the green belt: multi-purpose or homogeneous land uses 32

Urban growth boundaries 34

Approaches to green belt protection 35

4 Land markets, land supply and price and the peri-urban fringe 41

Land supply, demand and price 41

An integrated approach to land supply 43

Location and land price 44

Developer interest 45

Spatial planning and peri-urban land value 47

5 Regionalism and peri-urban development 51

Thinking regionally about the peri-urban 51

Australian regionalism 53

Regions and the sequencing of change 54

Rural-residential development 55

Urbanisation, land subdivision and agriculture 57

6 Liveable peri-urban spaces 61

Concept of liveability 61

Rural amenity and well-being 63

Risk and liveability 66

Inundation and sea level rise 67

Bushfire risk 68

Climate change and risk 70

Liveability and adaptation 71

Liveability on the metropolitan fringe 73

Part II Peri-urban issues: an Australian context 75

7 Australian green belts 77

Policy context 77

Sydney green belt 78

Adelaide green belt 78

Melbourne green belt 81

Lessons from the Australian green belt experience 83

8 Population change in peri-urban Australia 87

Australia's population geography and the place of peri-urban regions 87

Conceptualising the social processes of change 89

Australian regions and population change 91

Peri-urban case studies 92

Population trends 94

Age and migration 94

Commuting and work 97

Housing and households 102

Conclusion 103

9 Peri-urban agriculture 105

Vulnerability and threat 105

Australian agricultural change 106

Positioning peri-urban farming 107

Impacts of urbanisation on production 113

Why peri-urban agriculture is important 114

10 Biodiversity, natural resources and peri-urban regions 117

Importance of biodiversity 117

Urban and peri-urban biodiversity 117

Natural resource values and peri-urban catchment management 120

Peri-urban land tenure 122

Rethinking land use 124

11 The practice of peri-urban planning 127

Importance of spatial planning 127

Case studies: peri-urban regions 128

Planning for growth 128

Planning to prevent growth 131

Integrated planning 139

Conclusion: peri-urban futures 141

References 145

Index 167