ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the rapid transformation of metropolitan Perth from a 'large provincial city' at the end of the twentieth century to a 'globalizing city'. The somewhat paradoxical role of strategic metropolitan planning in trying to manage sustainable urban growth while also facilitating economic development. Perth has long tended to be perceived as more of a 'large provincial city' than a 'real' city because of its comparatively smaller population base and economy, isolation and low-density suburban landscape. Perth has a long tradition of metropolitan planning which can be traced back to the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission and then to the 1955 Plan, which has been the cornerstone of metropolitan planning ever since. Strategic planning's efforts to make sense of, manage and create socio-spatial order within the Perth metropolitan system will face profoundly new challenges — disruptive urbanisms — as the so-called sharing economy continues to evolve.
