The challenge of transforming a low-density city into a compact city: the case of the City of Perth, Australia

Cities around the world are facing an ever-increasing variety of challenges to sustainability. This is especially true of Australian cities, with their low population densities, where the questions of planning controls and community perception play an important role in achieving ‘quality density’ – that is, city densification and consolidation done well. However, there is a common misconception of urban density, for instance, that proponents of density mean ‘high-rise towers in every suburb’.