ABSTRACT
With bipartisan political support for a big Australia and historically high levels of international immigration, Australia’s major cities are experiencing rates of population growth of the order of 1.6 per cent pa, unmatched in comparable OECD countries. It is critical to differentiate urban infill redevelopment taking place in brownfield arenas as distinct from greyfields. Attempts at intensification in the greyfields are playing out in contested space, and it is clear more needs to be done in relation to engagement between property owners and state and local-government planners for greyfield infill to occur in a more effective, strategic and regenerative fashion. Meanwhile, piecemeal infill has become the major vehicle for residential redevelopment in the greyfields. Precinct-scale residential regeneration has been advanced as a new model for urban renewal in Australia’s greyfields. It is critical that greyfield redevelopment is regenerative: that is, renewing and restoring the wider ecosystems underpinning urban settlement.
