ABSTRACT

A sustainability challenge is to address the fact that the city's hinterland extends like an elongated body away from its urban head all the while providing the heart and pulse of urban society. This chapter seeks to close with a very practical signpost to the future by exploring elements and lessons from a thirty year old environmental living zone (ELZ) aptly located on the very edge of the urban-rural divide. The controversy on the relative sustainability of urban and rural settlement might appear purely theoretical in the face of a seemingly unstoppable trend to urbanization, our now overwhelmingly urban world. However, the urban-rural settlement question is pertinent in regions, including most of Australia, where it might be argued that space for such a choice still exists. The chapter explores what approaches to making and implementing policy are most likely to support sustainable practices by neighbourhood-centred citizens and communities.