Farming the City Fringe: Dilemmas for Peri-Urban Planning

Abstract

Australian peri-urban agriculture is highly significant and makes a major contribution to state and national agricultural production. However, peri-urban areas on the fringes of metropolitan and regional urban centres in Australia have witnessed unprecedented rapid urban growth during the last three decades. Attempts to manage the outward expansion of our cities and the resultant loss of good quality agricultural land and landscape fragmentation through conventional urban planning and growth management strategies have essentially failed. In examining the complex relationships between land use planning and peri-urban agriculture, the chapter focuses on the contribution of peri-urban agriculture and the role of planning systems in assisting its retention or displacement. It reports the findings of a scenario planning exercise centred on Australia’s two fastest growing metropolitan regions—South East Queensland and the greater Melbourne region and examines the adequacy of conventional land use and natural resource management planning processes. The chapter then focuses on the Melbourne Metropolitan region to provide a post-scenario planning review of that region’s peri-urban agricultural viability and the adequacy of its associated planning policies.