The phenomenon of urban consolidation has been debated in Australia since the 1970s, although it has received only recent attention in Perth and Western Australia, due to Perth's relatively late addition to the nation's ‘million cities’. As illustrated in the following papers, there is no apparent consensus as to the merit or otherwise of consolidation policies as applied to Perth. This has led to a situation of rather random pockets of medium density development alongside more traditional lower densities where residents have objected to any potential density increase.