How different are Australian cities

摘要: Do Australian cities share a unifying essence that permits us to speak of them collectively as distinctive constellation within the global urban galaxy? How are both similar each other and different elsewhere? What might it mean consider respond such questions? scholarship be informed by nuanced appreciation having character? can an international scholarly audience what should they say? These rather simple general questions motivate present paper. We seek provoke debate at SOAC beyond querying status ‘The City’, accompanied offer some preliminary insights into nature, character state ‘Australian Cities’ prospective definite – whether absolute or relative category array territorially nationally defined city assemblies. In doing so we hope also engage with important about comparative analysis in relation position ‘the city’ context. The State Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 support interdisciplinary policy-related research. This paper was presented 5held Melbourne from 29 November 2 December 2011. 5 hosted University Melbourne, RMIT University, Monash Swinburne Technology Latrobe well Housing Urban Research Institute Grattan Institute, Victorian Government City Melbourne. Three plenary panels brought researchers across country address ‘big issues’: place-based disadvantage, design form cities, metropolitan governance. Over 175 papers, 46 themed sessions, cover topics ranging planning governance for environmental sustainability, housing affordability adequacy context aging population. Healthy communities, better public transport, high quality open space, participatory planning, issues affecting peri-urban fringe strong sub-themes this conference. All published papers subject peer reviewing process.