Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Urban policy
about urban renewal and redevelopment. These struggles focus attention on the
planningandgovernanceofcitiesandonthescopeformoreequitablealternatives
that resist the increasing intrusion of private interests into the urban public realm.
Existing urban policy
These theoretical accounts of the shift in the state’s role, from helping to secure
social reproduction to assisting in capital accumulation, highlight key aspects of
today’s existing urban policy, under which economic success, rather than the
existence of an extensive welfare state, tends to be framed as the necessary
precondition for the wellbeing (or welfare) of citizens. Urban policy now seems
predominantly shaped by the pursuit of economic growth, and land and property
development as a means to boost profits and wealth creation. These objectives
follow the logic promoted in political rhetoric that people’s wellbeing is best secured
by disciplining individuals into accepting the efficacy of the market, from which
they will benefit due to the ‘trickle down’ of growth.
For some, this understanding constitutes the basis of normative policy making,
the‘newconventionalwisdom’, 17 which, due to rapid policy transfer, has been
applied globally. For others, it forms the basis of a critique of urban policy visions
andvaluesthatdonotrepresentorrespondtotheneedsofthemany.Thisleadsto
questions regarding the right to the city: 18 whoisthecityfor,andwhatistheroleof
policy in facilitating people’s access to, and uses of, the goods, services and spaces
of the city? Critical urbanists boil this down to the core question of whether urban
policy(andindeedthecity)isforpeopleorforprofit. 19 They argue that people’s
inhabitance of the city, rather than access to money, should form the basis for
holding the right to remake and remain in the city. These scholars stress that there
are progressive possibilities within urban policy, in terms of the locally specific
and flexible ways in which policies can be implemented and in terms of the scope
fordevelopmentofalternativevisionsforthecitythatmayleadtomoreequitable
urban policy goals and outcomes.
At what level of government?
In Australia, urban policy is further complicated by a federal system of government
that has tended to overlook the significance of cities and metropolitan regions,
which, as ‘orphans of public policy’, 20 are ‘caught between the three tiers of
Australiangovernment,hardlyregisteringontheagendaofmanypoliticians’. 21
17 Gordon and Buck 2005, 1.
18 Lefebvre 1996.
19 See, for example, Brenner, Marcuse and Mayer 2009.
20 Harley 2014.
21 Kelly and Donegan 2015, 3.
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