Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Urban policy
politan government, with directly elected members or members elected by regional
local governments, clear responsibilities (such as for public transport) and tax
raising powers, remains to be seen.
Conclusions
The key tension in thinking about cities – as ‘where people live’ or as ‘growth
machines’ – plays out constantly in urban politics and urban policy. Urban policy
is redefined accordingly, ‘combining its elements in different ways at different times
and in different places’. 44 A key debate in Australia is around the level at which
the state can best intervene to co-ordinate urban policy, but the debate tends to be
dominated by conventional understandings of state intervention as technical and
managerial rather than political, underlining the normative power of neoliberal
ideologies in shaping public policy. Debates about citizens’ role in the processes
of planning and governance seem subdued, perhaps because ‘many residents are
unwilling to consider the possibility that cities could get better’. 45 However, cities
are also sites of struggle over social justice and equity that may lead to rebalancing
of priorities and redefining of policies.
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44 Cochrane 2007, 14.
45 Kelly and Donegan 2015, 3.
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