4 A Vision for Metropolitan Melbourne Professor Carolyn Whitzman and Professor Chris Ryan Key points x There is currently wide-spread cynicism in relation to metropolitan strategic planning in Melbourne, in relation to whether it is underpinned by any vision of social or environmental justice, or is simply based on political power-brokering. x Examples of past positive visions underlying Melbourne strategic planning exist, as do good practices from elsewhere from which to learn. x There is an emergent alternative vision. However, it has not yet engaged the full range of the public necessary to transcend short-term political goals and engage with challenges around conflicts and trade-offs. Current strategic planning reform actively works against this alternative vision being realised. Introduction – Failed Strategic Plans and Poor Outcomes Plan Melbourne (Victorian State Government, 2014) has been launched amidst widespread cynicism shared by local government, business, and civil society in relation to good planning (Green, 2014). Metropolitan Melbourne has endured five supposedly twenty to forty year time frame metropolitan strategies in as many decades (1971, 1980, 1995, 2002, 2014); none, thus far, has outlasted a change in state government (March, 2012). In regards to the three main planks of a good metropolitan strategy – laid out by Mees (2003: 289) as “the shape and form of residential development, transport infrastructure, and the distribution of jobs and retailing” (to which we would add social infrastructure, including education, health and social services, environmental management, and community engagement) - the last two metropolitan strategies have had very poor outcomes indeed. Housing affordability across the state, but particularly in metropolitan Melbourne, which comprises 80% of the state’s population, is at an all-time low (Birrell, Healy, Rapson & Smith, 2012). While Melbourne, and other Australian cities, fare well in international business executive ‘liveability’ ratings, they also have some of the highest ecological footprints in the world (Newton, 2012). This is in large part due to the huge areal expansion of Australian capital cities, with public transport and social infrastructure investment lagging far behind suburban housing development (McDougall & Maharaj, 2011). With a growing gap in access to employment and social and health services, the Ministerial Advisory Committee guiding Plan Melbourne’s warned of the emergence of “two Melbournes”, a “choice-rich” central city surrounded by “choice-poor” outer suburbs (Ministerial Advisory Committee, 2012: 26).