Suburbia in Australian Urban Policy

Most Australians live in the suburban areas of the nation's major cities and their interaction with major elements of public policy is suburban. Yet public policy seems inattentive to suburban conditions, and the spatial consequences of most policy settings across suburbs have only been sporadically appraised and addressed by national governments. Why does Australia continue to overlook suburbia in national policy? This paper examines past attempts to introduce suburban perspectives into national policy-making in Australia. It then suggests what national suburban policies might be like and sketches the steps necessary to begin putting them into effect