Ghostly visions and cartographic tombstones: the Australian "zombie" subdivision

The phenomenon of the zombie subdivision – a residential subdivision in stasis, unable to “live” or fully “die” – is not unique to Australia. However it is observable in many urban and peri-urban locales in Australia, in part due to the historical boom-and-bust speculative nature of land development, which has rendered many areas, including some proximate to highly “productive” urban land, essentially undevelopable. This chapter discusses the “zombie's” key features, the conditions by which it typically comes into being, and the Australian peculiarities, with reference to a particular speculative developer in early-to-mid twentieth century New South Wales. It then details four Melbourne cases of varying severity and the problematic layering which has placed them in limbo as neither landowners, local government or planning authorities relent to compromise. Some best-case examples, also from Victoria but in regional areas, follow which entail some illustrative solutions to the “zombie” problem, albeit with caveats. The “zombie subdivision” is shown to be a genuinely thorny (if not wicked) problem in Australian planning.