Resisting regeneration: Community opposition and the politicisation of transport-led regeneration in Australian cities

While metropolitan strategies across Australian capital cities articulate the importance of land use and transport integration in planning to help manage present and future growth (WAPC 2004; Government of Victoria 2014; NSW Government 2014), research has examined the planning and marketrelated challenges associated with its delivery in practice (Curtis et al. 2009; Searle et al. 2014). However, research has rarely examined land use and transport integration as a form of urban regeneration, and the distinctive character of resident and community resistance it can attract. Such resistance can add to implementation-related challenges. In this chapter we aim to extend the Australian research examining resistance to urban regeneration, to which there have been many important contributions made over the past two decades (Burgmann and Burgmann 1998; Davison 2004; Porter and Shaw 2009; Ruming 2010; Iveson 2013; Howe et al. 2014; Darcy and Rogers 2015), by bringing into dialogue the role that transport-led urban regeneration has played in igniting recent experiences of citizen opposition and resistance. Australian cities recently undergoing investment in both light and heavy rail, and freeway infrastructure - including Melbourne’s East West Link and Sky Rail projects, Sydney’s Westconnex and Anzac Parade Light Rail projects, the Gold Coast’s Light Rail project, Canberra’s Light Rail and Perth’s Freight Link projects - are encountering intense local resident resistance to some of the land-use impacts associated with these projects. In the case of some of these projects (Canberra’s Light Rail and Melbourne’s level crossing removal or ‘Sky Rail’ as two examples) proposed investments into public transport have been framed as having significant and region-wide transport-led opportunities for increased mobility and accessibility, as well as offering adjacent urban regeneration possibilities.