Adelaide 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide
Core idea
Transit-oriented development & infill
Why it matters
Reverses sprawl trend
Description
The 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide, prepared by the South Australian Government in 2010 and updated in 2017, is a metropolitan strategy covering the Adelaide region. It sets targets for directing the majority of new housing into existing urban areas as infill rather than fringe expansion, concentrating growth around transit corridors and activity centres. The plan pairs transit-oriented development with an urban growth boundary logic, seeking a more compact, polycentric metropolitan structure for a historically low-density, sprawling city.
Significance
The plan is significant as a deliberate attempt to reverse the sprawl trajectory of an Australian capital city founded on Colonel Light's 1837 parkland grid. It exemplifies the shift in Australian metropolitan planning during the 2000s and 2010s towards infill targets, corridor densification and polycentric structure. Debates have centred on whether infill targets are achievable given community resistance and whether transit investment has kept pace with the plan's ambitions.
What shaped it
- Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
- The compact city (1973-1990s)
- The Transit Metropolis (Cervero) (1998)
Sources
- https://apo.org.au/node/91911
- https://plan.sa.gov.au/news/article/2017/updated_30-year_plan_for_greater_adelaide_released