Australia’s hotchpotch approach to planning is governed by a mix of authorities. No wonder we don’t really have a plan about how we manage the growth of our cities. The populist politics approach seems to be to ignore the fact that there is growth and let things continue as they are.

As a result we have newer suburbs developing without supporting infrastructure, and congestion and pollution a growing problem across all our major cities.

Professor Brendan Gleeson is Director of the Urban Research Program at Griffith University. He says Australia suffers from a planning deficit and a democratic deficit. Listen in to this edition of BTalk to see what he means. We also hear more about his suggested resolution, covered in his recent paper “Metropolitan governance for the Australian city: The case for reform” (PDF).