METROPOLITAN RESTRUCTURING AND SUBURBAN EMPLOYMENT CENTERS - CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE

A strand of recent American planning literature has been the explorati on of ''edge city'' style suburbanization.Similar outer city landscape s with attendant planning problems have been identified in foreign set tings, but a culturally sensitive approach to the relevant comparisons of pattern, process and policy is needed. Focusing on the Sydney expe rience, this paper provides an Australian perspective. Its discussion of economic, demographic, historical, institutional, and policy factor s is centrally concerned with explaining the more muted scale and cont rasting forms of commercial suburbanization. The instructiveness of di fferences as much as of similarities is highlighted in the comparative analysis.