Place and Regions

While our strict answer to “Where?” could easily be “wherever”, our plans are very much informed by the growing importance of place as an organising principle, especially in a world of accelerated mobility of persons, goods and services. Even more importantly, and no matter how porus and arbitrary their boundaries might be, we see regions of all sizes as a key organising principle. Location and mapping technologies are moving from expert to everyday use and opening the way for wider participation in planning processes.

Melbourne’s western growth region

We propose the name Kororoit for our Institute because it already applies to key natural and social features of Melbourne’s western metropolitan region. Across the first half of the 21st century its outer arc of once satelite towns faces the fastest population growth of any comparable region in the advanced economies. Certain to become even more of a multicultural melting pot, the Kororoit region also faces a rapid transition of its central spine to service that growth with new institutions and improved infrastructure. Yet the needed capability for planning and delivery often seems lost deep in the early history of Marvellous Melbourne.

The early Proponents are spread proportionately across Melbourne and beyond for a very good reason. One core capability issue we seek to start to address through Kororoit Institute is the dearth of research opportunities in the western region. Part of that envisaged rapid transition of the spine needs to bring with it a vibrant intellectual community.

Regions of any size anywhere

Whether dealing with a pocket with special historical or environmental significance, dealing with a continental drainage basin or any scale in between, regions provide a natural organising structure. Sometimes they even correspond closely enough to jurisdictional boundaries. But more often a natural or cultural region crosses official lines of demarkation, escalating the challenge to bring stakeholders to the table with comparable motivation.

The Proponents bring a strong history of dealing with regional analysis and planning at many levels in and out of Melbourne’s west as well as interstate and overseas.