Current work examines the legislative, regulatory, financial, political and cultural barriers to socially equitable urban development, and researches practices across the world that do it well.
[2] The Esplanade Hotel in the inner Melbourne suburb of St Kilda is an iconic venue famous for its support of a wide variety of Australian rock and alternative music acts.
The site on which the hotel stands was purchased in 1997 by developer Becton who proposed to build a high-rise upmarket apartment complex to take advantage of the extremely good views across Port Phillip Bay and back to the Melbourne central city area.
Apart from the debate about the merits of such a tall building in an otherwise relatively low-rise area, the concern of local residents and the music community was that even if the hotel itself was allowed to remain, the venue would soon be forced to stop hosting live music due to complaints from the residents of the new apartment tower, as has been the case in many other gentrifying suburbs, such as Fitzroy.
The campaign was successful in reducing the height of the tower significantly and ensuring that key aspects of the hotels layout were retained to enable its survival as a live music venue.