Beyond the School Fence : Rethinking Urban Schools in the Twenty-First Century

Schools have traditionally been black-boxed in urban planning, in Australia and elsewhere. During the twentieth century, the shaping of a ‘community within a community' that informed liberal educational thought materialised in campus-style schools that were exempted from local planning laws, contributed to sprawl and car dependency, and duplicated facilities provided by local authorities. Advocacy of compact city forms underpinning recent urban policy calls for a rethink by education and planning authorities of how schools engage with their urban surrounds. Focussing on Melbourne, Australia, this article discusses some challenges for the provision of schools and schooling in twenty-first century cities